If you haven’t gotten your 10,000 today, maybe you should.
Steps, that is.
Many of today’s fitness regimens recommend walking 10,000 steps per day. There’s only one problem: Almost nobody knows how far that is.
Do you burn 200 steps puttering around your house in the morning before work or a thousand? Does a walk around a city block knock off 5 percent of your daily goal or less than 1 percent? Sure, you can guess or try to count all your steps. But that’s inaccurate at best and annoying to say the least.
How far would you go if you walked 10,000 steps all at once?
The answer: much farther than you think. With your 10,000th step, you would be more than 51/2 miles away from where you are now.
Relax. You don’t have to do it all at once. Remember, every step counts.
But why even bother trying to get 10,000 steps per day?
Two words: your health. Yes, just by walking, you can make significant gains.
“I think 10,000 steps should be everybody’s daily goal,” said Kristie Harbaugh, owner of Twin Fitness in Overland Park, Kan. “I tell my clients to buy a [pedometer] and see how many steps they get. Most people only get about half that.”
Talk about health benefits. A University of Tennessee study published in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise revealed women who averaged more than 10,000 steps per day had 40 percent less body fat and waist and hip measurements that were more than 8 inches narrower than those who averaged fewer than 6,000 steps.
Then there are the Amish. Researchers measured the daily steps of 98 Amish adults and found that men took an average of 18,425 steps and women took 14,196. Compare that with about 4,000 steps for the average American adult (other studies put this number at less than 3,000), and it is easy to see why only 4 percent of Amish adults are considered obese compared with 31 percent of the general population.
You don’t need to walk that much to see benefits. In an eight-year study involving 6,000 women, researchers at the University of California at San Francisco found that even a little extra walking can help you hold onto the neurons you have. High-energy walkers, the study found, held the line on cognitive decline far better than the more sedentary subjects.
By all accounts, your brain loves to walk. Walking increases blood circulation, and because it’s not particularly strenuous, your leg muscles don’t hog all the extra oxygen and glucose it produces. As you walk, you’re oxygenating your brain. It’s good for the rest of your body too.
It increases your breathing, your heart rate and your lung capacity while shaping and toning your muscles.
There are even social and family-bonding benefits.
“People can walk in groups of two or three,” said Harbaugh of Twin Fitness. “The time passes very fast. That’s key, because people often become bored with their workout. If we can make it more fun, people will work out more.”
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Steps taken in everyday activities *
62 Taking the stairs to the third floor instead of the elevator
74 Walking in to get your fast food instead of using the drive-through
245 Getting ready for work in the morning
528 Going to church
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594 Walking around an average city block
680 Going to the library
790 $100 grocery trip
1,800 Two hours of clothes shopping at a mall
2,060 1-mile walk
5,200 2.5-mile walk
[ * RESULTS FROM TEST DONE BY KANSAS CITY STAR ]—
How many steps per day are enough?
Use the following chart as a guide:
Under 5,000 steps: Sedentary lifestyle
5,000-7,499: Low-active lifestyle
7,500-9,999: Somewhat active lifestyle
10,000-12,499: Active lifestyle
12,500 plus: Highly active lifestyle
[ SOURCE: CATRINE TUDOR-LOCKE, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF HEALTH PROMOTION AT ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY, IN THE JANUARY 2004 ISSUE OF SPORTS MEDICINE MAGAZINE ]