There are lots of variables at play here. How much do you weigh, how fit are you, and how fast are you walking? According to research from Harvard Health , if you weigh pounds walking 10, steps would burn calories.
If you weigh pounds walking 10, steps would burn calories. The quick answer is YES! Walking is great exercise. The Centers for Disease Control recommends we get between to minutes of moderate exercise every week.
The CDC defines walking 3 mph as a moderate level activity. And, almost all of them draw the same conclusion. You can get healthy walking less than 10, steps a day. But, there are added benefits to walking 10, steps a day.
And, 10, steps puts you well above the minimum. The more you walk the less you sit. Some have even called sitting the new smoking. If you are walking 10, steps a day it means you are intentionally moving more which results in sitting less.
This is a real benefit too. And, this might be the real reason for these recent headlines critical of walking 10, steps a day. A Japanese company started selling a pedometer and called it Manpo-kei which means 10,step meter in English. Not only did I go to the gym in the morning and walk my dog, but also I walked to and from the college football game which was about an hour of activity.
I hit my 10,step goal by p. Later, a trip to the mall and then downtown for drinks allowed me to hit 18, steps, the highest number I would reach throughout the entire experiment. Emboldened by the idea that a longer walk than the ones I was taking my dog on could yield better results, I implemented extra walks into the rest of my week.
A trip to the coffee shop here, and an errand to a gift shop there, or even the occasional walk to the grocery store. I still needed to walk the rest out in my bedroom at times, but I was falling into a better routine of getting more steps earlier on in the day by taking prolonged walks. My final week was definitely my smoothest. After realizing that isolated gym time wasn't enough to get all my steps and neither were long walks, I combined the two. An average day for me during week four looked like this: Wake up and walk my dog around 1, steps , walk to get groceries or run errands around 3, steps , go to the gym and exercise on the elliptical for 20 to 30 minutes around 4, steps , walk my dog in the evening 1, steps , jog the last 1, steps out in my room to a TV show.
Some days though, I still wasn't always able to get both the gym and a walk in. Perhaps I was too busy with work, friends, or because it was raining out. But for the most part, this was a successful model to hit 10, steps every day. I was always more successful at getting my steps in on weekends when I didn't have to work and was generally more active. Definitely one of the biggest speed bumps I hit on this journey was waiting until the end of the day to finish my steps, which sometimes resulted in me having too much work to do or being too tired to complete everything.
At the same time, it was frustrating that steps were the only thing being counted. Often at the gym, I would do 20 to 30 minutes of cardio and then move to the weight machines. The US Department of Health and Human Services also recommends two days per week of strength training , but your pedometer won't pick that up, so I often left the gym having less to show for it step-wise than what I really did.
I didn't do this experiment to lose weight, but I did end up losing seven pounds over the course of the month. Part of that probably had to do with the fact that I was eating better after being put on a diet by a nutritionist to help manage my IBS.
But another part was the fact that I was moving around at all, which was a huge change from my previous lifestyle. I went to the gym nine times in the month, which is seven more times than I'd been to the gym in the previous year. My step counter throughout the month. Getting 10, steps every day was an all-consuming project for me. I was keenly aware when I was not close enough and I often put off other work to go to the gym, take extra walks, and jog in my room.
It made weekdays pretty stressful. Moving forward, I would like to aim for the minutes of exercise per week model that leads to around 7, steps a day. I think that, for a weekday, 7, steps is pretty good. On the weekends, though, I'd actually like to aim for more than 10, because it's easier to get steps in on these days. Maybe I'll go with 12, to start. I am excited to take off my fitness tracker because it doesn't always go with every outfit, but also because of its shortcomings.
I want to go to the gym and do nothing but weights one day and still feel accomplished even though my step counter wouldn't have tracked any of it. The key to getting healthy and maintaining it is to get moving and vary your workouts. I want to try adding in more biking, running, cardio machines, weights, and yoga to my days in addition to walking to make sure I'm exercising all aspects of my body and not just pounding my feet on the pavement.
It's all about finding a plan that works for you and your lifestyle, whatever that may look like. World globe An icon of the world globe, indicating different international options. Get the Insider App.
Taking on the challenge to walk 10, steps a day is a great decision for better health. Interestingly, the challenge was first created to sell step counters in the lead up to the Tokyo Olympics in , although there was no real evidence to support this target at the time. Nonetheless, several studies since have found that increasing your step count each day is an excellent way to improve and maintain your overall health.
In need of some extra inspiration to reach for your walking shoes today? The long list of health benefits is impressive! Stepping out on a minute walk each day can increase cardiovascular fitness, strengthen bones, reduce excess body fat, and boost muscle power and endurance. It can also reduce your risk of developing conditions such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis and some cancers.
Moderate exercise such as walking can put you in a better mood, improve concentration, and help manage and soothe anxiety and stress. Plus, it can even enhance your outlook on life by boosting your confidence and self-esteem over time. Australia's Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour Guidelines recommend that some exercise is better than none at all, and increasing your physical activity each day will provide even more health benefits 1. Ten thousand steps equates to about eight kilometres, or an hour and 40 minutes walking, depending on your stride length and walking speed.
You will naturally accumulate steps through your day-to-day activities, but to reach the 10,step goal, you will likely need to do a minute walk or the equivalent in other exercise as well. Every little bit counts throughout the day — you could walk part of the way to work, take a stroll at lunchtime, have a walk-and-talk coffee meeting, walk to the supermarket instead of driving, or take the dog out for a play in the park in the evening.
For other forms of exercise, 10, Steps suggests counting things like swimming, going to the gym and playing tennis by converting them into steps as follows:. Moderate intensity activity causes a slight, but noticeable increase in breathing and heart rate. You should be able to maintain a conversation. Some examples of moderate intensity activity include:.
Some examples of high intensity activity include:. Pedometers have come a long way — there is now a huge range of fitness gadgets available that are comfortable to wear, attractive and technologically advanced, including smart watches and handy apps for your mobile phone. These activity trackers can be great motivational tools to help you reach your goals. For the first few days of wearing your activity tracker, notice what your normal activity levels are like and take some time to familiarise yourself with how many steps each activity is worth.
If your normal lifestyle is quite sedentary and 10, steps seems like a difficult goal, just start small.
0コメント