Who hasn’t heard about the 10,000 steps recommendation? I am guessing that vast majority of my followers know about it and I don’t think it’s a challenge to my fellow runners and triathletes. I was reading on Mayo Clinic’s website that an average American walks 3,000-4,000 steps per day. I find it horrifying, considering that I log in 15k steps on my ‘rest’ days (gives you a perspective on what my rest days mean in the calendar). That means there are people out there who must be below 3k steps to create this statistic. And last time I checked, you can’t do negative steps! Since I am still recovering and doing a lot of ‘rest’ days (apparently walking ~7 miles per day), I thought this would be a good time to write more on the subject.
Let’s start with the benefits of walking more. It helps prevent heart disease, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and depression. All of these worthy causes. I have heard a number of times people say that one can eat whatever they want if they run/work out enough. But that’s not true. Just last week I saw an article on Runner’s World’s page talking about an avid runner who had a stroke. Or was it a heart attack? Moral of that story (and a few like it) is that you can’t outrun bad diet. I kept thinking: you may lose weight if you start walking more, BUT… Yeah, the first ‘but’ is that you can’t increase how much you eat. When I was first starting to run a lot, I have stumbled across an article on why some people gain, not lose, weight when they are training for a marathon. You guessed it: diet! It’s surprisingly common for people to gain weight when they start exercising more. They eat more because ‘they earned it’. Sadly, they overcompensate.
As I am trying to keep up my step count during my recovery and while being sick, it is becoming painfully clear how long it takes me to take my usual 15k steps. Because, you know, streaks… So now I am trying to reconcile the number of steps though to DHHS’s recommendation for 150 minutes of exercise per week. I guess it’s supposed to be on top of the 10k steps? I read somewhere that 10k steps is roughly 5 miles. So assuming you walk at a 4mph pace (which is actually pretty good pace), it would take you an hour and fifteen minutes to do all those steps. I guess there is a number of steps people make either way, although based on the number of steps an average American does in a day, there aren’t that many steps you have to take just to make it through the day.
How to get there… I loved how Mayo Clinic offered advice, such as parking further away, walking your dog and walk with your family. All of these are great advice! I have seen a number of times people driving around the parking lot of a gym looking for the closest spot available and it always makes me laugh. You are planning on working out! One little ‘but’ though: I know that there are people who do physical therapy at the gym. There are also senior classes at the pool. For those people, walking is a huge challenge and they shouldn’t be judged for trying to limit walking. Otherwise, please get out and walk a little. It’s better for you and for the environment when you do those few feet on foot rather than sitting in the car. I love reading about walking dogs, too… In the past, I would occasionally walk a friend’s dog. On numerous occasions, I had to carry the dog back because it would get too tired 😆. I guess it tells you a lot about the owner’s physical activity levels… Another advice – take the stairs. That can get tricky – I have worked in several buildings where stairs were emergency-only. Also: knees… Oh, and my favorite: go in person instead of sending email. No, just please don’t… This may be matter of company culture, but I am not in favor of walking over to talk instead of sending emails. Obviously, some things are better done in person. But when an email will suffice, it can be a better choice. Walking over interrupts the other person and they may not have time to talk to you at that point. It may also end up in an off-topic conversation (personally, I get easily sidetracked) and you all waste time.
And a final note from Scientific American. I read January issue and they had a fascinating article about human’s evolution and how it relates to our need for regular exercise. Majority (all?) of us have seen great apes and it’s hard not to notice: they sit. A lot. Like in: barely ever move. The article did take a bit of a cheap shot at our desire to remain sedentary as being a 400-pound gorilla inside of us. But throughout the article, it spoke more about our evolutionary differences that made us dependent on physical activity. As humans became hunter-gatherers, their physiology evolved to match the lifestyle of walking and running to get the food. On the positive note, that was related to development of our brain. I would strongly recommend reading that article, especially for people who don’t believe in exercise or if you are an active person surrounded by people constantly questioning you as to why would you ever choose to be constantly on the move. And you can answer them: evolution made me like that 😊