A few years ago, the news was full of stories about the need to take 10,000 steps a day to optimize your healthy lifestyle and remain physically fit. Pedometers and “Fit Bits” were flying off the shelves as people started keeping track of how many steps they were taking a day.
It was easy to join in on the craze, taking the time to park your car further out in the parking lot at the grocery store to optimize the number of steps it took to walk into the store. No doubt your borderline obsessive personality found you checking your Fit Bit at the end of the day, and if your total was just a few steps short, it was a no-brainer to climb up and down the stairs in your home until you hit that magic 10,000 steps, right?
Recent news stories are questioning whether 10,000 steps is an arbitrary number, and perhaps the number of steps required for optimal health could be much lower. A quick Google of 10,000 steps will take you to an online article from the Mayo Clinic. It reports that the average American walks 3,000 to 4,000 steps a day, which is 1.5 to 2 miles. The article suggests trying gradually to add 1,000 steps at a time to that baseline through some lifestyle changes like parking further out in the parking lot at the grocery store. See what your body says about that and then maybe add another 1,000 in two weeks or so.
Recently, colleagues entered into a “friendly” step competition. “Friendly” competition is bringing out some chest-thumping competitive “trash talking” across the time zones. It’s all playful fun, but too easy to find yourself obsessively climbing up and down those home stairs again before putting the iWatch back on its charger. Perhaps some of us have even moved the charger to the bedside table so we can slap the watch on immediately and not miss any of those valuable steps taken from the pillow to the bathroom to brush our teeth. Sound familiar? But is this healthy?
One cause of disagreement within our office team is determining what counts as “steps.” You see, some team members have a horse. Can you count trail riding in a cumulative step count? Wouldn’t those steps belong to the horse and not the rider?
The debate ended when a teammate found the MIT-created “Convert Activities to Steps” document which provides a conversion chart for just about every activity that requires the body to move. And yes, there was a conversion for horseback riding: 116 steps per minute on the trail. Oy, that can be a lot of steps on a four-hour trail ride: 116 X 240 minutes = 27,840 steps!
We can’t argue with MIT, so we’ve decided to join the cause and do the things we love to do and realize all is contributing to healthy lifestyles and ultimately our own individual steps goals. Now golfing without a cart is 131 steps per minute. Mowing the grass can be between 160 and 242 steps per minute – if you push your mower. Even waxing your car is worth 80 steps a minute. You can get the point here: It’s the movement not the mileage.
The moral of the story is: Get up out of that chair. Take credit for your fishing trip (91 steps per minute), run your vacuum cleaner (94 steps per minute), and then maybe leash up the dog or your horse and take a lap around the block. Enjoy the journey and reap the benefits.