M&M's - Take a Walk in the Park Day
10,000 Steps a Day
How many steps do you walk each day?
Maybe you have heard the recent guidelines about walking 10,000 steps per day. How far is 10,000 steps anyway? The average person's stride length is approximately 2.5 feet long. That means it takes just over 2,000 steps to walk one mile, & 10,000 steps is close to 5 miles.
Walking 10,000 steps per day for health & weight loss was popularized orginially in Japan. For most people 10,000 steps per day is around 5 miles worth of walking during the day. Unless you have an active job such as a waitress or nurse, it would be difficult to log that by daily activity. Most people achieve it by one or more sustained walks or runs, equivalent to 30-60 minutes or more of walking per day. That equals the minimum daily exercise recommendation.
A reasonable goal for most people is to increase average daily steps each week by 500 per day until you can easily average 10,000 per day.
Wearing a pedometer is an easy way to track your steps each day. Start by wearing the pedometer every day for one week.You might be surprised how many (or how few) steps you get in each day. There are many ways to increase your daily steps. Use your imagination, here's a list to get you started!
-take a walk with your spouse, child or friend
-walk the dog
-use the stairs instead of the elevator
-park farther from the store
-better yet, walk to the store
-get up to change the channel
-window shop
-plan a walking meeting
-walk over to visit a neighbor
-get outside to walk around the garden or do a little weeding
Continue to track your daily steps and/or mileage & keep notes on how you feel, how your body is improving, or other changes you are making to improve your health.
A person who walks 10,000 steps a day will burn between 2000 & 3500 extra calories per week, which will result in achieving a vastly better health profile & a longer lifespan
