How Many Steps?

Since I got my Fitbit at the beginning of the year, it has barely left my arm. I am more aware of how much or little I move in a day, and it has opened my eyes as to how little I can move when working at a desk for eight hours a day. Today for example, I have been at work between 8-4.30, didn’t do a school run, have come home and cooked dinner. My total steps so far today are 3,234 which is a long way away from the 10,000 I aim to achieve on a daily basis. I doubt I will reach my goal today despite going to a fitness class this evening.

Straight away I can see that during my holiday I walked a lot more than I normally do. By looking at the stats, averagely 10,000 steps is 5 miles so I was walking at least 5 miles each day I was on holiday. The 16th April shown above was our time zone change over when we arrived back in the UK and I think the figures were a little distorted there.

A mile according to statistics is roughly 100 calories burned. If you were using your Fitbit to lose weight then you would need to approximately need to walk an extra 10,000 steps per day on top of your standard daily steps. These are all approximate guidelines and results will be different for everyone of course, but having a Fitbit or activity tracker on is a great motivator to moving more.

Knowing that I sit behind a desk three days a week at work, I already know that I have to work that little bit harder to get my steps up. I have been getting inventive on these days by walking to get a glass of water more frequently which helps my steps, helps my body and then also means I need to go to the loo more often which goes back to the cycle of helping my steps. The days above that show steps in the high 20,000 numbers are the days I go for my Moonwalk training. On a standard 10 mile walk I will rack up approximately 28,000 steps in that day. I have seen my stats get to 38,000 steps in one day once before which was great, but I think that was a 15 mile walk day. This weekend I have a 20 mile training walk to complete so I am imagining very high numbers to be showing after that.

I have noticed that going on a dog walk and a stroll along the beach for the same amount of time can result in very different step counts. An amble will not be as effective as a dog walk where you are in your normal stride and pace.

So how easy is it to achieve 10,000 steps in a day? If you are active during the day, doing housework, school runs etc then it can be easy enough. On my average day off, I can just tip 10,000 steps if I don’t do any additional planned exercise such as a training walk or a gym session. By the time I have done two school runs which net me around 1,000 steps each, a dog walk which can get me anywhere between 3,000 and 6,000 depending on how far I go and the weather that day, general walking about the house and a trip to the shops, my Fitbit is usually buzzing to alert me of my reached target.

How many steps do you walk in a day?

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