Keep on Walking
I first bought a Fitbit two years ago and it changed my life.
For anyone who doesn't know, Fitbit's are one of the many fitness trackers around. Mine looks like a watch and sits naturally in the watch position on my wrist. I've upgraded from a "Charge" to a "Charge 2" and have replaced the strap quite a few times but for two years there's always been one on my wrist.
Fitbit sets a standard target of walking 10,000 steps a day which is something I've stuck with stubbornly. Every single day from 27th April 2016 right through to 27th April 2018 I've achieved at least 10,000 steps a day. It feels both ridiculous and pleasing that I've not failed on a single day.
My job is a fairly active one and I tend to do around 7-8,000 steps a day at work. That though still requires a reasonable walk in the evening which is not something that's much fun during the winter.
Working in a school also means I only work full-time 40 weeks a year which means I have twelve weeks where I'm not working plus every weekend which means there's a lot of days where I have to do the 10,000 steps from scratch.
It's not always been the easiest feat. One of the worst days was Christmas Day 2016. On Christmas day you traditionally barely moved but having had months of hitting my target I was motivated to do it. I made the mistake of waiting until we'd had dinner to go out walking. I remember slowly trudging along on a gloomy day with a stomach full of roast turkey and all the trimmings and feeling quite sick. But still, I hit the target.
I regularly find myself on workdays wandering around the house at 10PM because I've got about two hundred steps left to do before bed. There was one day when I had about a hundred steps to do and only realised at three minutes to midnight. That was the closest I ever came to failing but I managed to hit the target in the nick of time.
The 10,000 steps target is a fairly arbitrary one. It was created by a pedometer company in Japan ahead of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and was little more than a slogan. Most health bodies suggest a target of somewhere between 8-10,000 steps though so it's a reasonable goal.
There's debate amongst scientists about how important doing 10,000 steps a day is. Some say that going for three ten minute vigorous walks is better though personally that doesn't sound very appealing as you can't really go anywhere in ten minutes. Studies have shown that the effect of doing 10,000 steps a day is limited because most people lose motivation to do it after a short while. I am not most people.
The NHS estimate that the average Britain walks between 3-4,000 steps a day. I probably did a bit more than that on work days but perhaps less on most non-work days. I used to be very sendantry and weekends.
So things have changed for me somewhat. By doing 10,000 steps a day I've lost several stone since 2016 and am considerably fitter. I'm nowhere near athletic but far healthier than I once was. Walking has other benefits too. A walk in the evening really helps me to spend some time with my thoughts and de-stress when I've had a difficult day. Knowing I need to go for a walk also pushes me to visit all sorts of places I wouldn't otherwise have gone to and that too has really made a difference to my life.
I know that doing 10,000 steps a day isn't for everyone. Plenty of people are doing lots of sport and it isn't really necessary. But there are also many who are far more sedentary than is good for them and I am no longer one of those people.
For anyone who doesn't know, Fitbit's are one of the many fitness trackers around. Mine looks like a watch and sits naturally in the watch position on my wrist. I've upgraded from a "Charge" to a "Charge 2" and have replaced the strap quite a few times but for two years there's always been one on my wrist.
Fitbit sets a standard target of walking 10,000 steps a day which is something I've stuck with stubbornly. Every single day from 27th April 2016 right through to 27th April 2018 I've achieved at least 10,000 steps a day. It feels both ridiculous and pleasing that I've not failed on a single day.
My job is a fairly active one and I tend to do around 7-8,000 steps a day at work. That though still requires a reasonable walk in the evening which is not something that's much fun during the winter.
Working in a school also means I only work full-time 40 weeks a year which means I have twelve weeks where I'm not working plus every weekend which means there's a lot of days where I have to do the 10,000 steps from scratch.
It's not always been the easiest feat. One of the worst days was Christmas Day 2016. On Christmas day you traditionally barely moved but having had months of hitting my target I was motivated to do it. I made the mistake of waiting until we'd had dinner to go out walking. I remember slowly trudging along on a gloomy day with a stomach full of roast turkey and all the trimmings and feeling quite sick. But still, I hit the target.
I regularly find myself on workdays wandering around the house at 10PM because I've got about two hundred steps left to do before bed. There was one day when I had about a hundred steps to do and only realised at three minutes to midnight. That was the closest I ever came to failing but I managed to hit the target in the nick of time.
The 10,000 steps target is a fairly arbitrary one. It was created by a pedometer company in Japan ahead of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and was little more than a slogan. Most health bodies suggest a target of somewhere between 8-10,000 steps though so it's a reasonable goal.
There's debate amongst scientists about how important doing 10,000 steps a day is. Some say that going for three ten minute vigorous walks is better though personally that doesn't sound very appealing as you can't really go anywhere in ten minutes. Studies have shown that the effect of doing 10,000 steps a day is limited because most people lose motivation to do it after a short while. I am not most people.
The NHS estimate that the average Britain walks between 3-4,000 steps a day. I probably did a bit more than that on work days but perhaps less on most non-work days. I used to be very sendantry and weekends.
So things have changed for me somewhat. By doing 10,000 steps a day I've lost several stone since 2016 and am considerably fitter. I'm nowhere near athletic but far healthier than I once was. Walking has other benefits too. A walk in the evening really helps me to spend some time with my thoughts and de-stress when I've had a difficult day. Knowing I need to go for a walk also pushes me to visit all sorts of places I wouldn't otherwise have gone to and that too has really made a difference to my life.
I know that doing 10,000 steps a day isn't for everyone. Plenty of people are doing lots of sport and it isn't really necessary. But there are also many who are far more sedentary than is good for them and I am no longer one of those people.
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