Preparing for my 5K made me wonder how many steps do I take each day? Maybe you have heard the recent guidelines about walking 10,000 steps per day. How far is 10,000 step 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, and 10,000 steps is close to 5 miles.
A sedentary person may only average 1,000
to 3,000 steps a day. For these people, adding
steps has many health benefits. A reasonablegoal for most people is to increase their
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. Put it on when you get up in the morning and wear it until bed time. Record your daily steps in a log or notebook. By the end of the week you will know your average daily steps. 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 and come up with your own list:
* Do a 5K with me
* 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
