My Pedometer Is Broken

Posted on 7/13/2007

So I strapped my pedometer -- you know what those are; right? It's a device that straps to your belt buckle and counts the number of steps you take in a given day. As a person who has a job sitting down like me -- a court reporter -- I was shocked to find out that my pedometer was broken. Shocked -- shocked I tell you! Because by noon, when I checked my pedometer it had barely budged off the zero mark. Was this thing defective -- or -- do I really move that little??

Well, after staring at my own sloth-like behavior square in the eye, I realized that I need to make some serious changes to my daily activity level.

Q: How many steps should a human walk each day?

A: The simple answer is now generally agreed to be 10,000 steps per day.

Most people walk between 2500 and 7000 steps a day. If you are working at a computer all day -- or in front of a court reporting machine -- then you will probably be in the slow lane and people with active physical jobs will be at the high end. Turns out the health benefits all kick in if you reach the 10,000 steps per day level. If you are unfit and or very overweight then don’t suddenly try to increase your number of steps. Work at increasing them gradually and that way you will be much more likely to succeed.

I've made it my mission this summer to increase my steps from what they are now -- around 5,000 per day -- to the 10,000 level. Who is with me?

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