How I manage to take 10,000 steps a day
Taking 10,000 steps a day is not just a number—it's a commitment to longevity. Regular walking strengthens the heart, aids in weight management, and boosts energy levels, while also reducing the risk of chronic diseases. This daily goal encourages consistency, promoting a healthier and potentially longer life. — ChatGPT
You may already have a fairly good idea about the benefits of taking ten thousand steps a day. This article, then, will be more about the how rather than the why. Let's be honest, ten thousand is a lot of steps and if you're just getting started with a more active lifestyle, the number may seem overwhelming. What follows are some tricks and strategies I use to average more than 10,000 steps a day in most weeks. Before we start, I recommend these two articles if you want to know more about why taking ten thousand steps a day is a good idea:
- Association of Daily Step Count and Intensity With Incident Dementia in 78 430 Adults Living in the UK
- Prospective Associations of Daily Step Counts and Intensity With Cancer and Cardiovascular Disease Incidence and Mortality and All-Cause Mortality
All right, let's get started.
Monitor your steps
This may seem obvious, but it bears stating: you can't control what you can't measure. The first step to getting to ten thousand steps a day is knowing your current average.
There are a plenty of trackers out there - Apple has the Apple Watch, Samsung and Xiaomi have entire lineups, and Oura makes smart ring with a built-in pedometer. Pick a brand that you like and that fits your budget - you don't need anything particularly fancy. I've had a Fitbit HR, an entry level fitness tracker, for about three years and it still serves me perfectly well. What matters is that you get a tracker and check your steps daily or, ideally, throughout the day.
Take it easy and set intermediate goals
It's easy to feel overwhelmed if your goal seems too far out of reach. The good news is, you don't need to get to ten thousand steps all at once. If you currently average three thousand steps a day, aim to get to three and a half thousand next week. You won't get overwhelmed and the progress you make week by week will keep you motivated. That's why I encourage you to try the advice from this list one by one rather than all at once. Once you build your first habit, you can always return to this list and pick up more.
Get your steps in throughout the day
One of the hardest, and possibly the least healthy ways, to get to 10k steps a day is to try to get all the steps in a single long walk. I wholeheartedly discourage this - it sort of defeats the purpose of tracking your steps, which is about being active throughout the day. To counter this, Fitbit encourages you to monitor number of hours per day where you take at least 250 steps. I find trying to maximize this number really helpful toward achieving my step goal. When you manage to get 5 hours with at least 250 steps, you're already at 1250 steps or more.
Maybe you don't need to hit 10,000 every single day
The studies I linked to before refer to the median number of steps per day. That's not the same as taking ten thousand steps every single day, or even the same as averaging ten thousand steps a day. All you need to do is take ten thousand steps a day more often than you do not. For example, if you manage to get 10,000 steps a day on 16 days in a month, congratulations, your median is above or at 10,000 steps a day.
Get up from your desk once every hour
This is an easy one. Try to get up from your desk at least once per hour. Use that time to do anything you want, as long as it involves walking somewhere. Go to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee, talk to your colleague on another floor, walk to a grocery store nearby and get a single orange or a bottle of mineral water. Don't overthink it, it doesn't matter what it is as long as you have to walk to get there. Depending on what you do, you can get anywhere from a few hundred to a couple of thousand steps this way.
Fitibit helps you with this by measuring your longest stationary period and reminding you to get up with push notifications, and other fitness trackers most likely come with similar features. As a rule, you want your longest stationary period to be short, as sitting for extended periods of time can be very unhealthy.
Take the stairs
This is a tough sell for most people but I swear by it. Taking the stairs is an excellent way to get some extra steps and you can consider it a minor workout. Most people hate the stairs, though, so you may need to ease your way into this one. Maybe you can avoid escalators at airports and take the stairs instead. Or if you need to take the elevator, get off one floor early. Start small and build your way up.
Take one 30-minute to 1-hour walk a day
It doesn't matter too much where you go. You can get off the bus or metro one stop early or walk home from work if it's not too far. I like to have a goal so it doesn't feel like I'm walking aimlessly, so I'll just think of something I want to eat and go pick it up. For example, I sometimes take a 20-minute walk to a local pizza place, grab a slice of pizza, and walk back. Sometimes I walk to a local grocery to get peaches or strawberries, or hummus, or I visit the local Georgian bakery to get a pastry.
Depending on your fitness level and the length of your walk, you can get 3,000-6,000 steps out of this.
Go for a jog
If you like cardio, you can go for a quick jog. As usual, start small and don't overthink it. If running for a long time intimidates you, jog for just 10-minutes. Eventually, it won't feel like effort anymore and you may even start looking forward to this. You can get anywhere from a thousand to a few thousand steps this way.
Go to the mall
If shopping is your vice, you can turn it into a way to get more steps. When you go to the mall, the odds are you spend most of your time walking around. I'm always mildly surprised by this but sometimes I can get over five thousand steps on a single visit.
Listen to audiobooks and podcasts
This is one of my best tricks. Walking can be boring, especially if you're new to it and sort of feels like you're wasting time. When I first started trying to optimize my steps, I got an Audible subscription and used my walks to listen to audiobooks. I still do it and I've listened to dozens of books by now. I've also listened to podcasts on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. This works particularly well if you want to give your eyes some rest from working in front of the computer all day.
Walk around during phone calls
When I know I'll spend more than 10 minutes on the phone, I put on my headphones and take it outside. Depending on where you live, you can go to the park or just pace around the block or in your garden. If the weather is bad, I sometimes pace around the living room. I actually focus better when I walk, so I sometimes do the same thing with Zoom calls if no camera is required. I put my computer somewhere within reach, put my headphones on and walk around the house.
Have a big run
I mentioned jogging before. You can go a step further and go for a run. I run 5-10 km (3-6 miles) two or three times a week. That's 5,000 - 10,000 steps in a single session. Start easy, by running 1-2 km (0.5-1.5 miles) and work your way up. You don't have to run every day or every other day, but I do recommend that you run consistently. When you take a break from running that's longer than a week, it gets hard to motivate yourself to start again. If you run consistently, on the other hand, you eventually start craving your runs.
