Do you walk 10,000 steps a day?

[nordica]

I've dusted off the Fitbit recently and tried to get more active but I'm finding it's surprisingly hard to get anywhere near the recommended 10,000 steps a day goal. How many people actually do? How much/how long for do you have to walk to reach the goal?

I don't know if this is because I'm short and have shorter strides so can't cover as much in the same time as someone taller, or if it's because I'm unfit and my brisk walk isn't fast enough. Even when I go out for a 30-45 minute walk, at best I get to around 6000 steps a day. The other day I walked for over an hour and still didn't reach 10k steps for the day. My job is sedentary which doesn't help of course (and I'm working from home so there is very little walking to do as part of my usual day).

I remember thinking the same in the past, especially as people so often seem to say "oh 10k steps a day is easy, just go for a short walk".

I do a lot of steps every day. It's always over 10,000. However, I walk a lot. I walk the school run 3 times a day. I walk the dog twice a day. I walk to get to most places instead of driving. 10,000 is a few miles so not just one short walk.

I run most days so yes I do, although you're right 10,000 steps is a surprisingly long way. 5km is only about 6000.

Recently I'm DH is bed bound and I'm finding my average steppage is around 7000 per day without even leaving the house!

I generally do, yes. I force myself out for at least one walk or run unless it's pissing it down. I pace about a lot on calls too.

On a bad day I could do 2,500 now we have a dog on an easy day it’s around 8000 now
on a day where I’m doing something other than working from home and dog walking it is usually more than 10,000

Yes, I have dogs so usually end up with around 20K/day. I work from home but take the dogs out for an hour in the morning, before work, an hour again during my lunch break and then a hour-hour and a half in the evening again. That plus doing normal stuff around the house gets me to about 20K steps. On the weekends it can be more as I run errands, do gardening, cleaning etc on top of the dog walks. I love being outdoors though, so that helps.

I have a desk job so if I don't go for a walk I average around 2500 a day. I need to walk for about an hour on top of that to hit 10,000 a day, or run for less. It's about 6km in distance for me. I don't reach it every day but other days I do a lot more, I often exceed 20k at weekend.

I hit 10-15k effortlessly when I'm commuting. I've noticed WFH that I need at least an hour of fast walking to make up 10k steps, so yes, it's not a little walk! An hour to 90 mins at least, I'd say.

I wish I could pace about on calls or take walking meetings which would help the step count, but sadly I'm almost always sat in front of zoom with a rictus grin plastered on my face.

I do 25,000 a day during the week, about 10,000 at weekends and school holidays. Most of my steps are walking the school runs. I'm a SAHM at the minute, when I was working I was averaging about 7-8k. I think I depends what you do for a living, and an active lifestyle only fits in with certain peoples circumstances. If I was working full time (office based), I wouldn't hit my steps throughout the day and wouldn't have time to go for a walk/exercise when I was home. If I lived further from my kids school, or rurally, I wouldn't be able to walk the school runs or walk to tesco/bank/butchers/chemist/etc.

I average about 17,000 steps a day. Combination of walking, running and if necessary walking round the house. I have a very sedentary job and so if I don’t make sure I get out and walk/run I would very easily do hardly any steps.

1 mile = 2000 steps.

So 5 miles = 10,000 steps.

To get that many, I have to walk both school runs and clean my entire house from top to bottom and run around after the children when I get home.

It’s hard!

To get it in one go, you’re looking at a walk of about 1.5 hours.

i walk the dog twice a day - about 30-45 minutes each and usually get around 12-15k steps.

I don't have dogs, a job or a school run so rarely achieve 10k steps. I walk almost every day, often for a hour or more but it's only when I go for a much longer walk, out for a couple of hours or more that I surpass 10k steps. I only use the car to shop when I'm doing a full shop, so a couple of times a month. I can't imagine making the step count on a daily basis. I'm impressed that so many people manage up to 20k.

Yes, I walk over 20,000 steps a day. I can't drive so have no access to a car. On a weekday I walk DS to school which is 30 minutes, then I walk to work which is a 40 minute walk from school. Repeat in the afternoon.

Then I'm on my feet a lot as I work in a factory.

I know its just a marketing thing but since I've been doing 10000 steps I've lost a lot of weight (obvs) so I do try to stick to it or thereabouts.
I get 5000 done just walking in my tiny house. 2000 with the school run then I try to fit in a short walk a day.

I have CP so my max is 2k, I make sure I walk everyday so my joints don't seize up
Better than staying on the sofa, I suppose!

I tend to hit 10,000 steps with a 6000 step walk, and lots of pottering and running after the toddlers. It can be a pretty realistic target, but you have to do 'a walk'.

Yes.
Walking, litter picking, running etc.

I’ve been trying to do 5000 steps a day for the last few weeks and it’s really hard without being really bored!
I work from home and live in a one bed flat so not really much chance to get steps.
Have to go out for two half hour walks a day to get to 5000. I know I could go for longer but I do find waking aimlessly pretty dull. Much prefer walking to work etc

On average about 12k but I walk the dog every day. I can do 10k just at work some days (cover teacher) or 4k ish if I'm in the same classroom all day (which is unusual).

I can easily do 15,000 on a day off. When I'm in work I just about scrape 8,000 (deskbound).

I really hate walking just for the sake of it, unless it it for a view or to go up a hill for the sake of it (yep, I'll tick off an arbitrary list of hills! I'd rather walk to the shops and carry a rucksack plus bags of shopping than the same or shorter walk with no purpose, which I accept is totally illogical!

I try to everyday but don't always achieve it for me 10,000 steps is 4 miles.

Gerla:
I couldn't work out why my husband had so many more steps than me. Turned out it's because he keeps his phone in his pocket. You do a surprising number of steps just pootling round the house.

Yes! This is why I started using a Fitbit again as I was finding the step counter on my phone was just not practical for me to count all those daily steps at home unless I had my phone with me all the time.

Really interesting to hear everyone's answers and the different ways you get your steps in! I remember getting to around 12k more easily back when I worked between two locations some days so there was a lot of walking to the station and the office and back again.

When the weather improves it should be more pleasant to walk more again - at the moment it's bitterly cold here!

Today's step count is at 5,600 after a 20 minute walk out in the park and some extra at home when I did the hoovering and tidying up...

I've started making a real effort the last couple of months after having been stuck indoors for 3 weeks due to covid.
I found it tough at first but I nearly always hit 10k steps a day but average between 13-15k.
As I'm wfh at the moment I have to consciously build it into my day. I'm short too so 5 miles is 12k steps for me.

I've been hitting 10k min a day purely as I realised there was a Garmin challenge/badge for 30 days in a row of 10k and DH was beating me!
I can usually do around 8000 steps in a 6 km run and then go out later on at lunch/after work. Getting away from the screens is a good enough excuse for a wander.