What is your daily step count?

[BurntBroccoli]

I try to do at least 5000 steps and feel
guilty if I haven’t done enough!

What is your daily count? Do you check each day?

I do love a good potter.

Between 5 and 8k on my phone (mostly dog walks) and maybe 11 or 12k on my watch.

10k per day usually. I try to walk as must as possible

The trouble with Fitbit type trackers

they often over count. You should wear them on the non dominant hand and keep the setting on dominant. Flipping through paperwork often tracks steps!

Yes, a step is a step, but I can't agree that all steps are equal! If I walk a mile in 20 minutes that's 2000 steps and way, way more beneficial than 2000 steps in six hours pottering around the house.

But I don't want an arguement about it. That's just my point of view.

edited to say that's what your saying as well I guess, the point I was trying to make was to try to stop people thinking that all steps are equally beneficial.

Exactly, a "step" on a 10 mike hike is no better than a "step" going from the sofa to the TV. It's still a movement. That's what matters. Moving the muscles, improving blood circulation, etc.

Of course, a 10 mile hike will raise your heart beat to a much higher level than walking from lounge to kitchen, and it's said that best exercise is to get yourself slightly breathless which is apparently optimum to get the heart and body moving.

But, a step is still a step and better than no step at all.

But in my case, having a standing desk, I can get an increased heart rate just by standing still as it's still putting the body to work, i.e. muscles flexing to stay standing, so even with no steps, it's still better than sitting down all day. If I've been standing, say, 3 or 4 hours, then I can start to feel breathless with a higher heart rate. That tells me the body is working harder, just by standing rather than sitting.

15k and some change.

10k targeted walk and then 5k ancillary steps ie daily life.

Obviously a fast paced hike is better for you than pottering in the garden but 5k steps of pottering is still better than nothing. All movement is good movement.

Are you using a Fitbit and not just your phone?

No idea but I usually do a 4 mile walk around our area each day unless the weather is really stormy.

Both - a phone app and a smart watch. Usually both show pretty similar numbers, but I base my numbers on the phone app really, which is typically a bit less as sometimes I leave it on the desk/table whilst I do something else, so probably not recording all steps. Smart watch usually higher, but not by much, as it probably also picks up things which aren't actually "steps" such as wrist movements whilst washing up etc? I use the smart watch more for heart beat monitoring.

How far from school do you live?!!!

I average 11k and I have to work really hard to achieve that.

On my least active day this week I had 6.5k steps and that was with a 20 minute round trip to school x2 and then a 45 minute dog walk.

On my most active day I got 18k steps but I ran for an hour in the morning and then walked the dog twice for 45 minutes each time. There is no way I would have time for this every day.

Yes 25K - that’s 4 and a bit hours worth of steps!
I just wouldn’t have the time for that, especially in winter during dark nights.

As the crow flies, it’s not actually that far. It’s a pig of journey, on the bus, though. I’d have to get 2 buses.
So, it’s a proper pain in the arse to get to.
But, i enjoy the walk, and I make wee little detour, and walk through the woods.

It might be more like 20,000 steps, actually.

15,000-20,000 if I’m in work and a paltry 5000 (if I’m lucky) on a day off. I use my Apple Watch and I do think it over counts because my checkout staff rack steps up when they are sat down scanning due to the movement.

Do your kids enjoy the walk? So about an hour to school? Do you do that when the weather is bad?

I wouldn’t be able to work my hours and fit in extracurriculars, cooking from scratch, etc if I had a 2 hour daily school run!

I basically never drive if I can walk somewhere. I think I’ve driven the school run twice in two years, same with nursery run. Even if the weather isn’t great, we walk, and as a result I have kids who I can take on a city day out or something and walk 20k steps and not have them complain. Some of my DC’s pals really struggle with relatively short walking distances, which I find quite sad, because they are driven everywhere. One of them complained about 5 times on a 15-min walk home after school!

I see people on the same street as me driving their kids to school and back and they arrive home at the same time as me on foot because of all the parking chaos and school traffic 🤷‍♀️ Seems like a missed opportunity really.