AIBU to think that many people over count their daily steps?

[SteppingMum]

I have a very sedentary job. I’m at my desk pretty much 9-5 with an hour lunch break, then 45 minute drive there and back each morning.

I struggle to naturally get in 3,000 steps a day without purposely trying to. I can get up to maybe 8-9K if i go on a walk after dinner for an hour.

My colleague has a very similar lifestyle to me and often expresses her shock at how little I move and she easily accumulates 10-15k a day. She doesn’t go to the gym or have small children or a dog that needs walking (neither do I).

So yesterday i did an experiment. Let’s compare steps from the moment we clock in at 8.45 until we go for lunch at 12.30.

My step count was 484 and hers was something like just under 3K.

The difference? She wears her counter on her wrist whereas I wear mine on my bra strap (I have an old fashioned clip on pedometer that only starts counting after three consecutive steps).

She drinks countless cups of tea in the morning (not getting up and making it herself - delivered by colleagues to the desk), has more phone calls to answer and typing to do than I do, and in general talks with her hands a lot.

I think a lot of people who wear their step counters on their wrist are having their daily steps over counted.

I want to challenge people today to try and move their smart watch to their trouser pocket or fasten to their waistband somehow to see if my theory is correct!

So AIBU to think that people are being lied to by their step counters when worn on their wrists? I know that I tend to use my hands more than my feet and will be wearing a wrist strap with my counter today as an experiment. Can’t wait to clock in and get 3K steps without even moving from my desk!

Also this isn’t a request for advice about how to get more steps in. I know I can get a desk stepper exercise thing or walk at lunch etc. I know what I should be doing. I’m a healthy weight and otherwise seemingly in good health etc so not too motivated just now to increase fitness but I know what I can do to increase steps when I want to.

My slight irritation is with my colleague thinking she’s so much more active than I am just because she moves her hands more than I do. 😁

To be clear, I don't do 10,000 steps and then think that's a good workout. I use my tracker to see how generally active I've been. I also go to the gym three times a week and run outdoors once a week, plus do a yoga class, walking is not my only activity. I also look at resting heart rate, calories burned and my weight. None of it is completely accurate but it is a guide.

But 3 x 20 minute walks = 10,000 steps makes sense to me with average stride length (0.67 metres). 6.7km or 4 miles, about an hour a day, so my FitBit is measuring it with reasonable accuracy.

It's a baseline for me, when I do cardio in the gym or go for a run or a longer dog walk I get more steps, obviously.

I go for a walk most days and I only count steps when I'm actively walking, not those I do when I'm hanging the washing out etc. Actually I'm not particularly interested in step count but I measure distance and the phone app I use estimates steps as well so I do look at it. It's reasonably accurate - I've manually counted my steps as a comparison - and I need to walk about 4 miles to get to 10 000 steps. And I'm only 5ft so have a fairly short stride length. I do find it hard to believe that most people who claim they are doing 10k steps per day are are walking the equivalent of 4 miles unless they have a very physical job or are going for a walk/run as part of their day.
There's no doubt that moving more in general is good for us but I think people can be lulled into a false sense of security in thinking that they are active enough if they're getting high step counts from devices, at least some of which are of dubious accuracy, when they're not actually raising their heart rate.

go for a walk most days and I only count steps when I'm actively walking, not those I do when I'm hanging the washing out etc

I bought a Garmin from someone and hadn't changed the settings to suit me.

I was surprised and amused to see that it automatically logged me hanging out the washing as 'an activity'. The GPS was quite funny. I guess my heart rate must have gone over a certain threshold (either I found it very exciting or I was speed pegging!). Needless to say I turned the auto activity off. I'm quite highly strung and would probably end up with lots of tiny activities a day from bounding up the stairs, putting the washing up away or scraping the dinner plates into the food bin.

Focusing solely on "steps" is a waste of time.

A 30-45 minute workout offers more comprehensive benefits, such as increased strength, higher calorie burn, and improved cardiovascular fitness, all in less time than it would take to achieve the same impact through walking alone

I have an Apple Watch , I knit for a living , I often clock up well over 15,000 steps a day while sitting on my sofa making hats and watching Netflix .
To add, I go to the gym several times a week and record that exercise separately and use my watch mainly for sleep tracking and answering calls etc

I used to regularily do 30,000.

I worked packing books 1000;s a day into boxes so lots of little side to side movements

I reckon they accounted for 80% of my 'steps'

This is going back a few years, I'm sure newer models would be better, but my Fitbit used to count steps when I was sat on the floor at work patting babies backs or tummies to soothe them to sleep. So definitely not accurate!

I had a watch device also years ago. I sat down one morning to mark exam papers, it turned out that each movement I took to give a tick to someone’s work gave me a step, looked good but gained nothing health wise for me.
Walking with a friend, on the same distance she had a third more steps because she took smaller ones or was it because she had it hanging round her neck so the counting device was bouncing on her ample front.
I keep my phone still, in the tight pocket of my jeans every day so that I can compare to my satisfaction if I have walked a lot or not, oh and I don’t have it on me when I do gym.

I honestly believe step counters are the biggest swizz going. Everyone I know seems to have one, but it hasn't made a jot of difference to anyone's health or size that I can see. Disclaimer: not scientific, based entirely on biased observations. I'll change my mind if I ever see any evidence that they have a beneficial impact, but I really believe for the vast majority of people it's just something companies sell to us which gives us the false comfort that we're doing something about our health.

This is an eye opener for me. Why would you wear a pedometer on your wrist?
i have an old pedometer, fits on waistband or trouser pocket, seems to be fairly accurate, and differentiates between steps and ‘active steps’

I have this with my mum. I often stay with her and on those trips I have pretty much the same very sedentary lifestyle as her (e.g. we take the same trips on the same mode of transport, we sit watching telly together, we take turns making meals). On those days, her wrist-worn smartwatch racks up 12k+ steps, while my old-fashioned bra- or pocket-worn pedometer (which is very accurate - I've tested it) will rack up maybe 3k.

She's so proud of her steps and how active she is, but when I stay there I am tearing my hair out from lack of activity! She does do a lot of knitting and typing, so I think it's probably that.

I wear a Fitbit so it does count all movement as steps, I don’t really pay any attention to it to be honest, I only have it because with my health insurance rewards steps and vigorous activity.

Nothing works as effectively as putting it through a wash cycle - including spin

Ha ha! I was recalling that thread too! People are deluded. It does come up in conversation. And it took me a while to figure out that they have gadgets massively over counting. I kept hearing stories of having 3k before getting to work ‘just running round after the kids’. Then someone else who did a similar job to me saying they’d get 10k in during work and if they didn’t, a walk around the block would top it up. People don’t get how much time it takes to clock up to 10k. I would need a solid hour plus of walking to do that. At home, pottering I’d be lucky to get 1k. I’ve done 5000 today and that is 2.8kilometre.

I am doing a Conqueror virtual challenge, and use Googlemaps to work out my distance. I only count brisk walks. Pottering around shops doesn't count, and is not really exercise anyway.
I did have a clip on pedometer thing, but it was a bit random in it's accuracy, so binned it.

Do you know this thread reminds me of my late Dh. We used to work in the same place, in a factory where he operated a piece of machinery with his foot and then me sitting a bench doing my job, he never used to walk around that much more than me. Both of us were fit and active and we had a competition between us about who could do the most steps. He’d record his on his phone in his trouser pocket and me with my Fitbit. He’d have twice as many steps as me and he was so smug about it and I’d be fuming (competitive me 😂) Anyway I somehow twigged on and found out that his foot operating the machine was causing his phone to log it as a step. And he bloody KNEW the sneaky sod 😂😂

This thread reminds of a few years back in Eastenders where Ian Beal was facing pre-diabetes so was ordered to do more steps. He worked out that whisking a cake mix counted as "steps", and later put his fitbit thing on the ankle of a small child 😆

I have an Apple Watch, it doesn’t count when you wave your arms around or if you’re on the exercise bike. Only walking.

I've done 11k steps today but that's involved about an hour and a half of brisk walking outside, along with all the incidental 'pottering'. I can see on the hourly breakdown that it is accurate based on what I was doing at the time.

I certainly wouldn't get anywhere near 10k steps 'pottering' at home! I wasn't well at the weekend so didn't really go out except to the local shop, and I only just reached 3,000 steps on Sunday and no more. No way I would get to 3,000 steps making breakfast or something like that!

Every time I do housework it's convinced I've been swimming 😂. I worked out my actual stride length and now my steps are pretty accurate. However if you're light footed it still misses them. I can apparently get to the bathroom in three steps and downstairs to the kitchen in about four. A trip to London might get me over the 10,000 but otherwise I rarely meet that. My step goal is 7500 but I'm happy with anything over 5000.

Reports of step counts being recorded while someone is knitting or crocheting (sitting down) are widespread so I guess, for a wrist worn monitor) they must count any repetitive movement and if your colleague types energetically that very likely accounts for her ridiculously high count. What I don't understand though is how one on a bra strap can record anything at all.

As long as you are wearing it in the same place on your body and comparing yourself to yourself you can always still see whether your activity is consistent increasing or decreasing.

However, I have an Apple Watch which seems pretty good at sorting out one activity from the other. It can even separate front crawl from breaststroke when I'm swimming fairly reliably.

The only thing I have noticed it has failed at was horse riding. I went recently when I don't usually or haven't done for years - and it logged the ride as steps. It was just a plod round the lanes though so the horse was just walking in the same gait the whole way round. not sure if it has a riding activity will have a look if I go again.

My Fitbit is pretty much accurate with my Strava app. I imagine cheaper step counter quid be less accurate though

Some of these devices are more or less accurate than others. Not sure why you presumed yours was the better one, OP!
Anyway, I doubt most people rely on the accuracy of most of these devices, but instead use it as a guide, alongside the length of time spent walking, gradient, how they feel afterwards etc.

My counter is in my phone, that I normally have on me but often leave it down in the office or at home. So it undercounts somewhat.

But I also have a similar problem in a relatively sedentary job and apartment only 5-6 minutes walk from work. I have meetings out and about some days, and travel days amp it up hugely (or when my teen is visiting and drags me out shopping for her wardrobe!). I need to make myself get back to watching the while pedalling my exercise bike at night and doing some yoga stretches.