5 ms·

I’m very doubtful of these numbers. Everyone is different, there’s no doubt that walking is beneficial for your health and you should try to walk a bit every d

by lom 5y ago

I’m very doubtful of these numbers. Everyone is different, there’s no doubt that walking is beneficial for your health and you should try to walk a bit every day. But I wouldn’t try to hit a daily goal, or certain amount of minutes. Just walk for how long you feel like

ajsnigrutin 5y ago
Hitting a daily goal means more walking for many. "walk for however long you feel like" means nothing... having 3k steps on the pedometer, while the goal is eg. 10k steps (or 7k i guess now) means many people will go for a walk, which is good for them. I know it's just gamification of exercise, but if it works, I'm all for it.
- kwhitefoot 5y ago
  I have a pedometer app on my mobile. When I go for a walk I try to walk further than the weekly and monthly averages. I turn it into a silly sort of a game. So instead of trying to beat some externally imposed limit I just try to be a little better than myself. So far it's working and I generally do more than 6 ksteps per day.
ioslipstream 5y ago
You should try to walk a lot every day, not just what you "feel like". 7k steps is on the low side.
- notacoward 5y ago
  Only if your step counts are drastically inflated. I've seen Fitbit users get hundreds of "steps" per hour sitting at their desks. Seven thousand real steps a day is about 5km, which is more than even smug twenty-somethings typically manage.
  - noarchy 5y ago
    Fitness trackers are often quite terrible at counting both steps and heart rate. This means two very important metrics for tracking fitness can't be trusted completely. That said, they can at least give you a rough estimate as to where things stand, so they aren't completely useless.
phil21 5y ago
Advice like this isn't for instrinctly motivated people that would walk as much as they feel like anyways. This is for the vast majority of America where a 6 block trip to the corner store is considered driving distance. If I didn't make it a 100% conscious "chore" to do every day when I lived in the suburbs, it was quite easy to go an entire week without walking more than a few hundred outdoor feet in total. In the city it's far more likely I'll be walking to get something done anyways, so it's easy to take the long way home for some extra steps if I've been in front of a screen too long lately.
newaccount2021 5y ago
recuter 5y ago
No, this isn't like thirst. Walking is the easiest most consistent weight loss method. The do Physical Activity Thing X times and metrics like BMI are aggregates for the population meant as generic advice (some doctors can't do math without a calculator sadly). The gist of the advice is always to figure out your base metabolic rate and roughly how many calories you lose per steps/hours of walking. You can derive this experimentally for yourself by doing and eating the exact same thing for a few days in a row. You just need a good enough scale and a spreadsheet. This drifts over time with your age and weight, so repeat the experiment occasionally. 5000-10,000 is the target range, maybe that's how they got 7k. It doesn't matter if you hit your number daily or average it out weekly, as long as you get your steps in the calorie deficit occurs.
- onpensionsterm 5y ago
  It takes a phenomenal amount of exercise to be equal to reducing food intake. Reducing cardio to a weight loss method means that people who are unfit but not overweight or strong but relatively sedentary think that they don't need to do it for their health. Then they die of heart disease.
  - recuter 5y ago
    I don't disagree? Exercise is best used to build muscle mass and is not very effective if the goal is a caloric deficit. You could run, some people love doing that, but most aren't able to do this consistently enough - and the more overweight the more injury prone. Walking works just as well as high intensity cardio it just takes proportionally longer. You're paying for your extra weight and lethargy with time. However, everybody (who can exercise at least) can do it, and it works. Going from sedentary straight to beast mode rarely works. And most people are in fact overweight. Walk for a month or two to shed weight, improve mood, and form good habits - then progress onwards from there. Maybe throw in pushup sets every mile or get down to the park with the bars, 'etc.

by lom 5y ago

ajsnigrutin 5y ago

Hitting a daily goal means more walking for many. "walk for however long you feel like" means nothing... having 3k steps on the pedometer, while the goal is eg. 10k steps (or 7k i guess now) means many people will go for a walk, which is good for them. I know it's just gamification of exercise, but if it works, I'm all for it.

kwhitefoot 5y ago
I have a pedometer app on my mobile. When I go for a walk I try to walk further than the weekly and monthly averages. I turn it into a silly sort of a game. So instead of trying to beat some externally imposed limit I just try to be a little better than myself. So far it's working and I generally do more than 6 ksteps per day.

ioslipstream 5y ago

You should try to walk a lot every day, not just what you "feel like". 7k steps is on the low side.

notacoward 5y ago
Only if your step counts are drastically inflated. I've seen Fitbit users get hundreds of "steps" per hour sitting at their desks. Seven thousand real steps a day is about 5km, which is more than even smug twenty-somethings typically manage.
- noarchy 5y ago
  Fitness trackers are often quite terrible at counting both steps and heart rate. This means two very important metrics for tracking fitness can't be trusted completely. That said, they can at least give you a rough estimate as to where things stand, so they aren't completely useless.

phil21 5y ago

Advice like this isn't for instrinctly motivated people that would walk as much as they feel like anyways. This is for the vast majority of America where a 6 block trip to the corner store is considered driving distance. If I didn't make it a 100% conscious "chore" to do every day when I lived in the suburbs, it was quite easy to go an entire week without walking more than a few hundred outdoor feet in total. In the city it's far more likely I'll be walking to get something done anyways, so it's easy to take the long way home for some extra steps if I've been in front of a screen too long lately.

newaccount2021 5y ago

recuter 5y ago

No, this isn't like thirst. Walking is the easiest most consistent weight loss method. The do Physical Activity Thing X times and metrics like BMI are aggregates for the population meant as generic advice (some doctors can't do math without a calculator sadly). The gist of the advice is always to figure out your base metabolic rate and roughly how many calories you lose per steps/hours of walking. You can derive this experimentally for yourself by doing and eating the exact same thing for a few days in a row. You just need a good enough scale and a spreadsheet. This drifts over time with your age and weight, so repeat the experiment occasionally. 5000-10,000 is the target range, maybe that's how they got 7k. It doesn't matter if you hit your number daily or average it out weekly, as long as you get your steps in the calorie deficit occurs.

onpensionsterm 5y ago
It takes a phenomenal amount of exercise to be equal to reducing food intake. Reducing cardio to a weight loss method means that people who are unfit but not overweight or strong but relatively sedentary think that they don't need to do it for their health. Then they die of heart disease.
- recuter 5y ago
  I don't disagree? Exercise is best used to build muscle mass and is not very effective if the goal is a caloric deficit. You could run, some people love doing that, but most aren't able to do this consistently enough - and the more overweight the more injury prone. Walking works just as well as high intensity cardio it just takes proportionally longer. You're paying for your extra weight and lethargy with time. However, everybody (who can exercise at least) can do it, and it works. Going from sedentary straight to beast mode rarely works. And most people are in fact overweight. Walk for a month or two to shed weight, improve mood, and form good habits - then progress onwards from there. Maybe throw in pushup sets every mile or get down to the park with the bars, 'etc.