10000 steps per day

Amara

In attempt to loose post-baby weight, I've got myself a pedometer, put my LO into his pram and went for along walk. I live in a small town, so, after an hour, I've been everywhere and came back home. Only 3780 steps done! Nowhere near reccomended 10K. I haven't got time for 3 hours walk. Has anyone had similar experience?

*Beki*

Presumably you also walk around whilst at home, doing things around the house? Keep wearing the pedometer for the rest of the day and see how many you've racked up by the time you go to bed. I believe the recommendation is 10,000 for the whole day, not just on one walk!

belfastgirl23

I find it pretty easy to get to 10k steps by keeping the pedometer on all the time and extending any walks I do take by a few mins. So I walk the long way round to the shop, library etc. I think the first thing is to establish your baseline and then see what small ways you can increase your number of steps. I do walk and talks with friends for example.

Nowadays I try for 15k but as long as I get over 10 I'm happy

Mr_helpful

The 10K steps a day is just made up rubbish. just exercise gently and dont go mad on the food you will soon come back to size

Fire_Fox

Amara well done for getting started!! :j Keep your pedometer on all day, the research suggests the walking can be at any pace for health and divided up through the day. However it should not take you three hours unless you go slow or there is a lot of stopping and starting, it is three to five miles. Try to use walking for transport so that you are killing two birds with one stone, and upping your pace in short bursts as you get fitter. The harder you are able to work in short bursts the greater the boost to your metabolism over the next few hours (yes whilst sat down again!).

belfastgirl23

Mr_helpful wrote: »

The 10K steps a day is just made up rubbish. just exercise gently and dont go mad on the food you will soon come back to size

Fair enough it's an arbitrary number in some ways. But if the op is struggling to do half that then maybe this is an indication of a largely sedentary lifestyle which means she had gained weight. This is still a pretty good way to tackle being more active however you look at it

wondercollie

First, I'd say be gentle with yourself. It took you nine months to grow that baby, so give yurself at least the same amount of time to shed it.

I used to walk everywhere with the pram. Uphill does wonders for your arms and thighs!.

The trick is to do it on a regular basis. I got most of the weight off by walking and cooking all our food (so skint, there was no money for take out or trips to McDs)

jenniewb

If its any help, 10000 steps is apparently around 5 miles. If you walk fairly quickly, your going at around 4 miles an hour, 4.5 miles per hour is possible if you are very good at it! Most others walk anything between 2-3 miles per hour. If you don't walk at the moment but take up walking to/from work for example you will get better at it and your speed will increase. So your looking at a daily walk of anyting from 1 hour and 15 minutes up to two and a half hours.

It may also be worth getting a proper or more scientific pedometer. Many do not register steps accuratly enough, even if its over or underestimating by just 1% that's going to add or take 1000 steps which over a week is getting on for a full day's worth! Some pedometers use GPS and some are just better at using a sensor. Also from time to time check it is still working properly as they can lose their accuracy.

Maybe starting at 10K is a bit of a stretch and working your way up would be a better idea. If you start at 10K and it doesn't work out or you find it too difficult your going to feel less confident about ever achieving your goal and that's not a good way to start.

Don't forget also that its as much about movement as it is about being healthy in other areas- walking does help with your health but with out a doubt it needs to be in combination with other things such as sleeping well, eating healthily and dealing with stress in a healthy way, don't forget to congratulate yourself on everything else that is positive in your life, not everyone has good health.

Amara

Thanks for your replies. My pedometer lasted one day, not good :cool: I wasn't very tired after my walk, just disspointed , hoped will be more, it took so long time! I'm still breastfeeding, so I don't want to cut calories.

jenniewb

Amara wrote: »

Thanks for your replies. My pedometer lasted one day, not good :cool: I wasn't very tired after my walk, just disspointed , hoped will be more, it took so long time! I'm still breastfeeding, so I don't want to cut calories.

Its a little contradictory to not want to lose calories but wanting to walk however many steps. The idea of walking for fitness will mean you need to consume more calories to maintain your weight because otherwise your body will just use up the calories you have eaten to give you the energy to walk, so if your breast feeding get some advice on this- weight loss and eating the same amount of calories is going to likely affect your breast milk if weight loss does.

Have you spoken to a health practitioner or dietition about what's going on? I wasn't sure which was more important, any weight loss, fitness or maintaining good quality breast milk because it may not be so possible to mix the breast milk issue with the weight loss issue. (Apologies if I've gotten the wrong end of the stick and weight loss wasn't on your list!)

Rummer

I really like the 10000 steps a day approach. Initially I was :eek: to discover that I only took around 3000 a day and on days when I was in the house it was often under 1000

Now I pop my pedometer on almost daily and it keeps me motivated to move more during the day and I will often make a real effort to get my step count up. They recommend that you average the steps over a week as some days you will move more and on others less.

As well as the 10k steps I also try to exercise using a DVD a couple of times a week (although I have been failing miserably) and try to make healthier food choices.