Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is to boost physical activity just a little
Speaker 1: by aiming for a thousand more steps per day than
Speaker 1: you are used to getting. So, the fitness industry has
Speaker 1: done an amazing job of making the goal of getting
Speaker 1: ten thousand steps a day seem like the be all
Speaker 1: and end all for a healthy lifestyle. But the ten
Speaker 1: thousand step goals specifically isn't really supported by research. I mean, sure,
Speaker 1: being active is good for your health, and you can
Speaker 1: stack the studies showing that for miles, but the specific
Speaker 1: ten thousand step target isn't one derived by research in
Speaker 1: the sense that they had some people walk nine thousand
Speaker 1: steps a day and some walk ten thousand steps a day,
Speaker 1: and the ten thousand step people just shown with radiant
Speaker 1: health compared to the others. It is just a nice, big,
Speaker 1: round sounding number, that is all. So if aiming for
Speaker 1: ten thousand steps either isn't feasible or isn't particularly motivating
Speaker 1: to you, what could be well? One option is to
Speaker 1: aim for one thousand more steps per day then you
Speaker 1: are currently getting. This will be pretty doable, and the
Speaker 1: more time spent up in walking, the better. This challenge
Speaker 1: raises a few issues, of course. I mean first, how
Speaker 1: do you know how many steps you are getting per day?
Speaker 1: You can get a fitness tracker or pedometer pretty easily
Speaker 1: these days, but many of us have been walking around
Speaker 1: with one inadvertently. The iPhone routinely tracks steps taken in
Speaker 1: the health app. Just tap the little hurt icon and
Speaker 1: it will come up. If you haven't been looking at
Speaker 1: this app. It is a bit of an eye opener
Speaker 1: to see all your daily steps recounted for as long
Speaker 1: as you have owned the phone. Wow. Possibly a little creepy,
Speaker 1: but also useful. And perhaps you don't carry your phone everywhere,
Speaker 1: but you probably have it with you a lot enough
Speaker 1: to know about how much you move around, and certainly
Speaker 1: often enough to see if this number changes. So look
Speaker 1: at your usual tally and then figure out what one
Speaker 1: thousand more steps would be. Then figure out ways to
Speaker 1: get more steps. One thousand steps turns out to be
Speaker 1: only about half a mile, so it won't be hard.
Speaker 1: Park a little further away, take the stairs instead of
Speaker 1: the elevator, use a bathroom that's farther away from your desk,
Speaker 1: go for a walk on your brake. If you are
Speaker 1: working from home, you could walk around the yard, or
Speaker 1: even do something that seems a little silly, like taking
Speaker 1: the trash cans back up from the curb one at
Speaker 1: a time on trash Day instead of doubling up go
Speaker 1: return a few items to their homes. You might also
Speaker 1: consider how you could change your environment to increase your steps.
Speaker 1: It has been fascinating to me that since moving to
Speaker 1: my new house, I have wound up taking about two
Speaker 1: thousand more steps per day than I was taking in
Speaker 1: the old house. Some of that is unpacking, which will
Speaker 1: go down over time, but there are more stairs and
Speaker 1: the rooms I use frequently are more spread out. My
Speaker 1: office and bedroom are on the opposite side of the
Speaker 1: house from the kitchen, whereas in the old house they
Speaker 1: were on the same side. It's not a lot of
Speaker 1: steps each time, but it does add up, as does
Speaker 1: the longer walk to where we park our cars. It
Speaker 1: is not right by the entrance as it was in
Speaker 1: the old house. Now I am not suggesting you move
Speaker 1: to get more steps, but it's worth thinking about changing
Speaker 1: the rhythms of daily life. You could decide that your
Speaker 1: favorite coffee shop is the one that's a little further
Speaker 1: from your office. You could decide that you enjoy going
Speaker 1: to the bigger grocery store, which means more steps down
Speaker 1: the aisles. And you could decide that it might be
Speaker 1: safer to walk your kids to the bus stop on
Speaker 1: darker mornings, which means you are doing more walking, maybe
Speaker 1: with your dog. There's a reason dog owners tend to
Speaker 1: be more active. Someone has to take the dog out,
Speaker 1: whether you want to or not. The environmental requirements change,
Speaker 1: and so you change to be more active too. If
Speaker 1: you increase your steps per day, I'd love to hear
Speaker 1: how you do it. You can let me know at
Speaker 1: Laura at Laura Vanderkamp dot com. In the meantime, this
Speaker 1: is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making the
Speaker 1: most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear
Speaker 1: from you. You can send me your tips, your questions,
Speaker 1: or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook
Speaker 1: and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod that's b E the
Speaker 1: number four then breakfast p o D. You can also
Speaker 1: shoot me an email at Before Breakfast Podcast at i
Speaker 1: heeart Media dot com. That Before Breakfast is spelled out
Speaker 1: with all the letters thanks so much. I look forward
Speaker 1: to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a production of
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