Bursting the Bubble of 10,000 Steps a Day!
Imagine that you’ve just bought a new fitness tracker, and are ready to crush your fitness goals. You are planning to aim at least 10,000 steps a day because it’s what everyone is doing. But have you ever considered that 10,000 steps might not be the best goal for you?
Sure, your efforts won’t go unrewarded when you are keeping up with a regular physical activity like this, but wouldn’t you like it better if there were a customised action plan?
In reality, there are a myriad of factors that weigh in when you are looking to get fitter. Let’s discuss some of these points to get a better idea about how 10k steps are not your utmost priority after all.
Age and Gender
When you start any kind of physical activity similar to walking or running, your age plays a huge role in your progress. It is seen that young adults are more active as compared to people in older age groups. Also, with age, your body seems to slow down; your metabolism is slowed. Hence, if you fall in the latter category, you might have to take a few extra steps in comparison to those younger than you. Furthermore, gender plays a crucial role in deciding your physical activity. Men tend to have more muscle mass than women and women tend to have more fat than men. Hence women need to burn more calories than men in order to achieve the same fitness level.
Diet
Your diet is one of the most important factors that come into play while designing an optimal fitness plan. Consuming extra calories and still walking a standard number of steps will not put you in a calorie deficit, eventually leading to weight gain instead of achieving your goal of weight loss/weight maintenance. On the contrary, your diet needs to have sufficient micronutrients that aid your body in carrying out physical activity and achieving the desired result. If you are undernourished or malnourished, 10,000 steps a day may in fact deplete your body of required nutrients leading to deficiencies.
Lifestyle
If you already have an active lifestyle, tracking your steps is not generally much of use. You might even be crossing your expected amount of physical activity every day. While for people with a sedentary lifestyle, it is extremely important to start taking action. Starting right away with 10,000 steps could be demotivating when you fail to achieve the goal. Hence, it would be wise to start slow and climb your way up. Also, if you are already into other activities such as Yoga, you don’t really need to be stringent with your step count.
Illness or Health Conditions
At times we tend to be harsh on ourselves. But when our bodies are going through an illness or even a seasonal disease, there are a lot of catabolic processes going on in our bodies. Your body already needs to preserve what it has. It would only be advisable to take some rest and reduce the number of steps you are aiming at during an illness. However, if you have a chronic disease or a health condition like Diabetes, Obesity, high cholesterol, hormonal conditions like PCOS, Hypothyroidism, etc. you may need to work out more than just a fixed number of steps.
Sleep
Your body cannot function without proper sleep. When you don’t sleep well, your body is in survival mode and needs as much energy as it could collect. It is likely to develop cravings for food when you are not well-rested. But to avoid overeating junk food, it would be better to limit your physical activity for the time being and let your body reset itself.
Current Weight
Your current weight plays a significant role in deciding the physical activity you need, or let’s say your current BMI (Body Mass Index). People at a healthy BMI or slightly overweight may not need to walk as much as people who fall into the obese and supermobid obese category. In order to lose weight, they’d probably have to do a lot more than walking 10,000 steps a day.
Bottom Line
While the 10,000 steps a day norm is quite popular in current times, you need to listen to your body and consider a lot of factors before jumping on the bandwagon. Your body is unique and so are its needs! There never is one-size-fits-all when it comes to health.
