Five figures of steps

People really want to get their 10,000 steps in.  My father in law has a fitbit and aims to get his 10k a day, Wendy has her phone tracking her steps, and lots of other people I know do the same.  Of course there is nothing magical at all about 10,000 steps.  People have all kinds of different needs and capabilities and there is no reason at all to assume that 10,000 is somehow the 'correct' amount of exercise.  10,000 is just a thing because it is a big round number and we humans really like those.

I read an article talking about this, and it managed to really miss the point.  The article pointed out correctly that there isn't any hard medical science suggesting that 10,000 is the optimal number of steps for health.  But was anyone really thinking that?  With all the confounding factors going into it it seems blatantly clear to me that 10,000 is just a convenient round number that happens to be attainable for a normal person with an interest in walking.  1,000 is clearly trivial for most people, and 100,000 is near impossible, so 10,000 it is.

Here is the trick.  Sure, there isn't any medical evidence that 10,000 is correct.  But if you stop there you are missing something big.  There is plenty of evidence to suggest that walking is good for you, that people stick to walking regimens if they have clear goals and can treat it like a game, and that one major barrier to sticking to walking regimens is consistency.  10,000 isn't some magical thing that comes from physiology, it is a magical thing that comes from psychology.

We aren't doing 10,000 steps for medical reasons, we are doing it because fitbits and step trackers and big round numbers help us keep to a healthy routine.  We are using brain hacks to get ourselves to do things we know we should do.

That is a good thing!

And by we, I don't mean me, because I don't walk that much, and I don't track my steps.  If I need more exercise I go to the gym and lift more and harder, because I like tracking those numbers a lot more.  Doing 28 pushup sets or 30 pushup sets isn't something medicine has an opinion on, but I use the numbers to motivate me to healthy behaviour.

Our society so often seems to get caught up in which exercise is perfect, and what exactly we can do to sculpt our bodies just the way we want.  We shouldn't be bothering.  The trick is to find something to get yourself moving that you will enjoy and stick to.  The details of the exercise are unimportant, all you need to do is do something, and keep doing it.