On January 2, 2021, a friend told me that my New Year’s aspiration is to walk 10,000 steps a day. In the middle of winter, I still felt the effects of a champagne hangover from the night celebrating the end of 2020.
When they asked if I wanted to try a goal with them, I answered yes with uncommit. After all, the city of New York was about to freeze, and the idea of hanging out for hours outside didn’t sound appealing, whatever the health benefits.
But at first glance at the Health app on the iPhone, I was a little motivated. From the built-in pedometer, we found that as a result of the lockdown and work at home, we walked an average of 5,361 steps a day in 2020. Pandemic.
From January to February, I made several half-hearted attempts to reach my 10,000-step goal. At times, I wondered how enthusiastic my friends were in their daily exercise. Going for a daily walk was one thing, but walking for the time needed to fill the numbers, especially after working a day on my couch, seemed incredibly daunting.
By March, I gave it up altogether. The daily exercise was nothing more than a trip to a grocery store, or in some cases nothing at all.
But in August two things changed. I met a friend for the first time in a few months, at which point I witnessed a weight loss of 50 pounds in person and set foot on the scale for the first time in a year.
It may be superficial to admit that my motivation was caused by changes in my appearance as a result of more than a year in various blockages, but it makes my lifestyle It was a push needed to change.
On August 9th, I finished my first official walking day with 10,200 steps. At that point, I immediately suffered a severe migraine and lay down. The second day didn’t change either. I urged me to think whether my body was simply not interested in walking that far, or whether the throbbing steps of the pavement somehow caused my headache.
A year of non-exercise means that walking 5 miles in the heat of August did not take into account the impact on hydration levels.
With increased water intake, when it comes to health and fitness goals, walking 10,000 steps a day can actually be a realistic and achievable goal for those who were previously less interested in exercise. understood. ..
From a noticeable improvement in mental health to a weight loss of 15 pounds, this is what I experienced during the five months I walked 10,000 steps a day.
I didn’t set out on my goals with a focus on improving mental health, but it didn’t take long for exercise to have a positive effect on my general thinking.
It may not have been immediately apparent, but the prolonged pandemic made me feel isolated from the outside world, like many others.
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When I went out and started walking every day, I saw him slowly coming back and remembered that I had missed it in a busy city.
Fresh or fresh air for New York City, and the chance to be outdoors also had a positive impact on my mental health. The walk opened up opportunities to connect with friends and family. Long phone calls during these long hours.
Now, every day at 5:45 pm, when I call my contact, I get the greeting “Are you walking?”
The positive psychological effects of exercise were new to me, but given that I have preferred a sedentary lifestyle for the past 27 years, the effects are well documented by researchers.
According to a 2011 study on the link between physical activity and mental health, exercise at all levels is associated with better mental and physical health. I usually try to maintain a stable speed of 3.2 mph, but there are days when I celebrate achieving my goal.
A recent study by Harvard TH Chan Public Health School also found that physical activity is a useful way to prevent depression. Researchers have stated that “more physical activity seems to prevent the onset of depression” and “15 minutes of heart-stimulating activity, such as running, or 1 hour of moderately active activity.” Is sufficient to produce an average increase in accelerometer data associated with a reduced risk of depression.
Exercise was also a reliable stress reliever, as I found that I spent much less time falling asleep as a result of physical exercise fatigue.
In addition to improving mental health, walking has had a significant impact on my appearance over the past five months, with significantly thinner legs and arms and a reduced appearance of cellulite on my thighs.
A month after I started my daily walk, I was really shocked to lose 6 pounds when I first stepped into the scale. Since I started walking in August, I’ve lost a total of £ 15. This is a goal that we were able to achieve without making major changes to our diet.
Interestingly, my experience contradicts the 2020 study. In this study, walking 10,000 steps a day cannot prevent weight gain, and tracking the number of steps “does not maintain or prevent weight gain.”
At the time, researchers suggested that the findings show that “exercise is not the only effective way to lose weight.”
There was also an invisible change in physical health from walking as it became easier to reach daily goals and perform thousands of additional steps without straining the body. Walking uphill, which would have been out of breath in July, is now not as difficult as walking on Fifth Avenue.
According to previous studies, this exercise also has the additional benefit of improving my overall health. A 2020 study found that taking 8,000 to 12,000 steps a day reduced the risk of dying for some reason.
A 2019 study found that among older women, women who walked 4,400 steps a day had a lower mortality rate than women who walked less often.
However, general health and weight loss theory suggests that you should strive to take 10,000 steps a day, but in reality 10,000 are Japanese in the 1960s to sell pedometers. Any number considered selected by the watch company.
But despite the origin of the consumer, this number has been a useful goal for me for the past five months as I embarked on a journey to improve my health.
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This article was originally published in January 2022
