10,000 steps a day

How many steps do you take each day? Most people don't know the answer to this question, of course, because few of us take the time to count our steps on a daily basis. But this is a great reason to pick up a pedometer and find out.

I've been wearing a pedometer for about a week, now, and I'm surprised to find how, without even meaning to, I'm competing with myself to walk more than I would otherwise: If, toward the end of the day, I'm close to a big round number -- say I have 8,500 steps -- I'm motivated to try to round it out to 9,000 by walking around the house more in the evening, or even to get to 10,000 by going out for a little walk in my neighborhood.

The recommended number of steps a person should get per day is 10,000. Because I live in the city and don't have a car, I walk a lot, so I find that in the course of my average day, walking from my house to the T, the T to my office, around my office during the day and then back home, I get around 4,000 steps. By taking a short midmorning and midafternoon break to walk around my neighborhood for about 10 minutes each time, I push it up to 6,500. A single long walk at some point in the day then gets me over 10,000.

But I'm lucky, because my baseline amount of walking is pretty high. What if you don't walk so much? Get yourself a pedometer and find out how much you do walk during the day. It may be more or less than you think. Then, set yourself a goal of increasing it by a certain amount each day. Say you walk an average of 3,000 steps a day when you're gathering your baseline data. The next week, you can aim to walk 4,000 a day, and then 5,000 each day the week after that.

Little increases in walking really do add up. We've all heard the suggestion that we park farther from the entrance to stores. Try also going to the coffee shop that's slightly further from your office, or instead of going to the nearest restroom in your office, find one that's on another floor or takes a bit longer to walk to. Walk around while you sip your afternoon coffee, pace while you talk on the phone...

What are some of your favorite ways to slip a few more steps into your day?