10,000 steps a day is hard!

The S Health app on my new Galaxy S5 includes a pedometer, and as seems to be typical for pedometers, it sets a default "goal" of 10,000 steps per day. Apparently, the 10,000 steps idea originated as a marketing pitch in Japan, though it does seem to correlate (not surprisingly) with some good health markers.

I've been using the pedometer for close to a week now, and it isn't easy racking up 10,000 steps if you don't count running.

Saturday (7/26), 7269 steps: Walked to lunch; went to an indoor sporting event and walked around the stadium at half time.

Sunday (7/27), 11942 steps: Ran 3.3 miles outdoors, which accounted for about 5000 of the steps. Without running, this would've been just under 7000 steps.

Monday (7/28): 29738 steps: This included a 13.7 mile run. Without that, it would've been another day around 7000 steps.

Tuesday (7/29), 4565 steps: Running was done on a treadmill without my phone, so this is the pure number of walking steps.

Wednesday (7/30), 9660 steps: Again, running was done on a treadmill without my phone. No particularly extensive walking trips other than taking the kids to summer daycare (about 0.6 miles round-trip), just a lot of chores around the house.

Thursday (7/31, as of early afternoon), just under 4000 steps: About 1000 of those "steps" came when I was on the exercise bike before I realized that the cycling motion was fooling the accelerometer on the phone.

I do live on the West Coast, and in a sprawling suburb at that, so I do less walking as a means of ordinary transportation than if I lived in one of the dense cities with little parking. It's certainly feasible for someone who relies on walking to get from place A to place B to rack up 10,000 or more steps a day easily. But if you have a white collar semi-sedentary lifestyle, it may be near impossible without incorporating running into your routine.

(One thing I am curious about is how much pacing will add to the step count. When I am teaching, I tend to pace back and forth at the front of the classroom. Classes start after Labor Day, so I will have to wait until then to find out.)

Oh, and while it has been interesting to see my number of steps taken, I haven't bothered logging the calories burned count. The effect on calorie burn of walking is pretty negligible, and anyway, I figure this is all part of NEAT.