Change Your Health With 10,000 Steps a Day

Posted by Steven Shaffer on April 25, 2020

Can you really change your health with 10,000 steps a day? According to an overwhelming amount of research, yes you actually can. It seems so simple, almost too easy to be real. Well, consider this, for the average person, 10,000 steps is about 5 miles. Most people walk about three miles per hour, so it would take you almost two hours to get your 10,000 steps in everyday. Before you swear off ever trying to walk 10,000 steps in a single day, let’s go over how this can impact your health and then we’ll talk about how to work 10,000 steps into your daily routine.

Heart Health

It’s no secret that cardiovascular exercise is good for your health. I mean, the name basically says it all. When most people think of doing “cardio”, they tend to think about something like running, biking or swimming. However, one study found that walking 10,000 steps a day for twelve weeks lowered blood pressure in hypertensive patients and significantly increased their V02MAX(1). V02MAX is basically how much oxygen your body is able to use during strenuous exercise. This number increases when your heart can pump more blood. This is very important for people trying to increase their exercise capacity. Increasing your V02MAX allows you to work harder in other aspects of fitness, not just walking. The cool thing about this study was that it showed that the intensity and duration of walking did not have to be particularly long or strenuous. Basically, if you could string your 10,000 steps together throughout the day, you can still reap the rewards. Another study found that walking 10,000 steps a day for 15 weeks helped lower total cholesterol and post exercise heart rate(2). These are critical values to manage since they are contributors to heart disease which is the leading cause of death in the U.S(3).

Weight-Loss

Obesity is one of the main contributors to many of the leading causes of death. Many people struggle for years to find ways to not only lose the weight, but actually keep it off. One study found that people who walked 10,000 steps a day for 36 weeks showed significant improvements in weight, body fat percentage, fat mass, waist circumference, hip circumference, and HDL levels, while the sedentary group saw no change(4). More importantly, another study found that walking decreased visceral fat over a six month period(5). Visceral fat is the fat that surrounds your organs, like your heart. It is highly correlated with Hypertension, Hyperlipidemia and Type II Diabetes. These are massive issues that plague the U.S. Walking may not necessarily cure these problems but they can aid in managing them and help set you on the right track.

Make It Happen

The biggest challenge I have seen my patients face over the years is not the will to change but rather the proper plan. Having a good plan improves results and increases compliance. If you dig into the studies I wrote about, you will notice that most of them were done over a 12-36 week period. That means you should not expect to see quick results. Have discipline, stay the course and you will be successful. In order to scale your daily steps up to 10,000 a day, you first need to find out how many steps are currently walking. Most phones track your steps automatically or you could always use an app or activity tracking watch. That will give you an idea of how many steps you need to add. Once you know what your current output is, you can start increasing your daily steps. You do not need to go from where you are currently at to 10,000 steps a day in one fell swoop. What I recommend is increasing your step total by about 10% every 3-4 days. This gives you a chance to slowly ramp up your activity level without it seriously impacting your daily routine. Whenever making a lifestyle change, it helps to only change one variable at a time. If you try to walk an additional 5,000 steps a day, weight-lift 3-5 times a week and drastically change your diet all at once, it can be difficult to keep up with at first and that is where most people drop off. Start small and grow your healthy lifestyle one change at a time!