How to walk 10000 Steps a Day! Fitness made easy with Fitbit One. #FitbitOne

The average Amerian woman walks about 5000 steps a day. Do you know how many steps you walk? I found this information quite interesting. They say to improve your health and fitness, you need to increase your steps by about 2000-3000 steps a day. The optimal is reaching 10000 steps a day! That is approximately 5 miles. Now I’m not big on heavy exercise, but I do great at walking. So I thought this should be no problem! I was surprised it took a bit more effort than I originally thought. I was walking a lot less than I thought I was. Now a month later,  I’ve done my research and I’m excited to share with you how you can reach 10000 steps a day and easily improve your health too!

 

Why 10000 steps a day?

So you may be asking, “Why 10000 steps a day? Who came up with that number?” Well, 10000 steps is approximately 5 miles. It originally began in Japan when they used the term 10000 steps to help sell pedometers. Ok, so why do we still use the 10000 steps a day as a health goal when it originated as a ploy to sell products?

The simple answer is because it is now backed by science and medicine! The American Heart Association uses the 10000 steps metric as a guideline to follow for improving health and decreasing risk of heart disease. The Surgeon General recommends 30 minutes of activity most days of the week  and 10000 steps a day is a rough equivalent of such. And since the average American woman really only walks 4000-5000 steps a day; increasing to 10000 steps a day would significantly improve their quality of health.

It’s been shown that those who have increased to 10000 steps a day have a lower BMI, reduced waist size, increased energy, and less risk for Type II diabetes and heart disease.

For me, the 10000 steps a day is a program I can easily incorporate into my lifestyle. A typical 20-30 minute exercise routine  is really hard to fit into my busy schedule. I don’t have hours set aside each day to change into workout clothes, drive to the gym, find a babysitter, shower afterwards, get dressed again, style my hair…again! Pick up the kids, and drive home. You can see how normal exercise routines take up a lot more time than just the 20-30 minutes of the exercise. And while they are fantastic and many women do it and love it; it’s just not for me on a daily basis. 

Yes, I could get up extra early before the kids wake up. But let’s be blatantly honest here. I could say I will do that all I want, but will it actually happen? Shamefully no. I’m just not that motivated to actually pull out of the bed before my children get up each morning. In this household I’d have to get up about 4:00 AM to get in a good workout, shower and dressed before they get up. Not happening for me.

How Fitbit one helps you reach 10000 steps a day!

Every single site I’ve found says the same thing. You need a good quality pedometer as the first step in getting started on the 10000 steps a day challenge. And I do emphasize the word quality! Not all pedometers are equal. Many are very inaccurate. I have had multiple pedometers over the years. And they have all been a flop. I even got a special fancy $60 watch that was supposed to track my steps. All of them were so bad!

Let me just say, when you walk from one end of your house to the other, up and down three flights of stairs, to the mailbox and back and the device only records 10 steps the entire time and 0 stairs, there is something wrong with that!

And then I tried the fitbit one! The fitbit one is the best pedometer tracker I have ever used! It beats out all other pedometers by far! It is far more reliable and accurate in its measurements and has a lot more uses! Talking about accuracy; don’t worry, we tested that out. After so many flop pedometers, that was the first thing we tested. I recorded the number, took steps and checked again and it recorded every single step. The Husband got into this testing and we gave it a real run through. It still counted each step we tested! Weeks later, it is still catching every step! I love it!

The fitbit one comes with the pedometer, a belt clip, a wristband for nighttime wearing, a USB charger and a USB dongle.

Setup took less than 10 minutes, and that includes creating my online account. Then simply insert the Fitbit one into the belt clip and wear it all day long. It can be worn on your pants pocket, belt, or even clipped onto your bra if you don’t have pockets. It is easy to hide under dresses! Yes, I wear it just about 24/7 and no one notices! But I’m still able to track my results from the day. I only take it off to change clothes, shower, and to charge.

It is rechargeable too! So no need for expensive batteries! And the charge lasts 5-7 days! For me I usually only have to charge it once a week. It takes about 2 hours to fully charge from near dead. So I charge it up on Sundays which is the day I’m most immobile. Once it’s recharged, I clip it back on and I’m good for another week.

The Fitbit one tracks my steps, calories burned, stairs climbed, the time, distance I’ve walked, and my active score! It also tracks my sleep! Yep, at night I put it into the sleeper band, hold the button down and it starts a timer to track my sleep. It records the length of my sleep but it can also record my activity while I sleep thus letting me know the quality of my sleep too. How cool is that?

Oh did I mention the Fitbit one is a wireless activity tracker? It records your information and each time you come within range of the UBS dongle, it syncs wirelessly to your online account and records it all for you! No need to manually input all your daily numbers! I absolutely love that feature! It makes it all so easy to keep track of my progress. I just leave the dongle plugged into my laptop all day.

Then as I walk past, it records it all for me. It can also sync to your iPhone 4S, iPhone 5 and even select Android devices! You can check your account daily and see your progress. You can also track your food intake, so you can see if your calories burned and calories consumed add up to the goals you have set for yourself. You can even track your weight loss journey!

 

Don’t mind my sad numbers above. I took screen shots first thing in the morning. Another cool feature is you get to earn little badges as you accomplish milestones. They are just little moments to celebrate. We all know little changes and little rewards make all the difference! Celebrate every improvement! It helps keep you going!

Really Fitbit One is my ideal pedometer to help get me started on this 10000 steps a day challenge. I quickly learned my steps a day fall far too close to the average and I need to improve! I always thought I walked a lot more than that. I mean, Sheesh, I’m exhausted at the end of the day, I have to be doing a lot right? Boy was I surprised to see my number so low. I think you will be shocked as well!

It is great to have such easy access to my day’s progress and I can see how close I come to my daily goals. But if you are part of the average, jumping up to 10000 steps a day is quite a feat and not something you can’t just flip a switch and get it to happen. Sometimes you have to work up to it.

How to easily increase to 10000 steps a day.

If you are around the average number of steps a day, you may take some days to adjust and work up to get in 10000 steps a day. And here are some great tips and suggestions on how to increase your daily steps until you reach 10000 steps a day!

• Start Small. Don’t expect to reach 10000 in a single day from such a lower starting point. Make small weekly goals. Plan to increase your daily steps by 1000-2000 each week until you reach 10000 a day. 
• Take stairs instead of the elevator
• Park farther away from the entrance at any store or business.
• Take a walk with your spouse or best friend.
• Walk the dog if you have one. Or walk the kids!
• Take the long way around. When I go shopping, I do a little extra walking, by walking around the entire perimeter of the store as I go shopping.
• Get up to change the channel, hide the remote controls or leave them next to the TV.
• Go window shopping
• Walk to the store if possible.
• Visit people in person (walk over to them) instead of through text, email, online communication, etc.
• Stop every 45 minutes of computer work and take a 5 minute stroll around the office area or even duck outside briefly.
• Wash your dishes by hand instead of adding them to the dishwasher. Step from side to side as you do so, adding more movement to your day.
• Get people on board with your 10000 steps a day challenge and plan walking parties.
• Pace! Pace around your house.
• Walk or jog in place while watching your favorite TV shows.
• Get a mini trampoline (often times found very inexpensive at thrift stores) and use them to “bounce/walk” in place while watching TV.

For more info about starting your own 10000 steps a day you can visit the Walking Site, and Wikihow 10,000 steps a day.

For more information about quality pedometers, and weight tracking devices, be sure to visit Fitbit! You can purchase directly from their site or from Amazon.

 How do you track your 10000 steps a day?

How can Fitbit one help you achieve your 10000 steps a day?

 

 

Products were received as part of a promotional program with Fitbit and MomSelect, however all opinions are 100% my own.