10,000 Steps A Day: What Does It Take?

Walking around my neighbourhood - March 2012

Living in Montreal means I walk... a lot.  I don't own a car and I'm lucky enough to live where I can easily walk to work.  So, when I heard that we need to walk 10,000 steps a day to maintain good health, I started to wonder what it would take for me to achieve that in my day-to-day routine.  How many steps was I walking? Earlier this month I borrowed a pedometer from a friend to find out. 

Every weekday, I try to walk both to and from work.  If I'm running late in the morning or it's a long day at the office, I only walk one way.  Unfortunately, that was not enough to achieve 10,000 steps.  Walking one way, plus normal walking around the office and to/from the metro only got me to around 7,000 steps.  Not walking to/from work at all was dismal - only around 3,500 steps.  I finally achieved the goal when I walked to and from work, plus took a short walk to have lunch with a friend.  According to Google maps, that's 5.7km (around 3.5 miles), plus whatever I walked around the office.  This is definitely inspiring me to take a break and go for a walk at lunch.

On the weekend,  I only measured my steps when I went somewhere.  Unfortunately, that usually involved taking the metro which did a great job of shaking the pedometer and inflating the count.  Still, I think a trip to Jean-Talon market was a respectable 1,500 steps because I love to wander around the entire market.  Going shopping in the underground city must be nearly double that, since I usually get lost down there.

I must say that Mother Nature was a great help with this experiment.  We had the most beautiful weather anyone could remember.  For about a week and a half we had sunshine and the temperatures rose up to 26C!  Even though it has cooled down, I am not complaining.  It was a mild winter and it's still an early Spring.  Now that I know what it takes to walk 10,000 steps a day, I will be sure to have my walking shoes/sandals on every day this summer!