FitBit, Apple Watch, Garmin, Suunto, Polar. They can all track your steps (and many other things) when you wear them every minute of the day.
While the most common step goal and the default setting for most of these wearables is 10,000 steps, it's worth asking 'Is this a worthwhile goal and will it set you up for a good start on your weight loss journey?'
If you're new to wearing a fitness tracker, one of the first things you might notice is that you probably don’t move as often as you think. 10,000 steps seems like a lot....It's eight kilometers over 24 hours and if you work in an office all day, it can be hard to achieve.
However, if you do reach 10k worth of steps in a day, that’s approximately 500 calories burned, which adds up to 3,500 over the week!
So how do you do step up your movement? Most trackers have different settings such as an hourly alert at 10 minutes to the hour if you haven’t recorded 250 steps yet. That will prompt you to get up and do a lap of the office to get those steps in. Doing that also encourages blood flow and gives your eyes a rest if you work on a computer.
Even if you haven’t set up challenges with your friends, you can compete with yourself from day-to-day and week-to-week. For some people, making movement into a competition can be motivating. If you're consistently short of your 10,000-step goal, you could park further away from the office, try taking the stairs, or even do some chores around the house just to get a few hundred more steps.
Wearables also track active minutes and will let you know how often your heart rate reached an active level over the course of the day. You may have logged 10,000 steps, but if you didn’t get any active minutes, that might prompt you to do some light cardio or a long walk after dinner.
Trust me, if you're getting ready for bed and you’re at 9,500 steps, you’ll be tempted to lap your entire house to get those 500 steps to keep your perfect 10k week going, especially if you’re trying to stay ahead of your significant other in the step standings.
Fitness trackers can be an excellent way to kick start healthy habits and could be a good way to get started on a weight loss journey. You’ll be more aware of how much you move (or don’t move) in a day. You'll start to notice how much time you spend at your desk and just how many steps a walk with your dog typically racks up.
Once you have your movement in track, it becomes easier to make other healthy decisions, like cooking nutritious meals and prepping your lunches at home before the work week starts. On its own, 10,000 daily steps won’t get you to your goal, but it will certainly get you walking down the right path!