I know perfectly well that those 10,000 steps the fitness trackers push is a fake goal. Know where it comes from?
Back in the sixties, a company in Japan was trying to sell pedometers. 10,000 is an auspicious number in the Japanese culture.
Boom, there’s the genesis of the 10,000-step goal right there.
It’s also fashionable lately for articles to talk about this and how 10,000 Steps isn’t a scientifically-based metric for good physical fitness.
Know what? They’re right. It’s not. It’s not based on any science at all.
Know what else?
I don’t care.
Measurable goals can be useful. I know of one person who never, and I mean never misses her daily walk of about 40 minutes (give or take). Like, never ever misses it. She doesn’t because she has a fitness tracker that gives her a measurable goal. She can see every day whether or not she took that walk.
And you know what else? Getting in well over 250 exercise minutes a week is absolutely a health benefit based on scientific research.
So yeah, those 10,000 steps are arbitrary. However, most people who make a specific effort to get in that many steps are probably taking in a few nice walks every week to hit that goal.
That, my friends, is not so arbitrary.