Step Off!!

As some of you know, me and some of our staff are working hard to drop a few pounds.  I wear a pedometer most days and really strive to meet my 10,000 steps per day goal.  So it is, I found this little article interesting.

The April 2005 issue of Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise reported that people who were told to walk 10,000 steps each day walked more than people told to take a daily brisk 30-minute walk.

The 58 middle-aged, previously inactive people in the study were randomly assigned to either accumulate 10,000 steps per day or to take a 30-minute walk on most, preferably all, days of the week. Everyone wore sealed pedometers to measure the number of steps taken. In addition, the ones told to take 10,000 steps wore a second pedometer so they could monitor their progress.

During the 4-week period, there was a significant difference in the number of steps the people took. On average, the 30-minute group walked 8,270 steps per day while the 10,000-step group walked 10,159 step per day.