What happens to your body if you start walking 10,000 steps a day?

The expert of “Championship” wellness coach Andrei Semeshov shares his knowledge about what the love of regular walks leads to.

“When asking me about how to get in shape, everyone without exception hears the same advice: “Start walking”. Of course, not just anywhere, but a certain number of steps every day. Preferably 12,000.

What’s the point?

This figure, in fact, is taken from the same “ceiling” as the canonical 10 thousand steps, which by default are crammed into almost all pedometers. The very first mass device was released in the 60s of last century in Japan and was called, in translation, “10 thousand steps meter” – manpo-kei.

The essence then and now has not changed. To help us get off the couch and pay attention to how little we move. Today, everyone has smartphones with them all the time, in which, in most cases, at a basic level, this very manpo-kei is built in. From personal practice: when we talk about weight concerns, I ask to open the program and see the average number of steps for the week or month. Firstly, many people are surprised to learn about this function, and secondly, it is rare to see figures of more than 3-4 thousand steps per day.

In the anatomy textbook edited by Ivanitsky (a well-known book in certain circles, not the Bible, of course, but somewhere near) many, many years ago it was written: “Human movements have not only qualitative, but also quantitative characteristics. The organism for its normal(key word. – Editor’s note) functioning needs a certain amount (quantity) of movements”. Further in passing about “motor hunger” and hypokinesia disease. And finally, “the volume of movement is usually estimated by the number of steps”.

What happens if you start taking 10,000 steps a day?

So the answer to the question of what exactly will happen to your body if you suddenly start to regularly “walk” a certain norm of 10 thousand steps will be simple: nothing special will happen to it, it will just finally start to function normally. The way nature designed it.

Imagine that your body is a car with a bunch of different units and assemblies. And it turns out that some of these parts are regularly used, and the rest of them have been idle for years or decades. Surely the automobile as a whole from such an imbalance will not be healthy. This is exactly what happens to our body when we do not get even such a minimum of regular activity as a simple walking. And it can manifest itself in dozens of different ways – from migraines to varicose veins. And yes, overweight, too. There’s a direct connection here. We don’t move enough, so we don’t expend enough calories. And we eat those calories, most likely, with a reserve.

So yes – by taking a certain number of steps every day, you will bring yourself closer to the ideal body literally with every step. But in order to do this, you need, of course, to establish the issue with nutrition as well.

Balance: nutrition and physical activity

But even with a puff of “Sverdlovskaya” in one hand and a bag of chips in the other, your daily walks will not turn out to be an empty (or even worse – dangerous, as some popular nowadays types of physical activity) waste of time. To a greater or lesser extent, there will be benefits. Well, or will be at least the norm.

And why do I ask to walk not 10 thousand steps, but 12 thousand? Just practice has shown that 10 thousand everyone starts to “walk” quite quickly during the day, just going to the stop earlier or not pressing the elevator button every time. And these additional 2 thousand often turn out to be the very line that separates those who just “play in ZOZH and PP” and who really is very time and need to take and bring themselves back to normal. Including in the physical plan.

Do not miss a day

I suggest you don’t believe a word I say, but try walking for exactly one month. Every day, without missing a day even for the most valid reasons. As a good friend of mine, who successfully “nashagal” himself a figure of fitness standards, wrote: “A lot of things change in your head. Just at some point you realize that in fact you always have a choice! If it’s raining outside, you can choose whether to take an umbrella or a raincoat.”

Walking or running?

And there is often a question: “Can I replace walking with running? I’m faster to run the daily norm of steps”. Yes, you can, of course. But honestly: who would risk signing up to run EVERY day, say, for six months? And it’s much more realistic to reach your daily step count for the same period of time. Yes, it’s not always easy. But no one promised that it would be easy.