Should You Be Tracking Your Steps?

Tracking Your Walking Steps Ideas To Help You Move More

When it comes to walking more, the idea of walking a certain number of steps every day is bound to come up. This is not a magical number – it originated as an idea from Dr. I-Min Lee, who is an associate epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and is also a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. However, you can track steps even if you aren’t going for a specific number, but out of curiosity, and just to encourage yourself to walk a little more each day.

“I love walking because it clears your mind, enriches the soul, takes away stress and opens up your eyes to a whole new world .” – Claudette Dudley 
 
​Become Aware of Your Activity During the Day
 
The main reason to use a fitness tracker to track your steps is so you are more aware of how much walking you are actually doing. You do so much more than just the steps you take during a walking fitness routine.
 
When you first start using a fitness tracker, all you really need to do is become aware of what your daily activity is. Don’t start a challenge right away or set a goal, and instead just wear it for a week or two, and see what your steps are.
 
You can then use this to determine where your main goals should be set, and whether or not adding in a walking routine is going to be best for you.
  
Fitness Trackers Come with Reminders to Move More
 
Another unique benefit of tracking your steps is that you probably also have reminders to keep moving more throughout the day. Both Fitbit and Apple Watches include this function, and some other brands may also come with the option.
 
The fitness tracker is going to send you alerts that vibrate the tracker on your wrist if you haven’t gotten up and walked in a while, or moved, or done any exercise. This doesn’t mean you have to get up right away, but it is another good indication of how much activity you are getting throughout the day.

Walking Challenges with Friends – Move More

Do you find that you tend to lose your motivation pretty fast when starting something new? Put the fire back into your routine by having challenges with friends. Many fitness trackers that track your steps also have a community feature built in, where you can add your friends, and have challenges with them.

Most of these are based on steps, as opposed to minutes walking, which can be another great way to look at your walking routine.

I walked over 3 Million steps in 2017. Using my phone’s fitness tracker, I was able to do this exact thing. I connected with a couple of friends and we were able to challenge each other to get to the goal of 200,000 steps per months. It was an awesome experience and I would highly recommend it if you are starting a walking program to help keep you on track every day.

Tracking your steps offers some unique advantages to just tracking how far or how long you walk. It is a great way to track your progress, set goals and challenges, keep up your motivation, and become much more aware of the activity you get throughout the day.

Enjoy the practice of moving more and remember that a walking challenge with friends might keep you moving more and having more fun with your friends.

Share your thoughts and ideas about walking challenges below. 

Be sure to get in touch with us if you have questions or if we can help you. 

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