It’s almost a cliche now that walking 10,000 steps a day will do wonders for your health and waistline. I was stunned to recently discover this wasn’t based on extensive medical research at the time but was a business concept used to promote and sell Japanese pedometers. Even more stunning was the discovery that 10000 steps may be ok to maintain good health but you need to do nearer to 17000 steps a day to achieve a decent rate of weight loss. Blimey.

10000 steps a day apparently equates to around 5 miles – I seem to average 7000 steps in 3 miles (can’t quite work out whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing) so a 2 hour walk should amount to 140000 steps. However, that’s 14000 continuous steps which is, apparently, even more beneficial than spreading the exercise out over the day. Whatever. I’ve found it too easy to get obsessed by counting steps in the past, to the point where I’ve given up any intention of doing any exercise because I’ve forgotten to hook the pedometer on the second I got out of bed.  Counting steps on a hill walk is a bit of a waste of time too I find as it really doesn’t reflect the effort in climbing a bugger of a steep hill or negotiating a boggy field.

Having said that, I do have a fantastic pedometer which I love as it’s wonderfully accurate and user friendly. I’ll use it to measure how many steps I’m taking on a ‘flat’ walk on the first day of every month. That way I can see whether my pace is improving as the weight (hopefully) drops off.