Walking is a simple method of increasing physical activity and is not limited by location. Twelve thousand steps equals 6 miles. If you weigh 125 pounds and build up your steps, walk at a pace of 4 miles per hour, you'll burn a total of 408 calories, and if you run at a pace of 5 miles per hour to take those steps, you'll burn 576 calories. And if you weigh 185 pounds, you'll burn 600 calories when walking and 852 calories when running.
Tudor-Locke reports that a goal of 10,000 steps per day is a good starting point. For healthy and sustainable results, you should aim to lose no more than 1 to 2 pounds per week. Walking 10,000 steps a day for a week burns approximately enough calories to melt a pound of fat. Other studies have again looked at the benefits of counting higher steps, to be clear, many of these did not compare with the benefits of fewer or more steps, making it impossible to say if the same results would occur in other step counts.
To meet these goals, you would need to increase your number of steps with another 3,000 to 6,000 steps, bringing the total to up to 15,000 steps per day. Another study found that, over a five-year period, participants who had higher step counts at the end of the study had lower body mass indices, lower waist-hip ratios, and better insulin sensitivity than at the beginning (participants had greater improvements by increasing 1000 daily steps). This is one of the few studies that has compared the results of lower step counts versus higher step counts, and found greater benefits from walking more. A recently published study by 4,840 people published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that people who walk more than 12,000 steps a day die at a much slower rate than those who only walk fewer than 4,000 steps.
One study showed that participants who reached 7500 steps or more were less likely to report poor sleep, while those who reached 5000 steps or less were more likely to report poor sleep. The recommended number of pedometer steps per day for boys 6-12 years old is 12,000 for girls and 15,000 for boys. For example, if a study only looks at the benefits of 10,000 steps and doesn't compare them to other step counts, research can't conclude how much better 10,000 steps are for a specific health outcome. While you may want to take 12,000 steps a day, you should use some of those steps to meet daily activity recommendations set by the Center for Disease Control and Protection.
