The AARP Bulletin turned to Upstate’s chief of geriatrics, Sharon Brangman MD for a story about the importance of walking called “The Only Exercise You’ll Ever Need.” The article says walking may be the single best and easiest exercise you can do to improve your health this year. It mentions the benefits of protecting the brain against memory loss, of cutting the risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Then it quotes Brangman about how to get started.
“Don’t set a really large goal. Set a small one first, like walking one block. Then gradually add on to that.”
Brangman goes on to tell the publication: “I’ve had women in their 70s who tell me they feel sluggish and can’t lose weight even though they eat like a bird.” Once they start walking daily, “they sleep better, feel better and even lose some weight. One woman told me, ‘I don’t know why I didn’t do this before.’ “
Read the article in the January-February AARP Bulletin
Can you clarify what seems to be a miscalculation in the article? The article talks about gradually increasing the duration of our walk to 30 minutes, 5 days a week. That sounds right, until you bump that number up against the pedometer requirement. That says that 5,000 or fewer steps per day is considered sedentary, while 10,000 steps is considered active. I ordinarily walk 2-3 miles a day, which I thought was pretty good. It takes about 30 to 45 minutes to cover that distance. However, when you check with the pedometer, you get readings of 3,500 to 5,270 steps. So in checking, it seems that the average stride is about 36 – 37 inches. So I did a little quick math. There are 1760 yards in a mile. Each yard would be equal to approximately one step. So it sounds like a 3 mile walk each day is minimal, and that we should all increase that to 6 miles. Can that be right?
Hi Joe, thanks for reading! Dr. Brangman was one of several experts quoted in the article from the AARP Bulletin. Their staff would be best for answering questions about the article itself. Certainly there are multiple ways to measure walking, by time spent walking or by distance covered. As a runner, I know treadmills and elliptical machines vary tremendously from machine to machine, so I imagine pedometers are the same. One elliptical machine at the Y where I work out always tells me I’ve run further and faster than has been possible for me outside on a track. I know it’s not 100 percent accurate — but I like exercising on that particular machine the best!!