Forget 500 miles, it's all about 10,000 steps a day for author Fanny Blake. Are you a slave to the NHS-recommended 10k a day? Or do you prefer to get your exercise by other means? Running around after grandchildren springs to mind...
Walking is the new jogging, especially for those of us whose knees are no longer quite the full shilling.
Whenever I can, I drive out of town and find somewhere to walk in the country, but my life has been changed since my new iPhone arrived complete with a mystery app with a heart on it. Once a friend had explained that this would monitor the number of steps I walked everyday (and lots of other things besides), I realised I’d been missing a whole dimension: that of a city walker.
On their website, the NHS explain the health benefits of walking 10,000 steps a day - 10,000 steps is the equivalent of about five miles. For someone like me who spends the day in one place, that’s an ambitious stretch to cover every day. However I decided to stop taking so many buses and start walking instead. But while I got my step level up to an impressive high, other hurdles presented themselves that I hadn’t thought about.
The first time I walked to a meeting, I turned up with blistered feet and in a muck sweat. Not a great look! For some reason, the moment I stop walking, I get incredibly hot. It’s impossible to concentrate or to feel that you’re being taken seriously when you’ve got sweat pouring down your face.
When you're not looking at your surroundings through a bus window but are part of them, you start noticing things you hadn't before.
Apart from requiring a decent pair of trainers and a bag in which to carry my other shoes, I realised the wardrobe required thought. Arriving at a meeting in Lycra or a sweaty tracksuit doesn’t exactly command confidence, so I now have to plan what I wear much more carefully - I need something I can walk and meet in, unless I want to change on arrival and lug around what I’ve worn to walk in all day.
And then there’s the time constraints. How does one fit a walk into a busy schedule? I can’t believe that pottering up and down stairs or the supermarket aisles are as beneficial as a good old brisk walk that gets the heart-rate up. As far as I’m concerned, those steps don’t really count. The solution? I now leave 30 minutes earlier to get wherever I’m going.
Walking has its own community of all types, and I’ve met some obsessives who tuck their phone in their pocket or their Fitbit into their bra all day long counting the number of steps walked that day, and comparing with others. At the moment, I’m keeping the competition limited to myself. Anything more feels too anxiety-inducing.
Are the 10,000 steps a tyranny? On a bad day I’d say so, as I rush to complete them. But despite the extras to take on board, I’m discovering huge pluses that outweigh the minuses.
There are the health benefits laid out by the NHS (above). There’s the feeling of satisfaction and the endorphin rush that comes with exercise. When you’re not looking at your surroundings through a bus window but are part of them, you start noticing things you hadn’t before. Walking costs nothing (apart from the ambidextrous wardrobe!), is easy to do, and you don’t need anyone else.
For me, perhaps the biggest benefit is the thinking time walking gives me. When I’m sitting at home writing, I often get stuck. But a brisk walk clears the cobwebs away so ideas and solutions surface from somewhere in my subconscious. I don’t pretend to understand the process, but for a writer, it’s completely invaluable.
Catching the bus? No thanks, I’d prefer to walk. Only 8,973 steps to go…
Fanny’s new book With a Friend Like You is published by Orion and is available now from Amazon.
