Running Club

I sure have cut down on running but often wondered if I should completely replace running with walking. My parents were big time walkers. I do not remember a day without them doing their morning walks diligently for an hour and half since I was 13 years old. Now, looking back I think it was their reconnecting time with each other, every single day. Dad was a romantic at heart and then there were all these important decisions about us children were to be discussed and decisions made!

Anyways, as I was contemplating, it must surely have been a lazy day surfing the net that brought me to these.

The first article I read was here Do you really need to take 10,000 steps a day to keep fit? which led me to another interesting article from the same site to The slow death of purposeless walking

What I found interesting was the origin of 10,000 steps and here I am wanting to share this tidbit of information that I came across (just in case you want to skip reading both the articles) -

The story begins at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. At that time, a local company created a pedometer called the
man-po-kei. “Man” stands for “10,000,” “po” stands for “step,” and “kei” stands for “meter” or “gauge.”

The story behind this is (source: Why 10,000 Steps and Not 14,323 Steps? • Pedometer Reviews - Each Step You Take )

But why the number 10,000? Why not 14,323 or 7,615? Who came up with that number and where, when and how? So I donned on my investigative reporter hat in search of the answer to its origin.

Japan, early 1960s
Back in the early 1960s in Japan a professor at the Kyushu University of Health and Welfare, Dr. Yoshiro Hatano was concerned about the rise in obesity in the Japanese population despite fitness being a part of the country’s cultural heritage. He set out to research a way to calculate the number of calories burned while exercising in order to help his countrymen become more active, thinner and healthy.

Through his research Dr. Hatano found that the average person walked 3,500 to 5,000 steps a day. It would take an increase in the amount of steps to 10,000 steps a day to burn about 20% of our caloric intake which translates to about 500 extra calories a day. Just by taking those extra steps a day would mean a overall weight loss of 50 pounds in a year!

The Rise of the Manpo-kei
The findings of Dr Yoshiro Hatano and the 1964 Tokyo Olympics brought an increased focus on the importance of daily activity for good health to the Japanese people. Soon after Dr. Hatano began selling a pedometer known as “Manpo-kei” (10,000 steps meter), which soon became extremely popular in Japan due to its simplicity and motivational effectiveness.

 

Yes @Srama
It is the Japanese alright.
Thanks for posting the information here.

 

i have read the same articles almost on same series ! iam not sure if they are pretty viral now
my parents also never fail to walk toghther ... me and dear Mr Ashima we keep running between house office and kid . no leisure walks !

 

Love the activity in this thread!!!

Thanks for sharing @Srama.

My activity over weekend:

Friday - LS walk at home
Saturday morning- body pump
Saturday evening- LS walk
Sunday morning- body step

Planning todo yoga in the evening, but right now just being couch potato after all meal prep and a heavy lunch ( ragi sangati) with 2 loads of laundry waiting for me to fold.

I am tracking my todo workouts for the upcoming week in a app



Thanks
Sravani

 

. Today

 

Walked for the week. I don’t think I can move from the bed for a while

 

Hi Ladies, Can I join in?

I do mostly walking - my target is 10K steps per day.
Started cycling since Saturday as I am planning to join a race in May.

Some accountability will help in consistency.