The Pressure of 10,000 Steps

It’s the time of year that we put pressure on ourselves to become marathon runners, yogis and professional swimmers. But often our goals are based on unachievable arbitrary figures. 10,000 steps is a marketing myth, 5ks are tough, two stone is the mythical weight loss number so many of us all aspire to. It's all bullshit, and with age has come the knowledge that I don't have to buy into any of it.

It’s the 2nd of January. How are you? No really, how are you? We’ve gotten rid of the annus horribilis that was 2020 but here we are sitting in our kitchens and living rooms looking at the same people, or the same empty rooms, we’ve been looking at for almost a year now. There is light at the end of the tunnel, there are vaccines coming and as each vulnerable sector of society becomes protected things will slowly, very slowly, return to normal. I wonder if 2021 can feel the pressure. It’s a year for hugging and loving, for travel and adventure, for sustainability and, this is a longshot, self-acceptance.

2021 may finally be the year that New Year New Me is sent packing. It’s only the second day of January and there is plenty of time left to drift into the self-loathing pattern that a new year often brings but I’m hopeful.

I found last year’s diary and its optimistic list of plans and resolutions and promises to myself. Almost all unfulfilled. But instead of feeling bad about it as I may have done in previous years, I laughed. How naïve I was, we all were.

For me, my goals were a mix of personal, professional and health-related. The same three categories that are a universal January truth the world over. But the health one is interesting, isn’t it? It’s almost always in the negative, used a way to remind us that we’re not enough. For me last year it manifested as losing my baby weight (I had not yet even had my baby) and getting fit because I’d let it slide so badly over the last few years.

In my mind, there was no gentleness attached to these goals, no kindness.

No reminder to myself that I wasn’t particularly fit because I was about to have my second baby in 20 months and even though I have just two children it was actually my sixth pregnancy overall. There hadn’t been much space for fitness as I worked my way through the quagmire of fertility.

I would walk 10,000 steps every day, I would run a 5k in 30 minutes, I would once again be 10 stone.

I did none of it. It turns out that it’s hard to start training for 5ks during a pandemic when you have two babies and very little childcare. It’s tricky to lose weight while the world is burning and all you want to do is eat crisps while Dr Tony tells you to stay at home. And even without a pandemic, it’s really hard to leave the house every day with two small children and harder still to walk 10,000 steps when all one of them wants to do is spin around until she falls over.

Anyway, where had these goals come from? Who had decided I should walk that much, eat that little or run that fast? It’s so arbitrary, isn’t it?

I remember the first time I read about the myth of 10,000 steps. I had spent a long-time watching people I know and love desperately walking in circles around their kitchens or heading out to do laps up and down their road at 10 pm so that they’d hit their daily total. Mid conversation one friend randomly stood up and walked back and forward telling me to ignore her, her watch had just reminded her to move. Forget about alien overlords, it’s evil fitness trackers that will eventually take over our planet.

It turns out that 10,000 steps was made up by a Japanese pedometer manufacturer in 1965. It’s thought that 10,000 was chosen because the Japanese character for it looks like a man walking. Like so much in our lives our fitness goals are being dictated by a decades old marketing plan.

Fitness by step counting actually levels out at about 7,500 steps and really there is a lot more at play in women’s fitness. There’s strength training for bone density, Pilates for mobility, pelvic floor exercises for the leaking that should be spoken about more and aerobic training for heart health. All a little hard to put onto a tiny watch or into a marketing plan I suppose.

This year my goals are different. 2020 showed us the things that really matter when everything else goes tits up so my list will reflect that. I’ll work on personal relationships, I’ll make sure my home is safe and cosy for my girls, I’ll find a way to be productive while I work from home without spiralling into stress.

There will still be health and fitness goals but this time they’re anchored in reality. I’m not sure if it’s being in my 40s or the last year or just a combination of the two but I’m finally comfortable enough to say no more. So there’s no goal weight, no step counting. I’m going to get fit so that I can play with my children and run from the zombie apocalypse. I’m going to get strong so I can withstand another pandemic or fight off the evil smartwatches when they rise up against us. I’m going to increase my stamina so that when we’re all eventually vaccinated and can leave our homes again I can dance for six hours with my friends. I want to flail wildly around to the music of my youth, I want to compliment and hug strangers in the loo and I want to do shots of Patron café at the bar without worrying if the glasses have been sterilised.

These are the fitness goals that I’m into for 2021. Health, strength and stamina for playing, dancing and outrunning whatever is thrown at us next.

Jennifer Stevens, January, 2021