How to get to 10,000 steps

By | February 7, 2017

I bought a fitbit recently. For those of you who don’t know me, that’s kind of a big deal. I don’t really buy things. It’s a watch that encourages you to walk 10,000 steps each day and then celebrates with you when you do it.

I love it. I’m in love with it. And no, Fitbit isn’t giving me money to tell you this. He doesn’t even know I exist. Just telling you this as a prelude for my next list.

How to walk 10,000 steps in a day

  1. Put away laundry one garment at a time.
  2. Walk during commercials of Judge Judy (or whatever you’re watching).
  3. Put away the dishes from the dishwasher one dish at a time.
  4. Set a timer for 45 minutes. Do whatever you’re doing for 45 minutes. When the timer beeps, go do 1500 or 1000 or whatever number of steps you decide beforehand. Repeat.
  5. Go out into the world and interact with it. That’s really the easiest way.
  6. Wear the pedometer. Give it a chance. This should probably be higher.
  7. Pace while waiting in line.
  8. Walk while talking on the phone.
  9. Go to the mall and play stupid games.*
  10. Challenge yourself to get as close as possible to a designated number of steps without going under. E.g. you already have 3,000 steps, don’t check it again until you’re SURE you have 4,000 steps. If you check it at 3,999 (or under) you automatically lose. The closer you are to 4,000 (like 4,001), well, the prouder of yourself you can be.
  11. Walk to your destination.
  12. Go hiking. Nature alters your brain in a good way.

Examples of stupid games to play in the mall while you’re trying to get in 10,000 steps with your buddy who is also trying to get in 10,000 steps.

  1. Spell your first name using only the first letters of the store as you see them walking by. The first one to spell their name wins.
  2. Take a look at each and every single option for a sweet treat in the mall. Analyze all of them. Decide which one you would pick. Question the sanity of the person who would choose hard candy from the gumball machines.
  3. Guess the number of places in the mall where one could get their ears pierced. Walk around and count. Whoever’s guess was closest, wins.
  4. Prognosticate over which stores will soon go out of business.
  5. Decide which kiosk sees the most traffic in the mall.
  6. Come up with a business idea for the kiosk.
  7. Don’t buy junk. That’s not a game, just me reminding you in case you’re tempted by going to the mall.

17 thoughts on “How to get to 10,000 steps

  1. Sheila

    Those mall games sound fun. How about selling toy dogs and toy dinosaurs for the kiosk?!

    Reply
  2. Harsha

    This is fantastic ! 🙂 LOL

    I have been doing the mall walk (albeit in a boring way – start from the first shop and return to the same, repeat for each floor).

    Coincidentally, heading out to the mall in half an hr… will try these out !

    Reply
    1. Thriftygal Post author

      I’m trying to think of more games I can play by myself, but it’s always more fun to play with someone else. I hope you have a buddy you’re going with!

      Reply
  3. Timex

    Really surprised that you splurged for the Fitbit. I love mine as well

    Reply
  4. shyden00

    Great ideas! I think I will come up with some neighborhood walking games. Like find cat looking out window, find 20 Toyotas, find 5 houses for sale, etc. The possibilities are endless 🙂

    Reply
    1. Thriftygal Post author

      One thing my sister and I do when we’re taking a walk in the neighborhood is to play rock, paper, scissors at every intersection. If I win, we go right. If she wins, we go left. If we tie, we go straight. 😀

      Reply
  5. Liz

    Hi Anita,

    I’ve been trying to get my dad to do 10,000 steps daily. I’ll let him know your suggestions 🙂

    Reply
  6. steve poling

    i find that starting my day on the treadmill and getting 20k steps works fairly well, but it does tend to wear out treadmills. I managed to lose 105 pounds in the year after getting the fitbit and I kept it off last year and so far this year.

    Reply
  7. Ramana

    Ohh nice!! My employer sent me one for holidays 2 years back. I hardly use it. I do have a garmin gps watch that I bought off of ebay to track my training runs for half marathon. Haven’t beem running lately as I was on vacation to India for 3 weeks. Just getting back to form. Need to signup for a spring race to keep me motivated..still chasing my sub hr half marathon goal pace(currently at 2 hrs 2mins). I heard fitbit has those group thing where you have a challenge of target steps and who comes first wins the pool funny..sounds like fun.

    Reply
  8. Classical_Liberal

    I’ve been toying with the idea in an investment in the stock (FIT). Its valuation has been tanking, but the have a low P/B, P/E and their revenue double from 2014-2015. It seems literally everyone is walking around with one of these things… and now even thriftygal buys this expensive contraption? Wow!

    Do they offer you ways to spend money once you own it, like apps or extras to pay for?

    Reply
    1. Ramana

      I am not sure about Fitbit apps but I use Map My Run app currently accquired by Under Armour. It has monthly challenges like complete 30 works outs and reach these many miles and the winner gets a 100$ under giftcard. Even if you do’t win but you did complete the challenge they give you some goodies. I got a 15-20$ online codes couple of times and some discount codes. I used to buy their compression shorts and head bands. So running basically pays for itself 🙂

      Coming to stocks, as the Oracle of Omaha Warren Buffet says invest in stocks which have a wide moat. But if you see most of the FI elites like Anita,herself invest in mutual funds specifically VTSAX or its lesser version. There was a time when I was a big Nokia , Canon fan and since I know my products I thought it was a no brainer to invest. But since Nokia didn’t want to adapt to Android and go with its Symbian version it was brutually murdered. I am not sure how this fits in here but but just saying 🙂

      Reply
  9. Mike Murphy

    You can also get free apps for your phone that track your steps. That only works if you carry your phone everywhere you go (but I can’t imagine that’s an issue for most people). It works if you have it in any pocket (I have left it in my backpack and it still reported steps but I don’t know how accurate it is).

    Reply

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