Walk exactly 3,967 steps in a day

In a sharp change in subject matter from the past few blogs, I want to share with you a headline from today's issue of the online Guardian newspaper: Why I tried to walk exactly 3,967 steps in a day. If 3,967 steps a day seems precise, that is because it is. A study published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology this week found it was the exact number at which the risk of dying from any cause started to reduce. Researchers found as few as 2,337 steps a day started to lessen the risk of dying from cardiovascular diseases. 

I won't quote the entire article but to me it is very funny. Naturally, people working from home don't walk very much, and with the current heatwave, one wants to be outside as little as possible. But it's all in the mind: once one finds oneself walking a little, it becomes very easy to walk a little more and then a little more (see One small step can change your life by Robert Maurer, PhD).

My answer to these people: get a dog! Without trying, you should be able to reach 6,000 steps a day as you walk the dog twice a day. I work at walking, with or without the dog, so reaching 12,000 steps a day is far from impossible. On Friday I walked 12,967 steps (probably a few more went unmeasured) and by 9:30 am this morning I had already walked 6,300 steps. I have band practice again this evening, so that's another 2,500 steps, leaving 3,700 steps in order to reach my daily target: that's another slightly extended dog walk.

One of my hypotheses as regarding the cause of my calf muscle pains is that my shoes aren't giving me a sufficient cushion, so I am going to change my walking shoes. When I bought this pair - after the first lockdown in June 2020 - I bought another pair exactly the same, so all I have to do is go the cupboard and find that second pair. I also intend to replace the shoes that I bought in Bari last year; the same story of two identical pairs. Hopefully this will make a difference.