Science Says You Don’t Need 10k Steps a Day to Be Healthy

The magic number has been found. One of the biggest questions I had when I first got my apple watch, was how many steps do I need to take a day to lose weight and get super healthy. I had always heard that 9,000 steps were essential to losing weight and staying healthy, turns out my number was way off. You're telling me that those countless hours spent at Brownlee Park were for nothing?

According to a researcher from Harvard we don't need to be hustling so hard to try and get to 15,00 steps. A study was conducted on 17,000 older women. The average age of these lively walkers was 72. Perhaps all the ladies that you see walking up and down the mall or all over the park were a part of this research.

The women who took about 4,000 steps a day got a leg up in longevity. The women who on average took 4,400 steps a day ended up being 40% less likely to die in the next 4 years when they were compared with the group of women who only took 2,700 steps per day.

The biggest surprise of all, after you take 7,500 steps you can just stop. Women who walked more than 7,500 steps per day didn't get the leg up in longevity that they expected. Even if a person took 16,000 steps a day, they have no added benefits or longevity compared to the 7,500. You know what this means right? Once that Fitbit or Apple watch hits 7,500 you can take a rest and call it a day from chasing those fitness goals.