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When Sonia Anderson got her first Fitbit follow-up, her poor dog Bronx had no idea of all the steps ahead. The device – which counts every step that Anderson does and displays these steps on an app – was a Christmas present from his daughter two years ago.
At the time, Bronx, a Yorkshire terrier, was younger and could still take additional walks along the large apartment complex in Alexandria, Virginia, where Anderson lives. Anderson's mission was to walk 10,000 steps a day.
More recently, when the Bronx reached the age of 13, the dog began to pause during these long hikes as if to ask: What's going on here? Like many other people aged 50 and older, Anderson, 63, was requisitioned by the craze for foot followers that began about a decade ago, and his dog is a reluctant victim.
Anderson has earned $ 26 billion in the global footstep industry and matches his life to 43-year-old friend Landy Sorensen wearing Fitbit clothing. every Friday morning volunteering at the food bank. Now, they are diligently counting each other's footsteps on their real-time mobile phone apps – and arguing to record one step closer than the other.
"My Fitbit made me a friend I would never have had," Anderson said.
This could also help him live longer, according to a recent study from Harvard University published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study found that in older women, as little as 4,400 steps a day helped reduce mortality rates. The study found that, with more steps per day, mortality rates declined before stabilizing at 7,500 steps.
In other words, the magic number of 10,000 steps per day that so many wearers of these devices – from Fitbits to Garmins, Samsung and Apple Watches – can be about 2,500 more than necessary.
To tell the truth, even the woman behind the study – who admits that she too is in love with her step follower – can not say how many steps are the correct number for each walker.
"No single solution is right for everyone," said I-Min Lee, an badociate epidemiologist with Brigham and Women's Boston Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School.
But no matter how many steps you do, the simple fact of wearing and using a fitness tracker – especially for older women, older men and other people who tend to be somewhat inactive – "can be beneficial not only for your health, but also for your quality of life," Lee said.
Of course, some go above and beyond their goals with their followers – and proudly publish their most unusual stats on social media sites such as Reddit. Like the vegan fitness buff who has posted a video recording 50,000 steps a day for five days. And the storekeeper who said he did 20,000 steps a day at work. And there is also the guy who credits his Fitbit for helping him slim down from his 40-inch waist to a slim 34-inch.
Mileage per point is even popular with workers who work at the stopwatch. The C-SPAN network, for example, organized a one-month walking challenge sponsored by its health insurance plan, Cigna. The competition between C-SPAN departments, which ended on July 3, totaled nearly 23 million steps, followed by 74 participants from 12 teams, or about 9,966 steps per day and per person, said the door. Howard Mortman. Specifically, he said, this represents a total of 1,028,805 calories burned and 294 pounds lost. (For the record, the digital media team of the cable network won.)
For Anderson and Sorensen, fitness monitoring has created a special connection – and a way to stay close to each other. Like the day we noticed that Anderson had suddenly doubled his pace. She immediately texted him and discovered that Anderson was on vacation in Europe and that his visits had doubled his number of daily visits. On another occasion, when Anderson noticed that she had barely registered 2,000 steps, she sent a worried message asking, "Are you okay?"
"I thought it was so nice of him to watch me," said Sorensen, who said the problem was actually a battery problem. "It's the kind of connection I would not have otherwise."
Sorensen averages about 15,000 steps a day, about five to seven miles, and often confines his first-generation Fitbit to a specially designed gold bracelet. So people can not even see it wearing it. When she wears this bracelet for official business, no one suspects she is following in her footsteps, she said.
Harvard & # 39; s Lee said that she was first interested in wearable devices five years ago during a workplace program to promote lifestyles. healthy for doctors. Lee received a free device – she prefers not to make the brand known – and she was asked to form a team of walkers. Lee, 59, is reluctant to discuss her number of steps, because she thinks that simply doing regular exercise is much more important than the sum of steps. But after a bit of hugging, she said that she was doing an average of 15,000 steps a day.
Studies show that 150 minutes of moderate physical activity, such as walking, can reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke, improve sleep, help reduce weight gain and improve health. bone.
Maybe nobody knows it better than Tom Holland.
An exercise physiologist and sports nutritionist, he regularly participated in the program "Good Morning America" as a physical trainer. He has also worked as a personal trainer with thousands of clients – many of whom use step-by-step follow-ups. He is a big fan of fitness trackers because they make people move.
"The fitness monitor is the first step in getting people out of the couch," he said. At the same time, he is discouraged by the highly distorted daily goal of 10,000 steps, which he describes as arbitrary.
"We need real numbers," he said. Holland, who has just turned 50, prefers to recommend small amounts of exercise, not big feats like 10,000 steps. "I am a strong supporter of excessive moderation, do not do a little, do a little bit."
Unless, of course, that implies itself.
Like the more than 70,000 marches he has traveled recently, he has managed to cross a 50-kilometer track. Because Holland is also a triathlete, he uses not only a Fitbit from time to time but also sometimes slaps with "smart" sunglbades, t-shirts or shorts that follow the fitness data. Most often, however, he uses a Garmin fitness follower who measures his pace, sleep patterns, and heart rate.
"I'm not an addict," he says jokingly, "but if you see me fainting on the side of the road, check my tracker, please."
As for the Bronx, Anderson's little dog, he sometimes has the added interest of taking these walks. From time to time, Anderson brings the English bulldog of his daughter, Winston, named after the British statesman Winston Churchill. Perhaps, in a blink of an eye cosmic to future detectors of any kind, it's Churchill who best expressed it: "I never care about the action , but only inaction. "
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