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Comment by kerblang | Hacker News Reader

How far is 7k steps for an adult, roughly? 2km?

Edit: From what I'm reading, about 4-6km, or 2.5-3.75 miles. That's a pretty decent walk. Guess I gotta do more.

I think it's much more than that - around 5-6km. But take into consideration all the steps you do at home or office just walking around. You don't just need to walk on purpose.

It's not about the steps. If you take 7k steps waking to and from your desk all day it's not really that helpful. If you take a 5-10 min fast walk back home it's already better. Don't overthink it, any movement is good, if your heart rate goes up it's better. If you don't manage more than 5 minutes per day it's still enormously helpful for your body.

Do you have a source on your claim that 7k of sporadic and slow walking is categorically worse than a 5 minute walk that is fast?

I think that is a rather counter intuitive claim, 7k steps is about 5-6km whereas a 5 minute walk even at blistering pace is an order of magnitude less.

All doctors I talked to the last 5 years have said to concentrate on getting heart rate up. If you for some reason can't manage 30 minutes, maybe you have knee problems or whatever, 5 minutes now and then is better than nothing. But the most important thing is to get your heart rate up, not how many steps you take.

The recommendation in Sweden is to take 30 minutes fast walk. That has been converted to 10k steps here to sell step counters I guess.

Quick google: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-42864061

I'm 5'9"/175cm and I generally hit 10k steps at around the 7.5km mark, so for me 7k steps would be just over 5km.

I’m 6’1 and my iPhone pedometer says I get about 1000 steps per kilometer.

For me (5'9") it'd be about 5.5km. 2k steps is about a mile

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