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Comment by brlewis | Hacker News Reader

Minnesotan Fitbit users average 8675 daily steps in summer (64F) and 7486 in winter (16F), only 14% less. I infer that people in cold climates acclimate and dress for the weather, although walking indoors could partially explain it.

https://blog.fitbit.com/50-states-no-excuses-see-which-state...

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8,700 daily steps is a lot...it implies a conscious effort to exercise, so I wouldn't expect a significant drop with the weather.

You would be surprised. On a day that I don't get to the gym, I average around 9000 and I spend most of my day working at a desk or moving between meetings (i.e. I don't consider myself very active).

Out of curiosity, do you move your hands a lot when talking? A coworker uses his Fitbit daily, but has mentioned that it falsely reads his arm movements when he talks (which he does a lot of hand waving and other movements).

I worked a physical job, stocking books and filling book orders for a summer while in college[1]. I used a pedometer and rarely went much above 10k steps (for the 8 hour shift anyway). That's walking basically for 8 hours straight (with stops to place or grab a book).

[1] - not my only physical job, but the one I walked the most, and the only one I ever had a pedometer on.

> I worked a physical job, stocking books and filling book orders for a summer while in college[1]. I used a pedometer and rarely went much above 10k steps (for the 8 hour shift anyway). That's walking basically for 8 hours straight (with stops to place or grab a book).

Despite how it might subjectively seem, its not anything even approximately like walking 8 hours straight if you don't get over 10k steps; a fairly average walking pace is ~80 steps per minute, for 8 hours that works out to 38,400 steps.

It's hardly noteworthy to move that much a day.

> 8,700 daily steps is a lot...it implies a conscious effort to exercise

Well, yeah, you'd kind of expect that with active Fitbit users.

> so I wouldn't expect a significant drop with the weather.

I would, though I'd expect it to be less than you'd see from more casual people. Conscious effort doesn't completely negate the effects of convenient opportunities vs. adverse conditions.

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