I don’t care if I don’t need 10,000 steps. Get out of my goddamn way

It’s nearly 10 pm and I’m tired. But I’ve checked my phone and the news isn’t good. I need to go out into the cold once again. “I’ll be back soon!” I call out to my daughter. “Get into bed!”

I have pressing business. I need to finish my steps. My phone is telling me I’ve only done 9132, and I need 868 more to reach my magic 10,000.

Since installing a step tracker on my phone back in 2020, I have walked 10,000 steps nearly every day. I will not sleep until I hit my goal. If that means walking around the block in the dark and the cold, I will put on my coat and walk. If that means marching up and down the tiny hallway in my apartment, I’ll march. If it means pacing around my bedroom to get my last few dozen steps, I will pace in my socks.

I need my 10,000 steps. It is my personal lunacy.

Earlier this week, this masthead reported that we don’t need 10,000 steps a day to stay healthy. For women under the age of 60, like me, somewhere between 8000 and 10,000 a day is ideal. “There is nothing magical or evidence-based about 10,000 steps a day,” the article reassured me. “So feel free to let go of that goal.”

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Brilliant! I thought. Except … I already knew that. I’ve read similar research before. I know I don’t “need” to do 10,000 steps. But I cannot, will not, don’t know how to stop.

Walking is great for your health. This is true. I am much fitter now than before I’d started walking every day. Walking helps with my anxiety, my stress levels, and my overall wellbeing. I often walk without any podcast or music, and the time alone with my thoughts is precious.

But we don’t need to walk 10,000 steps. It’s just a random number that gained popularity with the invention of the first commercial pedometer, the Manpo-kei, in Japan in the ’60s. Manpo-kei is Japanese for 10,000, and its characters look like legs in motion. If the characters for 9132 looked like legs in motion, I might have been in bed 10 minutes earlier.