This Number Will Surprise You
How many steps do you actually take on a normal day? Not your best day, a regular Tuesday. Check your phone, and prepare to appeal the ruling. Neil breaks down the gap between how active we feel and what the step count says, and why being busy and actually moving are two different things for blood sugar...
The episode, word for word
Quick question, and seriously, no lying, no looking around over your shoulder to figure out what everybody else is doing. This is just you. How many steps do you think you take on a normal day?
Got your number? Okay. Hold it. Now go look at your actual steps. They're probably sitting right there in your phone. Maybe on a smartwatch if you wear one. Wherever they live, go look. I'll wait. I'll be here. I'm not going anywhere, we established that on Wednesday.
Yeah. That gap between the number in your head and the number on your phone? That's today's entire episode.
I'm Neil Greathouse, 34 years with type 1, and this is Your Best T1D Year.
Here's what happens. We all picture ourselves as reasonably active people. I move around, I do stuff, I'm busy all day. And then your phone says 2,900 and you want to appeal the ruling. You're standing there like a Price Is Right contestant who just went over. "I said 8,000, Bob." Your phone is out here doing the Maury lie detector thing: "You said you were active all day. The step count determined... that was a lie." And look, you WERE busy all day. That part's true. You just did all that busy between chairs. Being busy and actually moving are two different things, and your phone can only count one of them.
Now let me hit you with the stats, because you guys deserve real numbers, and I've got good news and bad news. Bad news first, like a band-aid. The international experts on exercise and type 1, the group that wrote the big consensus statement in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, say we should be getting about 150 minutes of activity a week. Most adults with type 1 don't get there. And the number one reason, in the research, is fear of going low. Not laziness. Fear. Which means for most of us, the thing standing between us and more movement was never a gym membership. It's a completely understandable fear that nobody ever helped us solve. We're going to solve it. That's coming, I promise, we've got a whole safety-net week.
Okay, now the good news, and this one's a jailbreak. You've spent your whole life feeling behind because of 10,000 steps. People, listen to me. That number is not science. A Japanese company in the 1960s sold a pedometer whose name basically translates to "ten thousand steps meter." It was a product name. You have been feeling guilty about a slogan. That's like lying awake at night because you never personally lived "Just Do It."
Here's the real science. 2022, The Lancet Public Health, they pooled 15 studies, about 47,000 adults. Count it: forty-seven thousand people. The big health wins showed up way before 10,000 steps. For a lot of folks the benefit levels off around 7,000, even earlier for older adults. And the more-active people had roughly 40 to 50 percent lower risk of dying early than the least-active people. From walking. Regular, unimpressive, no-spandex walking.
So here's the whole religion of this challenge, and I want you to hear it clearly. You don't need 10,000. You never did. You need more than you're doing now. Beat yesterday. That's it. That's the entire scoreboard.
// T1D SCOUT AD // Script B // ~30 seconds //
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// END AD //
Your challenge this weekend: finish the before picture. Two numbers at bedtime. What your phone says your steps were, and your longest sit. A few normal days of that and you've got your baseline, and that baseline is the only number you will ever compete against here. Not mine. Not some influencer's. Yours.
Go get on the newsletter at yourbestt1dyear.com, grab the free tracker, and join the 2,000 people taking the world's least glamorous group photo with you this weekend.
T1D is relentless. But managing it doesn't have to be.
Remember, we are the ones. Living with it, loving somebody who has it, caregiving for it, raising a kiddo with it. We are the ones. My name is Neil. I'll see you Monday.
This is the episode script as read on the mic. It's education and encouragement, not medical advice. Talk to your care team before changing anything about your management.
