The 10,000 Steps Lie
You obsessively check your FitBit, refusing to go to bed until you hit that magical number: 10,000 steps. But do you know where that number came from?
It wasn't Harvard. It wasn't the WHO. It was a marketing campaign.
In 1964, just before the Tokyo Olympics, a Japanese company (Yamasa) created a pedometer called the Manpo-kei (万歩計). Why? Because the Japanese character for "10,000" (万) looks like a person walking. That's it.
That is why sometimes you walk 15,000 steps and lose no weight, while your friend runs 5,000 steps and gets shredded.Steps are just the input. Distance (Miles) is the real result.
The Analogy: Currency Exchange
Think of your Steps as a foreign currency (like Yen), and Miles as US Dollars. You are holding 10,000 Yen. How many Dollars is that worth? That depends entirely on the Exchange Rate.
In the math of walking, that exchange rate is your Stride Length.
Height is an unfair advantage.
A 6-foot tall person has a "high exchange rate" (~2.6 ft stride). A 5-foot person has a "low exchange rate" (~2.1 ft stride).
Result: For 10,000 steps, the tall person walks 1 FULL mile more than the short person.
Even for you, the rate fluctuates.
The Mall Shuffle: Lazy, shuffling steps. Low stride (1.5 ft). Your steps are suffering from inflation!
The Power Walk: Chest up, long strides (3.0 ft). Your steps just doubled in value.
Real World: When Steps Deceive You
The Pokemon GO Trap
You need to hatch a 5km egg. You pace around your living room for 6,000 steps. The app says 0.1km. Why? Because the game tracks GPS distance (Miles), while your Fitbit tracks vibration (Steps). Your "living room exchange rate" is effectively zero in the game's eyes.
The Treadmill Confusion
You ran 3 miles on the machine, but your Apple Watch says 2.8 miles. Why? As you get tired, your stride length shortens. Your "exchange rate" crashed mid-run, but the machine kept measuring the belt distance blindly.