Walking around the house does count towards 10,000 steps.
Walking around the house, doing chores, taking the stairs, pacing etc all counts towards the 10,000 steps and adds to your daily activity and also improves your fitness.
Indoor walking counts towards your 10,000 steps goal and even walking around in stores, as a fitness tracker or even a phone all counts the steps regardless as whether the walks are indoors or outdoors.
Pacing or walking around your house also elevates your heart rate, improving your cardiovascular health, aids in weight loss and improves your health, just like outdoor walking does.
Some ways you can also get in your walking steps indoors are using walking pads or treadmills, doing chores that keep you walking and moving, climbing stairs, doing laps or walk in place during TV commercials or even walking back and forth while talking on the phone or thinking of things.
A 30 minute walk is between 3,000 steps to 4,000 steps depending on your walking pace and your stride length.
A 30 minute walk at an average walking pace is around 3,000 steps and a 30 minute walk at a brisk walking pace is between 3,000 steps to 4,000 steps, although it can go up to 4,500 steps.
One long walk is also better than many short walks as going on one longer walk, helps your body fully engage it's systems for greater health benefits.
Although the best approach when walking also depends on your goals and your schedules, shorter walks are also great for remaining active and preventing sedentary time, although adding longer, sustained walks such as 15+ minutes will boost cardiovascular and mortality risk reduction significantly.
The key when walking for health is consistency and also increasing the duration of your walks over time, making the longer walks a priority when possible.
It's also better to walk both fast and longer for optimal health.
Walking faster is also strongly linked more to reduced mortality risk and more improved health and longer walks also build your endurance and can also be more sustainable.
The ideal approach to walking for health benefits is to actually combine both walking faster for a portion of your walk and then continue walking for a longer distance.
The more you walk, the healthier you can become and you can also lose weight by walking longer and even faster and can help to maintain a healthy weight.
Walking a faster pace is associated with a lower risk of death from all causes, especially from cardiovascular disease as it helps keep your heart healthy and helps improve blood flow.
Brisk walking and walking fast also improves your heart's efficiency and increases oxygen delivery to your heart and the rest of your body and helps to reduce cardiovascular issues.
For older adults, increasing your walking speed and walking as fast as you can, can also lead to substantial improves in your overall ability to walk longer distances.
Longer walks also help to build up your overall endurance over time.
And slower, longer walks also put less strain on your body, when compared to fast walking, which can also potentially lower your risk of injury.
Longer walks can also be good as they can also provide you more time for a mental time out and can also improve your emotional well being.
To combine both walking fast and longer walks, start out with a brisk walking pace to get your heart rate up, as this also provides the most significant health benefits.
Then add longer distance at a moderate pace.
After the fast paced portion of your walk, continue walking for longer distances at a slower or even more moderate pace to meet your step goals and help build your endurance.