English Phrases: Understanding the 10,000 steps a day myth!
Are you obsessed with hitting 10,000 steps a day? Discover why a fitness goal from 1964 still rules today-and what the science really says. Join us in today's English language podcast and build your English fluency by listening to interesting topics.
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More About This Lesson
Learn all about the saying "You can have too much of a good thing", while discovering the health and weight loss benefits of walking. Ideal listening practice for improving your English conversation and comprehension. Stay engaged as we discuss the 10,000 steps myth.
Walking is a great way to connect with yourself and the world around you.
⭐ Oprah Winfrey
This topic is great for English learners because it uses real-world issues like fitness and health to help build your vocabulary. Understanding phrases like "too much of a good thing" and learning how to discuss health-related topics will improve your listening skills and make it easier to talk about daily life with confidence:
- You learn the saying "You can have too much of a good thing" in clear context.
- You improve vocabulary with words like "blisters," "carotenemia," and "moderation."
- You hear practical examples of phrases for everyday life and fitness.
- You practice listening to natural British English pronunciation and rhythm.
- You understand how idioms and phrases apply to real-world scenarios.
- You pick up spelling and pronunciation tips for tricky words like "wrist" and "muscle."
- You hear varied sentence structures to expand your fluency.
- You improve comprehension by following a relatable, real-life topic.
- You increase your exposure to British culture and fitness trends.
- You hear tips for building vocabulary related to exercise and health.
English fluency comes from consistent exposure to natural speech and understanding everyday topics, like fitness or health. Students often over-focus on memorizing sayings, but the key is listening repeatedly to grasp pronunciation, rhythm, and vocabulary in context. This lesson shows that even simple, relatable topics can build fluency effectively.
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- What does "You can have too much of a good thing" mean?
This saying means that even something you enjoy or that is good for you can become harmful if you have too much of it. In the lesson, we discuss how walking 10,000 steps can be a good goal, but too much walking can cause problems like sore joints or muscle loss. - How can I improve my English listening skills with this lesson?
By listening to this podcast, you are exposed to real-world conversations in British English. You'll learn new vocabulary related to fitness, like "steps," "joints," and "glucosamine." You’ll also hear how these words are used in context, helping you improve both listening and comprehension skills. - Why is it important to learn idioms like "You can have too much of a good thing"?
Idioms are an essential part of understanding native speakers. They help you sound more natural and express yourself in a way that connects with others. Learning idioms like this one helps you not only understand English better but also communicate with more fluency. - How does walking help with learning English?
While walking may not directly teach you English, it provides you with the opportunity to listen to podcasts like this one, which is a great way to practice English listening. You can listen while walking, helping you to combine exercise with language learning, making both activities more enjoyable. - How can learning about fitness habits improve my English?
Fitness-related topics often include specific vocabulary that is useful in daily conversations. By learning phrases and terms about walking, health, and fitness, you expand your language range and become more comfortable discussing a variety of real-world topics in English.
Most Unusual Words:
- Carotenemia: A condition where your skin turns orange from eating too many carrots.
- Pedometer: A device that counts the steps you take when walking.
- Blisters: Small bubbles on your skin caused by rubbing or pressure.
- Glucosamine: A supplement that some people take for healthy joints.
- Moderation: Having the right amount of something, not too much or too little.
- Correlation: A connection between two things, but it doesn’t mean one causes the other.
- Inflamed: Swollen, red, and painful, often due to injury or overuse.
- Lean: Having little fat; often used to describe body weight or muscle.
- Whopping: A word to describe something very large or impressive.
- Tinge: A small amount of color or a slight effect.
Most Frequently Used Words:
| Word | Count |
|---|---|
| Steps | 40 |
| Massey | 10 |
| Number | 9 |
| Which | 8 |
| English | 8 |
| About | 8 |
| Welsh | 8 |
| Those | 7 |
Listen To The Audio Lesson Now
Transcript: Learn English and Find Out If 10k Steps Are Good for You
‘Too much of a good thing’ and how this relates to your daily step count
Hi there and welcome to this podcast from Adept English. Let's do an episode today which illustrates an English saying and which will perhaps also be of interest to those of you who like to keep fit and monitor your activity. Maybe you use one of these to monitor the number of steps you do in a day? And the English phrase, saying that I'm covering is, "You can have too much of a good thing." So our topic today is, "How many steps are enough?"
Hello, I’m Hilary, and you’re listening to Adept English. We will help you to speak English fluently. All you have to do is listen. So start listening now and find out how it works.
‘Too much of a good thing’ - even carrots!
So coming first of all to that phrase, that saying, and it's quite a simple one, "You can have too much of a good thing." For once it's quite self-explanatory - it 'explains itself'. That's why I'm calling it a phrase rather than an idiom. So a little of a good thing is great, but too much of a good thing can be bad for you. And this is true of course for so many things in life. Alcohol, perhaps? Chocolate, definitely. And even something like carrots, that's C-A-R-R-O-T. That's a vegetable that rabbits love. And we like them too. They're orange in colour. And if you eat too many carrots, you may get an orange tinge to your skin. You turn orange in other words! This even has a name, 'Carotenemia'. So if you turned orange because you'd eaten too many carrots, that would certainly be 'too much of a good thing'.
📷
A pair of walking boots near a signpost that points to a beautiful country path. Hear real-world examples of common English sayings in use.
So the idea for this podcast came from a news article last week that a man in the UK has experimented with doing an extraordinary number of steps every day for a week. More of that shortly. Many people, including myself, wear what's known as a 'fitness monitor'. It's one of those devices that you wear on your wrist, that's W-R-I-S-T, and it measures things like your sleep, your heart rate, your breathing quality perhaps. And of course the number of steps that you take each day. Too much of a good thing might be to become obsessive about all of this.
Do you use a fitness monitor to count your daily steps?
But most people manage to use their fitness monitors sensibly enough. But a fitness goal that many people have is that 10,000 steps per day. It's one of those goals that most of us have in our heads to try and do. Often we hit that target at the weekend. But for many of us it's much more difficult to do in the week. Especially if, like most people, your job involves a lot of sitting down at a computer. Even my job, where I'm talking to people all day, as a psychotherapist - it's done online a lot of the time. So I'm sitting at a computer for much of the day. That goal of 10,000 steps per day may not be achievable for many of us because we don't have the time to do it. But it does make us more conscious. That goal and our fitness monitor, which counts our steps anyway, does make us much more conscious of how much moving about we do at least.
Where did that goal of 10,000 steps per day come from?
Where did that goal of 10,000 steps per day come from? Is it hard science, tried and tested? Well actually no. It comes from a marketing campaign - advertising, in other words - and from just before the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. A company back then were trying to sell a pedometer, the old-fashioned instrument for measuring people's steps. And the advert for the pedometer recommended 10,000 steps per day without any science behind it at all. And this idea has just stuck in our heads. There has been research since, apparently. One study compared doing 5,000 steps with doing 10,000 steps. And not surprisingly found that 10,000 steps was better for your health. But there have been more studies recently. Why 10,000 steps? Why not 8,000 steps? Or 12,000 steps? Which is better? One study found that above 7,500 steps each day, all the benefits were still present, but more steps didn't increase that benefit. In other words, you could just aim for 7,500 steps a day. But when I read how they'd done the study, I could understand the concerns that this study wasn't reliable. The exact effect on your health is so broad and long-term, it's really hard to measure. So the question remains unanswered. It would be lovely if we could all just do 7,500 steps a day instead and feel good about it. That's not so difficult to achieve on those days when you don't have time.
Testing the limits on the number of steps per day
So there was news in the UK last week of one man who 'took it to the max', as we might say, in terms of steps per day. Jack Massey Welsh is a YouTuber and he decided to do a huge number of steps in a week just to see what would happen. Jack Massey Welsh in fact decided to do a whopping - that means 'very big' - a whopping 250,000 steps in a week! That's around 35,000 steps per day. So way beyond what most of us achieve. And he did do it. He met his goal so he must be pretty fit. He did a two-hour walk in the morning and another two-hour walk in the evening. And predictably for a YouTuber, he put the results on YouTube for everyone to see. His channel is called 'Jack Massey Welsh' if you want to have a look. And most of it seems to be about cars. So this wasn't his usual subject.
What is it like to walk 250,000 steps in a week?
Anyway,what was it like doing 250,000 steps in a week? Well, Jack Massey Welsh noticed a number of things about his experience. He said at the start he didn't want to lose too much muscle. That's M-U-S-C-L-E. That means 'lean body weight'. And in fact he didn't want to lose too much weight of any kind. But he posted photographs of himself before and after. And it looks like he was correct.
With 250,000 steps in a week, he did lose weight even though he tried not to. And he ate lots of protein and lots of calories during that week. So this was the first piece of learning. It's hard to do that many steps without losing weight and probably losing muscle in that weight loss. Not the type of weight loss that most of us want to do. In fact, he lost two pounds or 0.9 kilograms of weight in that week. But he also took measurements around different parts of his body. Around his arms, around his legs. And everything was slightly thinner after the experience. If you look at Jack Massey Welsh, he's certainly not someone who needs to lose any weight. So this was an undesired effect for him, though an effect that many people might want.
But what else happened to Jack Massey Welsh having done that many steps, 250,000 steps in a week?
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‘Wear and tear’ on the body from 250,000 steps
So what else happened to Jack Massey Welsh when he was doing this huge number of steps per week?
Well, it turned out that the main problem was his joints. Even though he took something called 'glucosamine'. Your 'joints', that's J-O-I-N-T, are where your bones meet each other. And 'joints' can be problematic if you over-exercise or simply if you're old.
Examples of joints, your knees in particular can be a problem. That's K-N-E-E. 'Knees' are a problem for runners and walkers. But ankles too, A-N-K-L-E, those are the joints at the bottom of your leg which enable your feet to move. Those are your 'ankles'. Other notable joints are your elbows. That's this one here, in the middle of your arm. Anyway, glucosamine is sometimes 'good for the joints' - apparently. And Jack Massey Welsh took this supplement proactively. But he still suffered hugely from swollen and inflamed joints. Simply, the joints had done too much exercise. So any benefit was outweighed by too much use of his joints. His feet also became very painful and he had blisters everywhere. 'Blisters', B-L-I-S-T-E-R - they're those little bubbles in the skin which appear when your shoes rub. So walking a lot means that 'blisters' may appear even though your shoes don't normally give you a problem. And basically from day five of the seven days, Jack Massey Welsh was having to take painkillers to enable him to continue with his challenge. Various experts of course commented on what he'd done, most of them saying things to the effect of "You can have too much of a good thing". And when asked, Jack Massey Welsh himself said that he "really wouldn't recommend anyone walk that number of steps in a week". So he was agreed it was 'too much'.
What does ‘the science’ say?
But what about that research on what is the right number of steps to be aiming for, especially if it's not necessarily 10,000?
The research is still mixed. But one study found that walking 4,500 steps could 'reduce your risk of dying by 41%'. I don't know how these studies measure these types of things. Presumably they choose a group of people who are at some risk of dying anyway and use statistics to see if there's a relationship between more steps and fewer deaths. The problem is here, people might walk fewer steps because they're less well or because they're in less good physical condition. So perhaps it's another case of "correlation is not causation".
English Listening Practice with Iconic Christmas Hits
Other research? Again, not sure how this is done, but it suggested that walking just 500 steps may help you live longer. Again, I don't really understand this. Unless you live in a very small flat and your sofa is near your bed and your fridge, how would anyone walk only 500 steps a day? That's also hard to do and hardly a health recommendation. The most steps I've ever done while wearing a fitness monitor? Probably around 25,000 steps in a day. Did I feel good afterwards? Well, no, not particularly. I had sore legs and feet and was very tired. One benefit? I had a good night's sleep afterwards. Apparently, other research suggests that walking 2,500 steps per day has a benefit for your health. But again, that seems very few steps to me. And on the days where I walk as few steps as that, I don't feel great. On the days where I walk 10,000 steps or more, I feel a lot better.
Perhaps it's sensible to aim for that middle ground. Maybe 7,500, 8,000 steps is enough. Another saying? "All things in moderation". When we talk about 'moderation', that's M-O-D-E-R-A-T-I-O-N, we mean 'a good amount of something. Not too much, not too little'. Enough carrots, but not too many. Enough steps, but not too many. And if we learn to listen, our bodies are probably actually telling us what's the right amount of exercise, what number of steps are good for us, given our physical condition.
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How does this affect you?
You may be someone whose job or daily activity involves a lot of walking anyway. That's probably a real health benefit. Or you may be someone like me who is sitting at a desk for many hours every day. In which case, being aware of how many steps you've done isn't the be-all and end-all, but it perhaps reminds you you need to exercise. It's a rough measure, but a very useful one. Anyway, let us know what you think of this episode and whether it makes you think of your step count.
Goodbye
Enough for now, have a lovely day, speak to you again soon. Goodbye.
Thank you so much for listening. Please help me tell others about this podcast by reviewing or rating it. And, please share it on social media. You can find more listening lessons and a free English course at adeptenglish.com
Links
- Carotenemia Paper
- Man walked 250,000 steps
- I walked 250,000 steps in a week
- Do we need to walk
- Jack Massey Welsh
- 250,000 Steps In a Week
- JackSucksAtLife
- Carotenosis
- Woman turns orange
- 1964 Summer Olympics
- 10,000 steps a day
- Glucosamine
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