Ep. 83 . 10 Creative Ways to Hit 10,000 Steps a Day

Can tracking your steps really help you reach a healthier weight? In this episode, Dr. Jenny Gourgari breaks down the science behind step goals for teens. She shares a major study that pinpoints the magic number for teens: 10,000–12,000 steps a day.

You’ll also learn 10 creative ways to reach your daily step goal.

This episode is a must-listen for any teen or parent who wants to build healthy habits without stress or pressure.

I’m Dr. Jenny Gourgari—pediatric endocrinologist, certified in obesity medicine and a health coach.
After helping hundreds of teens struggling with their weight and hormones, I’ve created a whole new path by doing what most programs miss: balance puberty hormones naturally and create habits that actually last.

Here's what makes this different:
✅ No dieting. No calorie counting. No shame.
✅ No more food fights between parents and teens.
✅ No weight obsession—just healthy habits
✅ Real science behind how puberty hormones affect weight
✅ A safe, supportive approach that prevents eating disorders

Because when teens understand their hormones and get the right support, they don’t just lose weight—they gain strength, energy, confidence, and freedom!

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Transcript

Hello, welcome to another episode of the Lifestyle and Weight Loss for Teens podcast. This is Dr. Jenny Gourgari, and on today's episode, I'm gonna answer 📍 the question how many steps do I need every day if I wanna get into a healthy weight? And we are talking specifically about teenagers, we know that the recommendation by the American Academy of Pediatrics is for teenagers to get at least one hour of moderate or vigorous exercise every day. Now, this may sound like a lot, and I have talked many times before that if you're not that active, you can gradually build up to that number. Now if we want to translate that into how many steps, is there an answer? And actually, yes, there has been a research study 📍 that was done to see what does this translate to, like how many steps on average does a teenager need to take every day in order to be in a healthy lifestyle? So the researchers put different data from different studies together, . Title of the manuscript is How many Steps per Day are enough 📍 for children and adolescents. It was published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity by Catherine Urlo and the team, and what they found was that the younger kids, in order to achieve this recommendation, need to make more steps. But when we're talking about teenager girls and boys between the ages of 12 to 19, the sweet spots seems to be between 10 to 12,000 steps per day. Ideally, we want at least 6,000 daily steps done into moderate or vigorous physical activity. What do we mean by moderate or vigorous activ is type of activity you're actually breathing very heavily. Like it's hard for you to talk and it's hard for you to sing, right? When you're doing these types of activities your heart is beating fast, you're sweating. I have created a previous episode if you want to go and listen about what is vigorous and what is moderate and how much exercise kids need. You can go and listen to episode 70 about exercise and also the role of hunger hormones. So by having this, number about how many steps ideally we need I think it's a helpful guide because oftentimes a lot of teenagers, they do carry with them smart watches. They have smart iPhones or other phones that track their movement. So it's easier to track your steps, how many steps you're doing compared to how many minutes you're doing. So if you have a smart watch that is counting your steps, that can give you an idea whether you're meeting your daily requirements. It can also give you an idea how to track that over time and if over time you are doing better. So keep in mind that is around 10 to 12,000 steps per day for teenagers. Now that may sound like a lot, but in fact, it's not that hard to achieve that number. On average, if teenagers walk for an hour, that can give them approximately 7,000 steps. And how can we make it to 10,000 steps per day? I'm gonna give you 10 secrets. 10 tips to achieve that goal of 10,000 steps every day. Okay? So tip number one is walk or bike to school, right? And if you are taking the bus, you can every day stop two stops before your school stop, the final school stop and just walk that. And also on your way back, you can walk for two blocks, like two stops before you get to your home. So that is something that you do every day. You go to school, that can easily become a routine for you. You get in the bus, you stop earlier, you get out of the bus earlier and you walk back home. Number two, which is the fun way, is to put on the music and start dancing. You can put your favorite music and just by dancing three songs can easily make you a thousand steps every day. And it can be fun. You can enjoy it, it can boost your mood. And it makes you feel better, right? It's also like a good break if you're frustrated with homework, if you're frustrated with anything else that's going on, that can be a good break for you. A third tip that you can use in order to meet the 10,000 steps per day is to try to take the stairs instead of taking the elevator when it is possible. If you are at home or if you're at mall, or if you're at the school use the stairs, go up and down the stairs, and each flight that you go up and down, adds up very quickly the steps that you need to take. Number four is if you are talking on the phone instead of being on a desk and talking on the phone, you can talk on the phone while walking up and down. That way you can chat with a friend, with your mom, with your sister. You don't even recognize it, but while you're doing something else, if you're talking on the phone, you can add in easily steps. 📍 Tip five instead of trying to do all 10,000 steps at once, it may be easier to break it during the day. You can just do something before breakfast or before lunch, break it down in smaller chunks so it doesn't feel huge. Tip number six you can also make it more like a fun activity talk many times before, how important it is to have a family activity. So you can all decide as a family that you're gonna take a walk after the dinner and even if it's like 20 to 30 minutes, that can add 2000 to 3000 steps and can also help digestion. It can help bonding. It can make you feel better, and it can help significantly with insulin resistance that is higher after you have a high carb meal. So go for a walk after the dinner is gonna help you improve your insulin resistance, which is high in puberty, and it can also get you closer to your 10,000 step goal per day. Tip number seven is to join a sport. You can do basketball, soccer, or track or whatever other sport that interests you that can easily add even half an hour or an hour of intense activity and you can, get a huge push towards your 10,000 or even towards the 12,000 goal. Tip number eight is you can walk the dog. If you don't have a dog, you can even be a dog sitter. You can, get the dog to exercise, you get to exercise, and again, you play with the dog. It's fun activity, and it can be easily done, you can do it 15 minutes in the morning, 15 minutes in the evening. That way you can easily get more than two to 3000 steps every day. Tip number nine is you can get mini step challenges with a friend. Like you can set little goals. I'm gonna do 500 steps by the morning. Can you do that with me? I'm gonna do 2000 steps before school is over, can you do that with me? So when you are walking more with your friends or when you are having a break at school instead of sitting, you can just walk and run with your friends. That can easily add extra steps while you are spending time. School. And finally, tip number 10 while you are studying, you may be able to also walk while you are listening to your book. You can record notes. You can use flash cards. There are some things that you can memorize. You can, instead of sitting on a desk, you can probably walk and do some of those things while you're moving. So there you have it. These are the 10 tips that can help you get to your goal of 10 to 12,000 steps every day for teenagers. There's research that show that teens who exercise also have better levels and better control of their hunger. They have improved leptin resistance. They have improved cognition. They do better at school. And the benefits of exercise go way beyond just your weight and it has to do with lifestyle, has to improve your cardiovascular health, your mental health, your cognition, and it is very important also for hormonal balance of puberty. It can help you regulate the cortisol hormones so your body can have less stress and therefore you don't have to store fat. You can break fat better. Your body can improve your leptin resistance so you don't feel that hungry. You can have the feeling of fullness with less food, and it can also control your insulin resistance. So again, your insulin is not increasing so much once you are eating carbs. That can also prevent you from storing body fat. So I hope this was helpful. If you like that, please don't forget to like and subscribe if you watch this on YouTube, share this episode with another friend and you can also go to lifestyleforteens.com/newsletter and you can subscribe to my newsletter to keep in touch. Take care, I'll talk to you soon. Bye.