Converting a 10k step goal to a mini stepper

Question

I purchased a mini stepper during one of the early lockdowns to keep the blood flowing at my standing desk. I’m interested in upping the overall steps I get in per day. I’ve never measured steps before, but I’m wondering if committing to the 10k step recommendation for weight loss would be overkill on a stepper, which introduces resistance training as well. What is a good step goal for someone who is not overweight but looking to slim down/tone their legs and get the recommended daily dose of cardio (I use a medium resistance setting on the stepper)?

As popular as these machines seem to have become during the lockdowns, I’m surprised I couldn’t find much information on this online.

Answer 1

Getting outside and getting an actual 10k steps in a day has a lot of other positive effects that you can lose from doing indoor activities. With that said, 10k steps can be converted to other forms of activity depending on what your goal is.

An easy way to do this empirically would be to use some sort of smartwatch or heart rate tracker and go on a walk for 10k steps. Take the calories burnt on that walk and see how long it takes you to hit that same number on your mini stepper with whatever resistance setting you have set. This will probably be the most accurate since all online sources will be estimates.

If you don't care quite that much, you can find charts like this online that have conversions. My assumption is that these conversions are also calorie based but I can't confirm that.