I sat on my gray couch in my California home, surrounded by plain white walls and a fiddle-leaf fig plant. Before turning on Netflix, I grabbed my phone, clicked on the heart icon, and checked my step count for the day.
On an ideal day, I’d have at least 10,000 steps — the alleged holy grail number I needed to lower my mortality risk and improve my heart health. But on a more realistic day, as a health journalist working from home, I averaged between 3,000 and 4,000 steps.
Most of my walking happened in a parking lot, walking from my car to a store, or on a neighborhood walk after work. Tracking my steps wasn’t exactly an obsession, but it did…
