Achieving A Personal Goal That Took One Year And 5 Million+ Steps

When I was overweight (by more than 100 pounds) I made it a goal to go a full year walking at least 10,000 steps every day. Started in August, so with the heat in Florida I had to wake up early before sunrise. Previous according to my phone, I walked anywhere between 300 steps (!!!!) to 2000 in a typical day (I work from home, from a desk and still do).

That goal was recently met and I wanted to document it. Also what I had to do: 98% of the time I walked outside… so I walked in rain (only once did I walk in a mall during a tropical storm), cold near-frozen mornings, horrible exercise rooms at hotels while attending conferences out of town, at corporate retreats… and never missed a day. Sometimes I had to walk circles in hotel rooms to get that last few hundred steps before midnight. 🌗

Fast forward a year, I can do 10,000 steps in a morning (instead of the whole day) without too much effort. I typically get up at around 4:30am every morning (whether I wanted too or not, and which meant i was falling asleep at networking parties and meetups around 9pm).

I want to thank my wife and children for dealing with a dad that didn’t stay up most nights, woke up making noise early in the morning, and acting a little crazy when the days was almost over and i didn’t get 10k steps in yet. My wife especially was extremely supportive.

I will continue to keep walking at least 10k steps, probably aim for 12k every day outside of special days. Switching to bike riding might also allow burning more calories in less time. Stats according to my iPhone (so technically I walked more than this, but this is my official numbers):

August 18, 2018 – August 18, 2019

Miles Walked: 2,397.4
Flights Climbed: 2,599
Steps: 5,217,566
Average steps: 14,200 Per Day

Because i’m a nerd, here’s a google doc with all the data.

Note: Walking a lot more… say 20,000 steps a day… didn’t do anything noticeable in terms of weight loss so after a while I didn’t stress it. Takes a little over an hour for me to walk 10k steps so I couldn’t afford the time for 20k with very little or no returns. This post isn’t about weight loss, exercise, diet or anything like that. For me personally it’s about setting a goal. For the record during the time I did lose over 100 pounds (but the walking was only a small part of that). I wanted to document one of the longest most proud personal goals of my life – and i encourage my daughters and others that it’s doable.