One month ago, I set out to challenge myself to complete 10000 steps a day for 30 days. I wanted to find out all the hypes about walking 10000 steps a day and the benefits it bring (if there is any, before I started). However, studies from Harvard Medical School has shown that we don’t actually need 10,000 steps a day. The more steps people walked, the lower their risk of dying was, before levelling off at around 7,500 steps a day. But what is important to me is how this challenge brought about change in my lifestyle.
Before I pen my final thoughts on this challenge, let’s take a look at the last 9 days of the challenge:
Day 22 – 30:
For the last stretch of the 30 days challenge, I barely made it 10,000 steps every day due to WFH. Since I didn’t have a reason to go out, I needed to make the extra effort to take evening walks after work hours, or during the day. On most days, I just clock enough to hit 10k steps. I’m not sure if WFH was the reason that it was making it harder to clock my steps, or was it me getting lazier by the week (haha!). Nevertheless, I was glad that I was able to complete the 30 days challenge.
What I Learnt From The 30 Days Challenge
#1 Miracles hardly happen overnight. Everything we do needs time and effort.
From completing our work, maintaining our health and even managing relationships around us. It all takes deliberate effort and a certain amount of time. So if you want something, make time and effort for it.
#2 The longer you stay committed, the better results you see, the more you get motivated.
After seeing my weight start to drop slowly, but surely, from Week Two onwards, I’m careful to not over indulge myself by overeating. As much as possible, I try to have only 1 cheat day a week where I just eat whatever I want.
#3 Take baby steps, celebrate small success and don’t get distracted.
From Week Two onwards, I thought I could push myself even more to walk more and try to lose even more weight. Unfortunately, I ended up slightly disappointed with myself as I was not able to increase my steps for Week Three and Four. It’s likely that WFH made it difficult for me to walk even more but all in all, I should be happy with being able to stick to the plan most of the time and lost about 1 – 2kg on average since the start of the challenge.
So What’s Next?
Walking has since become something I really enjoy doing. It helps clear the mind after a long day’s work. I started exploring my neighbourhood and found some really nice eateries around that I hope to try once dining in resumes. Trekking some popular walking trails became a hobby as well! Check out my Clementi Forest Trail here and I’m looking to do more of those treks on a weekly basis. Be sure to follow me on more of my trail guides coming up soon!
Will I continue clocking 10,000 steps a day everyday? No, I won’t… Hahaha, seriously. Well, at least not everyday. I think I can still manage 50,000 to 70,000 steps in a week, when I space them out, so I can regain some flexibility in my schedule.
Will I recommend you to start this challenge? Yes, I would. If you haven’t been exercising regularly and don’t know where to start. You can lower the step counts to 7,500 if its easier for you, since the report says that the benefits is maxed out at 7,500 steps. The point here is to make working out easy and manageable to start off so try it for yourself today!
