A few weeks ago, I decided to make it my goal to walk 10,000 steps a day. Before, I had set my target to be 8,000 steps/day which I never hit (I usually got 5,000 if I was lucky), but my personal trainer pretty much scolded me for setting the bar too low; “10,000 steps/day should be your minimum” she said.

Why 10,000? When you walk 10k steps (approx. 5 miles), you burn 400-500 calories a day, which means that you have a pretty good chance of losing 1 pound a week (3500 calories burnt = 1 pound lost). This is, of course, assuming that you’re minding your nutrition and aren’t eating crap.

So far, I’ve consistently reached 70k steps/week and have lost 2 pounds! I never thought I could do it, but now I’m totally addicted to trying to get my 10k steps.

Reaching 10k a Day

I have a desk job which means that I need to sit at my computer and do my work. I could get up and go for walks, but even when I tried that, I could never break 8k/day. So I decided to change things up which also helped me have a clean house and knock out my daily workout goal.

Here’s what I did:

1. Elliptical (45 mins): 5-6,000 steps easy.
2. Park farther away from places to get more steps
3. Fold laundry every night and put it away
4. Wash dishes every night and put them away
5. Sweep the floors, dust the house, clean up spiderwebs, etc.
6. Sweep leaves outside and do some light yard work.

Morning Goal: 5-6000 steps achieved via elliptical machine or walking around my neighborhood. I realized one loop around my neighborhood is ~2,000 steps. So I’d do 3 loops.

Lunch/Afternoon Goal: 8,000 steps achieved by looking away from my computer to walk around the office, go to the restroom, take a short walk at lunchtime. On the weekends, I’d do yard work, run errands or go for a hike.

Evening Goal: 10,000 steps achieved by washing dishes, doing laundry (or folding and putting away).

My goal is always to get the bulk of my steps by morning via the elliptical since I’m a morning exerciser; I like getting it over with!

4 weeks ago, I weighed 170 pounds. I weight myself this morning and I’m down to 167. Plus, my belly is flatter and I look a lot more trim than before…all in 4 weeks from just walking.

So, needless to say, I’m hooked!

If you don’t have a step tracker, I highly recommend a Fitbit. There are cheaper step trackers (along with heart rate monitors) for $30. I recently bought this one for my mom and it does the job.

So…start walking!