I walked 20,000 steps a day for 3 months

Introduction

At the start of 2024, health was on my mind. I had spent the last few years living a mostly sedentary lifestyle, and even though I was putting time in at the gym, my priority was focused on muscle growth, and not cardiovascular health. I was falling into the trap of being an "active couch potato" - despite spending time exercising, I still spent most of my day sitting when working, commuting, or just relaxing at home. Paradoxically, all this sitting was causing me to feel even more fatigued on the daily.

With this weighing on my mind (and my belly), I was determined to make this the year that I made being active my new "default". Now many people make the commitment to walk 10,000 steps a year, but it wouldn't really be challenge if everybody could do it, would it? Everybody knows that real growth requires a bit of struggle, so I decided to double it - 20,000 steps a day. I decided to timebox this particular experiment a bit to just the first 3 months of the year, as I wasn't sure how big of a time commitment this would end up being, but wanted to give it an extended period to really see the effects it was having on my overall health.

So that's how I landed on my mission to walk 20,000 steps every day for the next 3 months.

In hindsight, 20,000 steps a day was quite a lot, especially for someone who works a desk job. This experience was quite brutal in the beginning - early on I wasn't the greatest at budgeting my steps throughout the day, and I would end up spending hours at night to compensate for it. And even when I felt like I physically couldn't get out of bed due to how tired my legs were, I grit my teeth and continued to walk like I was Sisyphus himself.

And after it all, I'm quite glad I was able to keep up with it (for the most part). The whole experience taught me quite a bit about discipline, goals, habits, fitness, nutrition, and just the joys of experiencing the smaller things in life. To commemorate, I wrote everything that I learned during this time into 20 lessons. Even if it seems trivial, I hope this will continue to serve as an inspiration to myself (and anyone else reading) that you can truly make anything happen in this life with enough dedication.

20 Lessons from 20,000 steps a Day

1. Define a routine: Early on, I would often skip my morning walks, and this ended up being a punishment later that evening when I had to walk for 4 hour straight to meet my numbers. Once I had establish a more balanced schedule with my steps more evenly distributed across a 3 time periods every day, I had a much easier time meeting my commitment
2. Quantify progress: Having a SMART goal really helped me conceptualize what success looked like, and helped me evalute how I was doing to meeting my objectives
3. Build discipline: Build a disciplined mindset – consistency is everything
4. Be patient: Remember that building a lasting habit takes time, so be patient and kind to yourself throughout the process.
5. Give yourself grace: Account for a few missed days here and there. Vacations come up, or there are just days when you can’t hit the goal. Remember that every day is a new day, and don’t let a couple of missed days ruin the routine you’ve been building.
6. Celebrate small wins: Set smaller, achievable milestones to keep yourself motivated and celebrate your progress.
7. Start early: Morning walks provide momentum going into the rest of the day.
8. Change your default: Make being up and active the default, and you’ll find yourself spending less time on the couch or in bed.
9. Manufacture opportunities: Find opportunities (or excuses) to get up and walk (chats, groceries, etc.).
10. Explore your surroundings: Explore different routes around the neighborhood to discover nature areas, parks, and other hidden gems. Doing so deepens your understanding and relationship with your local community.
11. Make it fun: Discover fun activities that get you up and active, and you’ll see how quickly the steps come naturally. The point here is the more you enjoy the process, the more likely you’ll stay motivated.
12. Experiment with variety: Things I’ve tried personally include meditation, running, and basketball. There are tons of other fun ways to get you up and moving like dancing, sports, and events.
13. Multitask while walking: Try different activities to occupy the mind while walking, such as music, podcasts, books, movies, or calling a friend or family member.
14. Understand your metrics: Steps are a measure of the length of your activity rather than intensity (e.g., 1,500 steps running a mile vs. 2,000 walking a mile).
15. Track your progress: Use a fitness tracker or smartphone app to monitor your progress and stay accountable. I used my Apple Watch to monitor my progress each and every day.
16. Proper footwear goes a long way: Find the right shoes for your feet based on the type of activity you’ll be doing.
17. The ripple effect: Developing a good fitness routine trickles into other parts of one’s life.
18. Fuel your body: Fitness and nutrition go hand in hand. Try to develop a more balanced diet that supports your recovery, performance, and overall health.
19. Manage your energy expenditure: TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) is a measure of your body’s total energy expenditure throughout the day. This will likely increase as you become more active, and you should adjust how much you eat on a daily basis based on this. You’ll burn a lot of extra calories—walking 20,000 steps can burn up to ~800 extra calories per day (subject to change based on body composition). Make sure that you eat to compensate for that, or you’ll find yourself naturally losing weight.
20. Incorporate strength: If building up muscular strength is also important to you, try to find outdoor calisthenics equipment at your local park. Many have the proper equipment for you to do pull-ups, push-ups, curl-ups, and dips for full-body workouts.

P.S. Don’t go on any extreme diets while attempting this. You might end up with scurvy.

Metrics

Here's a few numbers to quantify the total journey:

• Total Steps Walked: 2,453,215 step
• Total Distance Walked: 1,162 miles
• Daily Average Steps: 20,275 steps/day
• V02 Max Increase: +6.2 mL/min/kg

Charts

Data below was collected from my Apple Watch and exported from the Health app