For a long time, 10,000 steps has been the benchmark for a healthy dose of daily activity. In reality, the number was a marketing strategy from a Japanese academic who invented a pedometer in 1964, and the National Health Service states that a 10-minute daily walk may be enough. I decided to attempt to do 10k before 10am for a week, even though I was interested in a walking challenge. Is it really crazy? Are you me? How hard would it be? What could possibly go wrong.
If you wake up excited for when you can go back to sleep, that’s a lot. On a good day, getting out of bed is akin to raising the Titanic, and I am not a morning person.
It wouldn’t be a complete lie to say that day 1 of my challenge was a complete disaster, but I prefer to call it Day Zero, or My Day of Learnings, for I had already failed by the time I woke up. How do I do that? It was late in the morning.
I spent the day thinking about walking. I wrote on a notepad that I felt like a philosopher of movement because I felt like a journalist who needed to get to her feet and move around did not have the motivation to do it. I decided to take a more scientific approach to the challenge, thinking about what I needed to do to get to 10,000 steps before 10.
One of the first things I do when I wake up in the morning is look at my phone, have a scroll through social media, check my emails, and then do puzzles; my latest obsession is the New York Times app, Wordle. I moved on to these brainteasers as I was hopelessly addicted to ScrabbleGo, but I started studying two-letter words for fun after I started watching Scrabble tournaments. I feed my cats their breakfast and take their medication before rushing to the office as I realize I have spent a lot of time looking at a screen.
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The first thing I learned was to spring clean my routine. I restricted myself to 15 minutes a day on social media, and promised to do puzzles at lunch on my commute, or at least not at all. I don’t think breakfast is the best meal of the day, so I didn’t have time to have it before or after my walk.
One of the things that was going to stop me from giving this challenge was waking up late, or at least too late to get 10,000 steps in before 10am. I wish I was walking 30 minutes every day for two weeks instead.
This isn’t a challenge for people who start work early if they are in a role that involves a lot of walking around. Those who work a 9-5 are already on the back foot as they lose a whole hour of time to be sat down. For a couple of days, I would start work at 10 so that I could have a hard deadline for when I needed to get the steps in.
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I had to get to bed early to wake up ready to go. By the end of Day Zero, I had a plan in place for several different experiments to be put into action over the next seven days, and I slept by 9pm.
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Day 1: Converting the faff
I put on my FitBit as soon as I opened my eyes, rather than scrabbling around to find it as I was about to leave the door. I got distracted doing little life admin tasks that I should have done the day before. Just by having a shower, making a coffee, and sorting out my cats breakfasts, I racked up 500 steps. I found this really motivating. I’m a 20th of the way there! To no one in particular, I crowed. I headed out of the flat ready to start my first 10,000 steps before 10am so that I could experiment with The Half and Half Commute.
The goal was to get 5,000 steps in on either side of my journey to work. I walked for over 30 minutes from my home to one of the new Crossrail stations. When I arrived in central London, I would take the long route to the office and make it to 10,000. I added 4,049 steps to the target by avoiding the stairs near the ExCel and taking a ramp, but I felt like I had done my job. Not terrible!
I didn’t have time to do 6,000 steps between Spurs Court Road and the Women’s Health office, and by the time 10am rolled around my total sat at 5,258. I wanted to get to 10,000 as soon as possible, but I knew I had to wait until lunchtime. I plotted out a return route that took me to a Post Office, a parcel drop shop, a couple of stores on Oxford Street, and a salad place. I saw my steps climb into five figures by 2pm and I was happy.
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I failed the challenge by four hours, but my tally at 10am was over 50%, which I thought was a good start. I would try The Half and Half Commute again but leave home earlier so I could wander aimlessly through the streets of London. It is possible that that is an excuse for an 8pm sleep. A sloth in me said yes.
Day 2: Worst foot forward
After less than a day, my experiment began unraveling rapidly. The discovery of a huge gash on the side of my foot meant that my tally at 10am was mediocre, and mostly earned from hopping or limping on one leg to my local pharmacy.
With the challenge and my foot on ice, I decided to look more into the psychology of fitness challenges, hoping to learn more about motivation and consistency, which fitness expert and founder of MADE On Demand said are crucial elements of success.
She told me that consistency is the most important component when it comes to achieving goals. Not only does it help us to stay focused and form long term habits that will last into the future, from a physical perspective, programmes become disorganised and the body finds it much harder to adapt.
It’s one of the biggest barriers for people to fit exercise into their schedule. It can happen even if your schedule is busy. It is possible to tack on an exercise session before your day becomes too busy. The chance to aim all of your energy towards creating your healthiest, happiest self is available to you.
Consistency really is key to ensuring that you stay motivated and confident in what you do. Anything as well as exercise is a critical driver of success.
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According to research by the California Almonds Board, half of Brits gave up on goals due to Procrastination, wasting 20 minutes a day over 30 days, and a quarter blamed Procrastination on low Energy. The majority of people said low energy was a barrier to achieving goals.
I wanted to get a handle on the emotional, personal, reason for getting up and doing this massive step quota, but not from mindset theories and data.
The 9-year-old son gave me some enlightenment. I went to the Pokemon World Finals to look for Christmas gifts for him, and when I suggested that he and his Dad could enter next year’s Pokemon Go! tournament, I got an angry response.
Those people have legendary. We have a best CP of 3,000. They play all the time. The second best Pokémon doesn’t do any damage. Its move is yawn.
He might have been speaking an alien language to me and I was so focused on him that I snapped back into the room.
Who is slacking? Is it me?
Slaking is the name of the best Pokemon that we have.
A lot of Pokemon Go! I’m walking around looking for Pokemons and trying to beat them with a screen. If you were a serious player, you would want to get up and walk around as early as possible as the more you play the more power you have. I am neither a schoolboy nor a game player.
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Susie has two large dogs and I turned to her. Susie, an avid marathon runner who has been blessed with incredibly long legs, is also a dog mom to two other dogs. Her lurchers are larger than Shetland ponies and run as fast as racehorses.
She yawned when I asked her what her daily step count was. She stated that she was so tired.
I’m not surprised at all. I responded. Susie has to get up at 6am and walk the dogs individually before she starts work at 9am, and while it does strike me as being a real pain in the ass, I know that I would do anything to keep my own pets happy and healthy.
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My cat sitter and professional dog walker will definitely get you up, out, and moving early, according to Pet Buddy. She told me that dogs are high maintenance pets and will need those important walkies which, as amazing and fun as it is for them, it gets us up off the sofa and outside moving, increasing our heart rates, and helping us to lose weight.
I had a feeling that the next experiment on my list would be a success because of all the intel in my head.
Day 3: Having a good reason
I don’t want to sound like a Mother Theresa from Wish type character, but I really enjoy helping, and for years I have done a lot of fundraising for small, grassroots animal charities, and made a habit of donating to food banks and charity shops.
It was really motivating that I would be getting up and out early to donate bedding and toys to my local cat shelter and then drop some books off at the charity shop across the road. With a 45 minute walk each way plus time in the middle for drop off and chat, I estimated this would be a 2 hour step-test.
I had close to 8,300 steps by the time I got home, and a sense of calm since I had helped others.
Day 4: Treadmill time
Is an air-conditioned gym as good as it gets during a heat wave? The idea of walking on a treadmill is never going to get me out of bed. I was excited to go.
I wondered if it wasn’t the humid, clammy flat that had me springing out of bed and racing for the door, or something more mystical. As part of my research-and-recovery day, I talked to my friend about how many steps she usually takes before 10am. A single mum to two gorgeous twin toddlers and a creative 5-year-old, lie-ins are very rare at her house. 7,000 is her average 10am tally.
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Fran is the host of Law Of Attraction Changed My Life, one of the UK’s top podcasts. I found it hard to nod off thinking that I would wake up and be ready to take 10,000 steps, but she suggested that I add some sleep inducing words to my training plan.
After a good 90 minutes on the treadmill, my boredom threshold had been reached, but I was still a few hundred shy of the 10k total. One of the benefits of doing the challenge on a machine was being able to change the speed and incline, and I mixed it up by stretching my upper back using an exercise band as I walked, both of which would be out of the question if I were pounding the pavement.
Even though I didn’t get to my target, I felt great that I made my health a priority after leaving the gym.
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I was told to just do the steps after 10pm if I had a pound for every time. I would be able to buy a new product right now. My friends and colleagues encouragement to bend the rules got me thinking.
It was a given that my friend’s wedding reception would be a late one, and I’m not a Cinderella. When the clock hits midnight, I am not scuttling home with only one shoe on, worried about being up early the next day to do housework.
I wondered if a late night dancing would give me an early boost for the last day of my mission.
On paper it worked. I had amassed over 3000 steps when I got home. I was unable to prove my hypothesis and derail the challenge again because I woke up after 10am.
Day 6: Wake up with excitement
On the last day of the challenge, it was time to try out my final “Why”. I’ve seen how hobbies, pets, work, health, family and morality can be a good starting point for hitting 10,000 steps before 10am.
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If you love a car boot sale, then what is fun for you and fun for me are worlds apart.
By 10am, I had picked out a lot of bits and pieces that caught my eye in the field. I made sure to park as far away from the entrance as possible, which helped me rack up more than 7,000 steps.
One person’s trash is another person’s treasure, and the same can be said for hobbies and adventures. What would make you jump out of bed on a Sunday?
Day 7: Try to make it a habit
The last day of the 10,000 steps came with a sense of reverence. I felt like I had been on a physical and mental journey for the last ten days, and today I was determined to reach my final destination, 10,000 steps before 10am.
Despite my best efforts, I didn’t reach the figure, but I was proud of myself for giving it my best shot.
I was reminded of something else thatPenny Weston said as I watched the clock hands change. It can take a long time to develop that consistency, but when something becomes part of your everyday life, it feels much less like a chore and much more like a given.
Working a decent walk into something I do almost daily, has been a great way to build some consistency over a short period of time, and I am eager to maintain it.
If that doesn’t work, I’m going to add a lively dog to my family.
Final thoughts
- Finding a ‘Why’ helped – was it the excuse to go to bed very early, or knowing I had things to do? From dropping off parcels to knowing I was helping causes close to my heart, being on a mission – no matter how trivial – helped get me out the door and on my way.
- Don’t faff – Without wanting to sound too ‘Molly Mae’ there really are 24 hours in the day, and it took this challenge to realise that I was squandering a good chunk of them looking at a screen. Whether it’s puzzles or social posts, remember “where your attention goes, energy flows”, so try and be strict with yourself and see what you can achieve when you’re not looking at your phone. I am definitely more conscious of what I am allowing myself to be distracted by now.
- Make it fun – Real life is pretty exhausting at the moment, switching up your daily routine and trying to do something new can be a great distraction.
- It’s hard to do every day – Unless your daily lifestyle permits it, this might be something to try every Saturday and Sunday for a month.
- Invest in good socks – never in my life did I know blisters could be 3” long and totally horizontal. And so painful!