5, 6, 7, 8 - How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love my Daily 10k Steps Count

Written by Another Round member, Tom Usher

The loss of the commute and my slim & sexy self

This pandemic has been a bit of a roller coaster for me, in terms of my opinion towards interacting with the outside world. To be honest, at the start of All This, I was so overwhelmed with the idea that I didn’t have to spend two hours every single day wrestling physically and mentally with thousands of other Londoners on the tube; which is basically a collection of hot, hunch-inducing Thunderdomes, that I wanted it to last forever. Now, two years in and three stone heavier, I feel like I’d happily do battle in the sauna Thunderdomes in a Teletubby suit if it meant it got me out the house. 

Luckily, I don’t actually have to commute to work in a Teletubby suit, and actually that would be quite uncomfortable if I’m being brutally honest with you. I’d look ridiculous. 

But towards the end of last year, I realised that even though I hated the constant feeling of operating just below burnout that commuting Monday to Friday provided, I loved how slim and sexy it made me look. And I thought to myself, how do I replicate that slim and sexy vibe of physical and mental burnout, but without slowly yet meticulously unthreading the fabric of my being in the process? The answer is of course: walking. 

10k steps? No problem

It’s actually quite funny in a macabre way to look back at my 2020 daily step count on my phone and, ala Ralph Wiggum, pinpoint the exact moment the metaphorical heart of my daily steps count rips in half, around about March 2020. It went from a daily average of 8k to about 4k and under. With that came putting on three stone, a shedload of money wasted on takeaways and a general feeling that I was slowly going kind of mental. I’d almost 100% completed Red Dead 2 and did some really clever tweets though, which I’ll definitely look back on fondly as I lay dying. 

Now, I’ve twigged that even though not commuting feels like a vitriolic win over the Evils Of Capitalism®, walking to work was pretty much the only thing keeping my daily step count up, and giving me a reason to get out of the house, and have a shave, and wear something other than stained tracksuit bottoms and t-shirts, and eat things that weren’t just some kind of variation of a bacon sandwich. 

What I like the most about it, which co-incidentally relates to me trying to 100% Red Dead 2, is how easily your phone tricks your brain into gamifying the whole thing. Now I treat my 10k daily steps target like a Legendary Animal I have to hunt, or a gang hideout I have to take down. 

Pretty much every smartphone has an inbuilt steps counter, and most if not all have fancy little graphs that make your decision to walk to the shops instead of getting a bus look like important and cool data. Personally that kind of nonsense spurs me on: I can see on the fancy little graph how much I’ve done, and how much I need to make my fancy little legs move in order to get my fancy little 10k notification high. It’s like doing a good tweet, but for your arse. 

I’ve often found myself walking to Sainsbury’s to ponder about life next to the milk, cheese and desserts section, not only to bathe my mind in its gentle refrigerated hum but also because I just needed 856 more steps to reach 10k and if I didn’t reach 10k then for some reason my brain felt like it hasn’t ‘completed’ the day. Is it good to be stuck constantly quantifying every part of your existence with numbers? Probably not, but it does make things easier to figure out.

Like everyone else in January, I’m looking to mercilessly punish the sins of 2021 by losing an unrealistic amount of weight, ban an unrealistic amount of things I enjoy, and day dream about all the unrealistic ways I could make my life better if I basically just wasn’t the actual person I currently am and probably will continue to be. But one thing I have found pretty easy to change and am likely to keep up is walking more. And it’s not even that much more, it’s basically the same as I was walking before the pandemic turned me into a horrible indoor goblin. 

Move more, feel better

It’s only been a couple of months since I’ve started regularly walking over 10k steps, but it already seems like an incredibly natural habit to maintain. Your body can often feel like an unexplainable flesh monolith at the best of times, but for me walking more is one of the only things that genuinely seems to make sense: move around more (at your own pace) and feel better, mentally and physically. 

I’m not going to pretend walking is getting me shredded or anything but it is making a back injury I picked while off my face at New Years feel a lot better, my knees don’t hurt as much most of the time, and I don’t suddenly feel out of breath randomly anymore, which is nice. It even clears my head a bit, giving me time to focus on some really high grade ‘daydreaming and muttering to myself in the street’ action, which really helps my mental health.  

I know my life is privileged enough that I’m even able to choose to walk more (or less), and I’m able to walk alone at night because I’m an able-bodied man and also a very hard bastard. But I feel like generally walking more is something I could’ve always done before if I was arsed, I just wasn’t because I never really saw the point. Now I do see the point, and it’s great. 

5 PT-recommended ways to walk more

From Another Round Head Trainer, Max Cotton

1. Gamify the process. Just like Tom, make it into a game that you need to win every day. If you don’t make your steps one day, you need to make up for it the following days, to keep your average up. Keep your streak alive for as long as possible.
2. Compete with friends or colleagues. Setting up a challenge to see who can accrue the most steps in a group with a prize at the end is good motivation, and will help build habits.
3. Cut down on public transport. Where it won’t take you ten times as long, walk. You might need to leave earlier, but you’ll get all the physical and mental benefits, which is pretty much the opposite of a TFL journey.
4. Wear comfortable shoes. If you’re walking to the office, keep your work shoes there and come in wearing trainers.
5. Go for a walk. As stupid as it sounds, sometimes you just need to intentionally go for a walk. If you’re working from home, have all your food in the fridge, and no plans for the day, it’s easy to stagnate. Sometimes you just need to go for a walk, for walking’s sake.