So sometime in September 2005 I decided that I was going to lose a bit off my gut and start walking the recommended 10,000 steps everyday. As a bit of motivation/geekness, I tracked how many steps I took every day to make sure I could say I reached a goal.

On January 1 2006 I decided to change the times I counted steps from midnight to midnight rather then counting them from whenever I got up to whenever I went to bed (at that stage, I was usually getting up at about 10am and going to bed at 2). I managed to walk every day of 2006 except for two (where my pedometer broke and I didn’t buy a new one for a few days). So a year on I have some full figures, some averages and the like. Obviously the numbers are not 100% accurate, but they are good enough. The figures tell the following..

• I walked at least 10,000 steps for 319 days in the year (87.39% of the year)
• I walked more 11,000 or more steps for 59 days (16.16%)
• I most often walked 10,000 steps on Tuesdays (48 of 52 weeks, or 92.30% of the year)
• I most rarely walked 10,000 steps on Sundays (39 of 52 weeks, or 75% of the year)
• The day I walked the most steps was Friday, November 18 where I walked 20,807 steps
• The day I walked the fewest steps (not counting days that were marked as 0 as the pedometer broke) was Tuesday, January 17 where I walked 2,408 steps
• The week where I walked the most steps was the week of November 13-19 where I walked 82,310 steps
• The week where I walked the fewest steps was January 30-February 5 where I walked 45,952 steps
• I walked the most steps total on Sundays, walking 549,784 steps.
• I walked the fewest steps on Saturdays, walk 513,673
• On average, I walked 10,142.52 steps per day
• On average, I walked 71,018.21 steps per week

Okay, here is the big one. I was required to walk 3,650,000 steps during the year to clear at least 10,000 steps a day through the year.

In total, I walked 3,702,018 steps!

Yeah, you read that right, 3.7 MILLION! Pretty scary when you think about it like that.

As for this year? I’ll continue throughout the year walking at least 10,000 steps a day. This year however I’m going to try and clear at least four million steps, this may be a bit hard but I’m confident. I’m also going to hit the bike for at least 30 minutes every day, something that I’ve been doing for the last few weeks already.

As for the weight off the gut? It’s not totally gone, but I’ve made a considerable improvement over the old me, that’s for sure.