When I started getting serious about my physical health one of the first decisions I made was to get a wearable tracking device and track my steps. I quickly learned that I wasn’t moving enough and needed to make some significant changes to my daily routine.

Before I ever ran a mile I made the choice to give up my parking permit at work and park in a free lot off-campus during the day. It takes me about ten minutes to get from the new parking lot to my office – or approximately 900 steps. Multiply that by four because I come home for lunch every day and I’ve added a much-needed 3,600 steps to my day.

Guess what? That extra bit of walking also inspires me to get up from my office chair and move around more during the day. I feel like I have more energy. It also helps that my activity tracker gives me a nudge when I’ve been sitting too long.

The result is that on most weekdays I can reach 10,000 steps without any ‘extra’ physical activity. It also means on the days in which I run I can easily add another 8,000 – 20,000 steps to my daily count.

My wife also has an activity tracker and we recently got our kids Vivofit Jr. activity trackers / watches. We regularly track our activity as a family to see ‘who’s in the lead today’. All of this leads to increased health and activity for our entire family, which is great.

My Journey to 4,000,000 Steps

I challenge myself to reach 10,000 steps each day and with this half-marathon training plan I’m hitting that goal and then some.

It got me thinking about how many steps I’ll end up taking in a year and I figured I was on a journey to 4,000,000 steps!

11,000 x 365 = 4,000,000

My activity tracker will help guide me, as it keeps a running ‘average’ of my step count over last seven days. If I can maintain my daily step goal of 10,000 steps, plus stretch for an extra 1,000 steps per day, I will end up taking an incredible four million steps this year!

That’s a far cry from my days parking at work and sitting in my office for 7.5 hours. I bet I was only taking as little as 2,500 – 3,000 steps every week day. Yikes!

I remember reading a study that said sitting is worse than smoking, even if you exercise regularly. I took it to heart. That’s why, even though I’m running 40-50 kilometres a week, I’m still trying to get regular steps in throughout the day.