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In a recent video, lifestyle self-help YouTuber Matt D’Avella documents his efforts to walk more every day, setting himself the goal of hitting a minimum of 10,000 steps each day based on the now-famous benchmark (originally set by a Japanese pedometer company).
“I consider myself an active person, but if there’s one area I definitely ignore it’s cardio,” he says. “I rarely hit the treadmill, I don’t run, and my average steps for the day for the last three years have been less than 4,000. I want to finally add more movement into my daily routine, and so I’m going to walk 10,000 steps a day for 30 days.”
One of the most immediate challenges D’Avella encounters during the first week of the month-long experiment is that walking 10,000 steps can be quite time-consuming. “It is surprisingly difficult to get 10,000 steps into a day,” he says. “I keep finding myself checking my tracker at 8 p.m. at night and realizing that I’m 2,000 or 3,000 steps short, and so what I’ve had to do is go out after dark and just walk around my neighborhood, which isn’t creepy at all.”
As he heads into the second week, D’Avella makes a conscious effort to switch up his daily schedule to allow for those 10,000 steps to occur earlier and more naturally throughout his routine. This way, he figures, he stands a better chance of continuing the habit once the 30 days are over.
“The first thing that really started to work for me was focusing on incidental exercise,” he says, referring to the low-effort activity involved in going about your daily tasks. “This requires less effort than carving out a dedicated hour to go to the gym, and can be built off everyday activities and routines.”
At the end of the challenge, D’Avella found that he had averaged 12,140 steps per day. His weight remained consistent throughout, starting and ending the month at 160 pounds, having fluctuated a little in the middle, and the additional activity didn’t affect any other data points like his blood pressure or resting heart rate.
“I don’t intend to hit 10,000 steps every single day, I just don’t think that’s a realistic goal for me personally, but I do intend to walk more,” says D’Avella.
Philip Ellis is a freelance writer and journalist from the United Kingdom covering pop culture, relationships and LGBTQ+ issues. His work has appeared in GQ, Teen Vogue, Man Repeller and MTV.
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