Put One Foot In Front of the Other...Repeat One Million Times

 As soon as the treadmill hit 1.7 miles, I stopped it. I should have felt exhilarated. I should have been bathed in a joyous sense of accomplishment, instead of just sweat. I had just reached my goal of one million calorie-burning, aerobic steps. I did it more than four months ahead of schedule and I shed more than fifty pounds in the process. Why did my millionth step seem so trivial? Perhaps it was because I knew that despite this achievement, I had so many more steps to go.

How it feels to be obese

In August of 2010, I was at the highest and lowest points in my life. The highest on the scale and the lowest in my disposition. I was 265 pounds, wearing a size 24 pant and disgusted with myself in nearly every way. It was hard to look at recent pictures of myself, even if they were from a very memorable vacation. I didn't recognize myself in the photos, or even in a mirror. I was tired all the time, physically and mentally. I knew that I needed to make a change. I knew that my previous attempts at regular exercise had failed and the idea of starting from scratch was overwhelming.

My husband and I had received a very basic treadmill as a hand-me-down and had yet to put it to good use. It sat in an unused room of our house, mocking me every time I passed it.

A million steps to take

One day, as I thought about how hard it is to take that first step towards being well, it occurred to me that it wasn't just that I needed to take the first step, I needed to take millions of steps. But could I? Could I really take a million extra steps? I approached my husband Jeremy with the idea of walking one million calorie-burning, aerobic steps and giving myself a year to do it. He said the one thing that I needed to hear, "I think you can do it."

And that’s how I started walking on the treadmill. It was August 22, 2010 and I started at a tortoise-like two miles an hour. By the end of my first walk, I had taken barely 1000 steps. My face was flushed and I was sweating. My heart rate was over 154 and it took five more minutes to settle down. I wrote the day's number of steps on my kitchen calendar. I knew that the number was far below what I'd need to walk each day to make it to my goal in 365 days, but that didn’t bother me too much. I knew I’d eventually make up for it. I counted only the steps I took on the treadmill, not my regular everyday steps. I wanted my million steps to be calorie-burning steps, not just walking to the bathroom.

How I reached my goal

As the days passed, my steps added up. Some days were easier than others but eventually I got up to about 3000 steps a day. I thought this was a nice, even amount, more than my daily requirement and enough to give myself a good workout. I didn't miss a day. I worked out seven days a week, for at least 30 minutes a day. I joined Walker Tracker, which helps you keep track of your steps. I added their widget to a page on my personal website, along with a little post about my goal. I tried to remain low key about it, not wanting to be boastful or brag. I thought a million steps might seem trivial to people who are already in shape, and I felt as if nobody would understand the importance of having such a goal. The friends and family I did confide in offered verbal pats on the back, but it was my husband’s encouragement that really kept me going.

To help me along my journey, I invested in a good quality pedometer. I wanted to start counting my steps outside too. I began walking two miles to and from work several times a week in place of the treadmill, clocking in over 4000 steps round trip.

Eventually 3000 steps on the treadmill stopped feeling like a good workout, so I increased my daily goal to 5000 and walked as fast as I could. Gradually my starting speed rose from 2 mph to 2.5, then 3 and eventually 3.5. Soon I knew I'd reach one million steps several months before my year was over, so I focused on getting there as fast as I could.

As time passed it became easier and easier to walk. I never got that euphoric feeling that some exercisers talk about but I stopped scowling at the treadmill. Walking became less of a chore and more of just another thing I did everyday. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the walking time didn't really impede on the other things in my life. 30 or 40 minutes out of a 24 hour day is just a tiny slice, a sliver. It’s one television sitcom, one session of dinking around on the Internet. A few less snoozes of the alarm clock.

I walked through the whole winter and into the spring, logging my steps on Walker Tracker and watching them add up. The closer I got to one million steps, the more nervous I felt. I knew that reaching my goal could not be the end of my journey. The walking was paying off. By combining the steps with a low calorie, low fat diet I was shedding pounds. Each pound that came off made it a little easier to walk. As I grew lighter, I was able to walk a little farther and a little faster. I even cranked the treadmill up to 5 mph and jogged for a quarter mile at a time! That would have been ridiculously impossible back in August 2010. As my walking became more and more successful, I felt confident enough to add in some weight-loss goals. I decided to try to lose one pound every two weeks. I wanted to lose weight sensibly, not radically, and I wanted my one million steps to remain the primary mission and focal point.

It was a Monday in April when I took my millionth step. I had walked 1.7 miles and I stopped to take a breather. I looked down at my pedometer, sweat dripping off my forehead. One million steps. Over 425 miles my stumpy legs have traveled these last eight months, getting stronger with each step.

I started the treadmill again, pushing my speed up a notch. Sure, I had walked one million steps, by I had so many more to go!

Photo: Mr. T in DC, Creative Commons 2.0