'I aimed to walk 10km daily to lose weight, here's what happened'
This year I made my intention for weight loss public. As someone who has only ever existed in extremes, I chose to take this extreme measure of accountability to make progress in my goal. I started the year well, undertaking the 75 Hard Challenge (see, extreme). I loved and loathed the challenge in equal measure and much to my surprise (and those around me), I miraculously completed it. The challenge taught me that I could do difficult things, I could push myself without falling at the first hurdle, and perhaps most importantly it taught me discipline.
I kept up elements of my newly-formed routine for the months that followed, but then summer struck, travel plans kicked in, and maintaining a routine was much more difficult to execute. Having ditched London for most of June and July in favour of sunnier climes, margaritas, and late-night dancing with friends, I decided I needed another challenge to re-ignite my goals this side of the year.
The running joke over the summer was that I lived in caps. One day, mid sort-out, I tallied them up - embarrassingly, I clocked in at 35 caps - and decided to put them to good use. Well, more use than just covering my sweat-soaked head when playing sport, or hiding my hangover hair at brunch, or protecting me from the sun at the beach. I decided I would take each one of them on a walk. A 10km walk every day with a different cap, no days off. And on top of that, gym four times a week. Extreme, yes, but effective in my efforts for weight loss? Most likely.
I didn’t put a huge amount of research into this challenge. I knew walking to be an effective weight loss tool, particularly for people in bigger bodies due to its low-impact nature. I knew walking had a huge number of health benefits, including getting you out into natural light, and I knew I wanted to take advantage of summer hours before the dark nights rolled in. I also knew that 10km was manageable - according to my Apple Watch I was chalking up that distance regularly by the end of the day.
What I didn’t know, and what I didn’t prepare for was how undertaking that distance in one go would impact my body. My preparation for this challenge was zero, and you know that saying “fail to prepare, prepare to fail” - well, let me tell you it’s true.
Everything I learned
1.Good footwear is essential
My first fail was setting out on day one with pretty busted gym trainers, the second was wearing non-sports socks on a day when it was 27 degrees, the third fail was not taking water, and the fourth was not planning my route.
The whole idea of this challenge was to push myself - this wasn’t meant to be a stroll in the park, this was meant to be two hours of cardio which required a decent pace and a consistently high-ish heart rate. Four miles (10km is just a little over six miles) and I had got to the end of the route I had planned, which meant I doubled back on myself and started walking in loops to add up distance, and by mile five, my feet were on fire. Burning as if I had stepped into Dante’s own hell. The friction between my thin socks and my worn-down trainers (with a dose of heavy footedness thrown in) meant I could feel the blisters coming up with a mile still to go before I reached home.
By the time I finished the first walk (an unimpressive two hours 18 minutes), I was in agony, and with 34 days ahead of me to go I was also fuming with myself. How could I be so stupid? How could I publicly announce I was about to spend the next five weeks doing a challenge that required me to be on my feet when I could barely make it up the stairs?
The next day I stuck six Compeed plasters to my feet, wore two sets of sports socks and headed out with my friend. It was not good. My feet were in pain from the beginning and by the end of the walk, I had a blister that covered the entire sole of my right foot, and a giant one that wrapped around the heel of my left foot.
I was so angry with myself for getting into this state; so frustrated with my body that it had let me down at the first hurdle. I made it through one more walk, on which I had to carry a sterilised safety pin with me to pop the blisters mid-walk and had to change my socks after mile three. By the end of the walk, I was in tears and decided I had to fix the problem otherwise this challenge was never going to get off the ground.
I was so embarrassed and ashamed that I had set myself this target and by day three, I had failed it. In a bid to not lose face and momentum, but allow the injuries to recover, I followed up my one hour gym workouts with one hour of swimming (which was so nice on my broken feet). Three days later, the blisters were still there but not as brutal as they had been, so it was time to strap in and go again, and again, and again.
2. Planning a route can make long walks easier and more enjoyable
In those few days of no walking, I had a reset. I dug out my Adidas Ozwego trainers because of their super soft uppers, invested in some running socks and mapped out a route that was exactly 10km and a mixture of hills and flat (crucially, ending on a descent).
It was hard - mentally and physically - but I found my stride. Doing the same route every day helped me know that I could complete the walk. The first 1.5 miles is almost all uphill, but it’s a relatively steady incline, so I started timing this leg of the walk to keep pushing myself forward, knowing that when I got to the top I was rewarded with three things: the view of London's Richmond Hill, a mile of pretty much flat terrain, and the knowledge that the last 30 minutes of this walk was a descent.
I started gaining momentum in my walks and once I broke the sub two-hour barrier, the walking felt more achievable. This was no longer a two-and a-bit hour exercise, it was under two hours and that was the same as driving to the gym, doing a workout, and driving back. The walking felt manageable, and with the sun shining on me a banging playlist (so essential), or a gripping audio book, time flew.
3. Rest days are crucial for consistency
The difficulty came with time management. On the days when I was both walking and doing a solid gym session, I was saying goodbye to four hours of my day, and I struggled to keep up with my other responsibilities. My body was also taking a hit. I was averaging 18k-20k steps a day and burning over 2000 calories when I was doubling down on walking and gym sessions, and my bones started to feel it (so did my water bill from showering at least twice a day).
My hips, my knees and my ankles were reminded I am 34 and carrying a lot of weight, and while my times were getting quicker, and walking was getting easier, the quiet creaking in my body was a sign I probably doing this to excess.
Over the next month, I did my best to be consistent. I had another three-day break for a family funeral, and a couple of days here and there where my schedule was just too packed to fit in the walk unless I was walking by 4am, which even in my extreme living was just a little too extreme. I had a goal to end this challenge before a friend’s wedding mid-September, and I was short by nine days. I was OK with it because I was going to smash it out as soon as I got back, and the challenge would still be done by the end of September.
Except I picked up an awful virus while I was away that resulted in an extremely tight chest, shortness of breath (the closest I had felt like this was when I had severe pneumonia in 2019), and a cough that meant I couldn’t lie flat. Two sets of steroids, two sets of antibiotics, and four new inhalers later, it’s taken me almost three weeks to get back to walking. I was devastated because it meant not completing this challenge to perfection. And therein lay the problem with all of this. I used this walking challenge as a way to be perfect. To perfectly hit 10km walk a day, with a perfect gym session on top, because being this active would drive me towards being perfect.
4. Wellness isn't about perfection, it's about progress
What I overlooked in my ambition to be the best version of myself, was how much I achieved on the journey. I went from liking walking to loving it, (for context, two years ago I would dread even walking 10 minutes to the tube); I went from never running to jogging for one minute (huge for me); I went from hitting a 10k step average to 20k step average; and I got my time down to one hour 45 minutes for my fastest time. Am I disappointed I still haven’t taken every single one of those caps on a walk? Yes. Am I still proud of myself for pushing myself into feeling and experiencing something new? I think so, yes.
The thing with exercise, and fitness, and wellness is that we are constantly striving for more. We are in an era where a 5am wake up and three hours of wellbeing is perceived as normal - it isn’t, it’s extraordinary, and more often than not, unattainable. This challenge, with all the extra parameters I placed on it, was not attainable either. Not for my body and not for my mind. But the idea of a walk every day without prescription on timing and on length, just moving because it feels good - that is attainable, that is achieve, and wow does it make a difference to my body and my mind.
Bottom line: walking is great for us; trying to be perfect - that’s a lot less good for us.
Read now: How to practise self-compassion and become more confident
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