For 2025 I have set myself the goal of walking 12000 steps a day EVERY Day for the entire year. This blog is going to be used to tack my progress and record the daily struggle to make my goal for 2025 a reality!
In 2024 I unsucessfully tried to consistantly walk everyday due to various issues including illness and injury but mainly I was not consistant because I wasn’t focused on my walking and got out of the habit of getting up first thing and walking!
About me
I am a 51 year old Male who is pretty active and used to participate in a lot of sport but iver the past 10 years has been less and less active due to working a lot in a basically sedentary job (IT) and the accumilation of injuries! Over the past few years I have had periods where I dropped a fair amount of weight and get much fitter from walking and doing 10000 step challenges etc and waking up at 5 am to walk before work but I have lacked the consistency to get any long lasting results from the walking.
Because of the up and down nature of my fitness Journey over the past few years and the lack of real weight loss as a result of this I have decided that my only 2 goals for 2025 are:
Wake up at 5 am and walk for 1 hour EVERY day
Walk over 12000 steps a day every day!
I am hoping that focussing on walking as soon as I wake up every day that it will make it much easier to make my goal of 12000 steps a day as I will have completed about 8000 steps before 6:30 am so it should be really simple to get the other 4000 steps in by the end of the day.
As well as making it easier to get my steps in walking first thing has the added benfits of reducing my back pain, increasing my flexability, getting rid of aches and pains of being old and also wiping out the stress from the day before meaning that I am better prepared for the day ahead and my bag of fucks is nice and full making the day way less stressful!
In the summer walking first thing also means that I get to see the sun rise and get some morning sunlight which is apparently super important for health and wellbeing too 🙂
The main reason for setting these goals this year was to have an easily attainable short term goal of walking 12000 steps a day that will after a year of doing it mean that a really healthy habit has been built that I can build on in the years to come and also hopefully lose a lot of fat and get down to a healthy weight by the end of the year!
I am going to try and Ruck (Walk carry weight) with a 10kg weight vest on my morning walks during the week as much as possible to increase the benfits from the walking and I also found that it really helps to work the core and improve posture which is really useful and sort of kills 2 birds with one stone!
So as I am not making my 15000 steps as day goal at the moment from tomorrow I will start walking 15000 steps a day Monday to Friday and then at the weekends I will just do BMX and road biking instead of walking!
My 5 am walk will actually be a ruck with the 10 kg weight vest Monday to Friday too as I want to get my weight down as quickly as possible!
I got a wrist roller this morning from Amazon and tomorrow lunch time after my bike ride I will do 3 sets of wrist rolls, body weight squats, Bulgarian split squat and handlebar press ups plus 10 minutes of backwards walking. I will do the same on Wednesday and Friday’s too.
Tuesdays and Thursdays I will go to the track and do sprints then ride the track.
This will be my goal from now on to consistently do this training for the rest of the month!
As it was Mothers day My son drove us down to Weymouth to meet up with my parents and Brother’s family for the day as we had a table booked in a local pub for 2 pm.
Before we went into the pub and after the meal we took the dogs for a walk so by the end of the day I was on
Monday 31 st March and Tuesday 1st April
So the week hasn’t gone totally to plan as I had conjunctivitis at the weekend so I couldn’t go into the office on Monday or Tuesday and combined with having to wait in for deliveries on Tuesday meant that I got really low step counts on both days:
DAY
Date
Day
Weight (kgs)
Steps Done
92
31/03/2025
Monday
107.6
3583
93
01/04/2025
Tuesday
108.6
2389
Wednesday 2nd April
On Wednesday I was feeling better so I got up early and walked into the office as I had a lot to do in there and then walked home again before my 9 am meeting. At lunch time I went to my parents house as I planned to go to Andover for gates in the evening so its easier to get out from their house than from mine. This meant that other than a bit of hoovering I didn’t get any exercise at lunch time. After work I drove to my Friends house an he gave me a lift to Andover and I did a gates session on the jump bike to protect my wrist! The session went well and I learnt to do a pump jump on the step up on the first straight which is way faster than the manual I used to do. by the end of the day I had done 15619 Steps 🙂
Thursday 3rd April
On Thursday I got up early again and walked to the office again. At lunch time I worked on my BlackMarket Contraband 24″ bike and fitted the new to me forks that arrived on Wednesday. I also put in a new headset as the old one had fallen apart. I then went to the track at 5 and set up for gates and then rode a bit and the bike feels amazing other than the bars are too high and the front wheel kept working loose all the time! Other than that the bike is amazing and manuals like a dream 🙂 I actually got super fast smooth last straights for the first time EVER 🙂 When I got home I walked the rest of my 15000 steps on the treadmill. I finished the day on 15113 Steps.
Friday 4th April
So today was a total write off as I worked from 5 am until just before midnight without a break so I didn’t have time to do anything other than a bit of cleaning here and there and fitting my cranks and pedals on the road bike as they arrived in the afternoon:
The road bike looks mint with the new cranks so it just needs the front Derailleur, cable and new bar tape fitting and it will be ready for more hilly rides! Its fine for the flatish rides that I plan to do for now so its not an issue but will need sorting when I get some fitness back.
I finished the day with a lot ticked off at work and have a posh road bike again but only 1957 Steps for the day so my 15000 steps a day streak went out of the window pretty quickly! (2 days!)
Saturday 5th April
As I was up until after 1 am last night I slept in until 7 am and then got up, did my weigh-in and I am back to 108 kgs this morning as I caved yesterday and got a load of sweets and crisps and ate crap all day 🙁 I then got showered and dressed and headed to the track. As the main gates were closed I parked outside and walked up to the track and then grabbed the Black Market from the container and did some laps until my knee and wrist started hurting after 5 or 6 laps so I went home andtook the bike with me as I want to fit the lower bars, fill the forks up with air to make then stiffer and cut the steerer tube down when the pipe cutter and shock pump arrive later today.
I did remember to take a photo of the new stickers on the BlackMarket and they look pretty good to be fair:
I think with the lower bars, more air and the steerer cut the bike will be ready to go and I may take it for a ride again later! I may get my son to drive to a pump track on the way to my parents to practice his driving too 🙂
While I am up and waiting for things to be delivered I am going to get the 24″ bikes out of the garage and get them fully up together and up for sale. I am also going to build the Supercross up as a Upgrade package of frame, 15mm Onyx rear wheel, BB and DXR cranks and stick it online for £500 and see if anyone bites.
So I have got the lower bars on and they feel better already:
I also got the front wheel spindle sorted as the quick release thingy had spun around a bit so wasn’t locking fully and the axle was not screwed in fully! Its now rock solid so hopefully it stays that way 🙂
I have also got the DK 24″, GT 24″ and the Supercross frame, wheel cranks and bb bundle up for sale too. It looks like someone I know is interested in the DK already and I am meeting them tomorrow so he can have a play on it and test it out.
I have also sold a set of DXR 175mm cranks which I will get cash and a service for the Road bike so he can fit the front derailleur, cable and new bar tape and also dial in the gears so that’s a win win 🙂
Looks like I have 2 people wanting to buy the DK so I have bought a set of lower rise bars for the jump bike in case I need to lower them any more 🙂
I am still waiting for the time window of the suspension pump and pipe cutter to cut down the steerer tube and pump up the suspension then the jump bike is done!
So the pipe cutter and shock pump both arrived so I have now cut the steerer tube down a lot but I have left it long for now until I get the lower bars and have time to play around with the bar height over the coming weeks. Once I have settled on a height I will cut the steerer down more as the forks are staying on the bike. I also cut down the seat tube on the OS20 so that it could be slammed too.
Next week I am going to start doing body weight exercises Monday, Wednesday and Friday Lunchtimes to try and sort out my wrist, shoulder and knees as they are not getting better on their own! I am also going to start backwards walking Mon – Friday as it helps my knees a lot! I am also going to start getting up early and walking Monday – Friday and ride the road bike Saturday and Sunday first thing to mix it up a bit!
I really need to get back in the habit of exercising more as I have got really slack recently and I seem to just be gaining weight not losing it even though I am still somewhat active!
So this morning I woke up at 5 am and started work as I was in the middle of something that I started last night and left running so I didn’t walk again this morning! To make matters worse I put on 1 kg yesterday so I am back up to 108.6 kgs again today 🙁
I have also been slacking on updating my Training log so that is not as useful as it should be either! It does highlight just how slack I have been recently!
DAY
Date
Day
Weight (kgs)
Steps Done
86
25/03/2025
Tuesday
108.2
8954
87
26/03/2025
Wednesday
108.2
4736
88
27/03/2025
Thursday
107.6
2293
89
28/03/2025
Friday
107.6
6032
90
29/03/2025
Saturday
108.5
6411
91
30/03/2025
Sunday
107.4
8197
92
31/03/2025
Monday
107.6
3583
93
01/04/2025
Tuesday
108.6
I haven’t walked 12000 in a day since 24/03/2025 and I haven’t walked more than 8000 steps all but 2 days in that time which is really poor!
This is the kick up the arse that I need to start exercising regularly again starting today! I am also going back on the carnivore diet from today so I should hopefully start getting my weight back down and start feeling better again!
I have decided to up my daily steps to 15000 steps a day to get me back on track and burn more fat at the same time!
After I finish work at 11:30 today I will get the jump bike on the car and head to the track for an hour or so then get into my road kit and go for a ride up the 2 tunnels as well then at about 15:30 my son is swinging by so I will then give him a lift home and then head to my parents to do the cleaning and feed the fish so it should be pretty easy to get to 12000 steps today but if not I will go for a walk when I get home from their house to make sure that I get the steps in!
Last night I cooked a beef joint so I have a couple day’s beef in the fridge which will make sticking to the carnivore diet easier to stick to as well so I am hoping with starting to walk 12000 steps a day, riding the jump bike and the road bike I should get the weight dropping back down pretty quickly!
I will start getting up at 5 am and rucking again from tomorrow so that I can make my life easier by getting a big chunk of the steps in before work and also get the added benefits of being more relaxed when I start work and also get the morning sun before work (Just!) too 🙂
I think with consistent walking and bike riding plus riding the Jump bike I should get my weight in check pretty quickly and start seeing it drop significantly when combined with the Carnivore diet and intermittent fasting too! As it stands I haven’t actually lost any weight this year! In fact I have actually gained 0.4 kgs 🙁
This is really annoying as I worked really hard in January/ February to drop 3 kgs only to stop being consistent in March and put it all back on plus an extra 0.2 kgs 🙁
This shows that I need to get back to walking consistently hence my goal of walking 15000 steps a day to undo all the bad I did in March 🙁
Upping my step goal will also mean that my average steps for the year will go over 12000 again as my average for the year so far stands at 11558.1 steps which is still over 10000 steps a day but under my goal for the year of 12000 steps as day!
Not shown in the Training log is the fact that all the walking has greatly improved my fitness level and health and I am now able to breath through my nose which I was unable to do at the start of the year and walking is not painful or difficult any more which is good too 🙂
I am just updating my fridge training log which I haven’t used since January and was a really good way for me to stay motivated as I saw it every time I went in the kitchen so I was constantly reminded how many days in a row I have reached my goal etc!
As well as getting the Fridge planner updated I have also got the Pro Dialled out of the hall cupboard and put the bars on it:
I have to dial in the brakes and torque all the bolts later and tighten the chain a bit then its ready to take photos and get it up for sale! I also need to get some photos of my Pro XL Dialled as well so I can get that sold. I found some more Halo 20″ wheels in the cupboard too so I will sell them too as I don’t need them as my S&M 20″ already has profile mini wheels on it!
Once I get some parts sold I will start getting the parts that I need to finish off the GT and DK 24″ bikes then I can sell them too and get some more cash back.
I will also get the Standard 24″ back from my friend as his son now has a Curtis Cruiser so doesn’t need mine and I can get that up for sale too as I will not be using it any time soon.
Once I get some of the bikes sold I will talk to Gary about making me a second DJ frame, an OS20 frame and maybe a 24″ cruiser frame/ dirt jump frame that I can put big tyres on and use to train on and protect my wrist!
I have just checked through my posts and 32 x 16 gearing for the Jump bike is basically the same gearing as 36 x 16 on the 24″ BMX so I will go with that if the chain-ring clears the frame. I have some 170 mm Shimano Saints Cranks and a 32 t chain ring so when the new Bottom Bracket arrives from Cruicial I will change the cranks over and put the 16t driver on the wheel and the new chain and the Jump bike will be as much like a race BMX as possible!
As it turns out I have 2 x Halo drivers with 16T sprockets so I can also swap the 24″ jump bike to 36 x 16 as well 🙂
I have just put the 32T chain ring on the Saints now:
So this week has been a really busy week and I have also been really lazy and not walked first thing at all! this has meant that my steps have been way off where they should be other than Monday when I had time to do the treadmill while I was on call!
Sunday
108.1
YES
NO
17212
Monday
107.5
YES
NO
12316
Tuesday
108.2
YES
NO
8954
Wednesday
108.2
NO
NO
4736
Thursday
107.6
NO
NO
2293
Friday
107.6
NO
NO
So as you can see other than Monday and Tuesday when I walked into the office early my step counts have getting steadily worse and Monday was the only day that I got over 12000 steps and yesterday I was 10000 steps away from my step goal as I didn’t leave the house at all!
I will do my best to get my steps in today as I am on call again tonight so I will walk on the treadmill again and I am at the track this afternoon so I should get some more steps in there!
Tomorrow morning I will get up and go for a long Ruck to make up for the slack week and then I have gates in the afternoon and I will Ruck first thing on Sunday too!
The one highlight of the week was that I am finally under 108 kgs for more than one day so hopefully when I get back to walking the weight will drop off! I am going to get my road bike sorted over the weekend too so that I can try to ride that to see if my shoulder is up to riding it yet and then if it is I am going to go for an hour or so’s ride every lunch time Mon-Friday to try and drop weight as I am not going to the track much anyway so I might as well get fitter and then start riding BMX in the evening instead! This way I will walk first thing, ride the road bike at lunch time and ride BMX in the evenings so 3 a day training 🙂
Gates and training are moving to the evenings next week so I can hit a pump track first thing at the weekends to work on my bike skills!
So as I didn’t get home until almost 23:00 last night I slept in until 6 am and then get straight to work! I was feeling really off this morning and a bit hung over even though I only drank 1 pint last night!!
I did my weigh in and I am back up to 108.1 kgs which is not good at all!
To combat my weight gain I am going to focus on being consistent with my training (Even though I missed this morning’s ruck!) and then next month I will start back on the Carnivore diet to try and get the weight down a bit! I am also thinking that I will go for a bike ride early both days at the weekend instead of a Ruck to mix things up a bit and stop my training getting boring too!
I am also going to do a ride on Wednesday Lunch time too so that I can spin out my legs and burn some belly mid week as well as at the weekend.
So I woke up with my alarm at 5 am and did my weigh-in and I was shocked to see that I was up 1 kg since yesterday!!!! I immediately got dressed and went for a ruck as I haven’t rucked for at least a month now and I have really forgotten the habit of waking up and walking EVERY day again to try and get back to dropping weight!
I have been getting more and more lazy to the point that I didn’t even walk 2000 steps all weekend or even really get out of bed all weekend!
I really enjoyed the walk ruck and I am feeling so much better for it so I am going to get back into the habit of walking again!
So I walked 2.72 miles in 51 minutes 57 seconds and climbed 342 ft so I didn’t break any speed records but it felt so good to blow out the cobwebs and I am able to breath through my nose again which I haven’t been able to for a couple of weeks which is good! It was light for most of the walk this morning which made it much nicer too 🙂 By the time I got home I was on 6655 steps so well over 1/2 way to my 12000 step goal already 🙂
When I got home I opened all the doors and windows and did my 10 minutes Lüften to get back in that habit as well as the house has started to get signs of black mould again which is not ideal!
As I packed my sprints bag with my new Skilz timing system, rollers, splats, cool-down seat and post, shoes, GoPro and tripod, Sprint Block ready to do sprints this afternoon:
The bag is now in the back of the car ready to go so no excuses today! As soon as the measuring wheel and chalk arrive I will head to the track and get started!
I am going to get back to training properly again so I will be doing the following:
This will make a start at losing weight and strengthening my body with rucking and split squats and Press-ups in the mornings and Sprints and gates later in the day.
At lunch time I went to the track and measured out 5 m and 10 m distances and a start line and tried to get the timing to work but it would not and kept starting on its own all the time! I also had issues with the SprintBlock as I am too heavy fro it so it just slid down when I rest the pedal on it 🙁 So I made the most of a bad job and did 12 x 5 meter sprints from a track stand with no timing which was not ideal but better than nothing! I will research the Skilz timing setup further as I guess that I had the gates too far apart or something like that!
Thursday I will go back to using my old folding stool instead of the SprintBlock and actually do some box sprints! I think that once I drop weight the Sprint Block will be much better but for now its just annoying so I will not use it!
I have been looking online and found that the sensors need to be no more than 4 ft apart and I had them way further apart than that so I will try the system again tomorrow lunchtime and see if its any better.
So this morning i woke up at 5 and did my weigh-in and I was up 0.5 kgs to 107.6 kgs this morning which I guess is added muscle from the ride as I am feeling way leaner this morning as you would expect after riding 30+ miles yesterday even if it was on an ebike!
I then started a new habit of taking an nmn pill to see what all the fuss is about and then I got to work as I have a lot to do today! I am going to walk into the office at 6:30 this morning so I started early to get my morning work tasks ticked off before I go to the office!
At about 11:30 I walked home from the office, ate and then got in a cleaning frenzy and started organising and de-cluttering the lounge as it was a nightmare as it had all the stuff from the garage that I needed to go through. After round 2 of organising I now have a sofa that I can sit on and the flat is 80% back to normal so getting there and a lot better than it was! I’m not sure if its the nmn or not but I seem to have way more engergy today and really didn’t need my lunch time nap at all!
This morning I had to take my parents car to the garage for a service and MOT in Trowbridge so I put the ebike in the back and then rode back to bath to start work:
The ride was pretty easy and I got to the office at 8:58 which was perfect timing as I had a meeting at 9 am 🙂
I then worked through until about 13:00 and then rode home and put the ebike battery on charge so that it was charged for the ride back to Trow.
I left to go back to Trow at 15:30 and got back to bath with the car at 17:30.
By the time I got home I was on 14226 steps but I was too busy to get on the treadmill and forgot all about getting to 15000 steps so I fell slightly short at 14943 steps! Still a good total though so I’m not too upset!
So this morning I woke up with my alarm and got up and did my weigh-in and I am back up to 108.1 kgs which I used to actually get ready and go out for a walk this morning so ….
My walk was good and I feel much better for doing it 🙂 It was also light by the time I got home which is really nice too as it means that its almost summer 🙂
When I got home I opened all the doors and windows and did Lüften for 15-20 minutes while I did my morning tasks for work. I then got ready for work and got on the ebike and headed in to the office for the morning.
My goal for this week is to get up and walk EVERY morning this week to get back into the habit of walking first thing again!
I rode the ebike to the office and worked there until about 12:30 then rode home again and I was on 10800 steps which was pretty good.
I then worked all day and its now 19:15 and I am on 11410 steps so I am just going to get on the treadmill to get to 12000 steps.
While walking I decided that I would go to 15000 steps today instead as I was enjoying the walk on the treadmill so much 🙂 I got to 15000 steps before 20:00 and I am now chilling for the night while I am call.
This morning I woke up when I woke up (about 7:30 am) and then got up and did my weigh-in (Down to 107.4 kgs) and then I waited around until 10 am when I woke my son up and we got to pulling everything out of the garage and putting it in the garden.
We then reorganised the garage and then moved the bike rack from the lounge into the garage and hung up all the bikes and put everything that wasn’t going to the tip back into the garage:
Before ^^^^
After ^^^
As you can see the after is not perfect but its at least useable for now and I have Friday off to take all the stuff that is being thrown away to the recycling centre and then do a round 2 to get enough space to set up the gym once the bikes have been sold!
After we have finished sorting the garage and breaking down all the empty boxes and bagging all the stuff to be taken to the tip I ordered a Pizza for my son then we got in the car and put the L plates on and he drove us to my parents house where I hoovered through the house and then mopped the bathrooms and conservatory/ kitchen before he drove us home again!
By the time I got home about 6 pm I was really tired so didn’t push it too much so didn’t walk any more to get to 12000 steps! In hindsight it would have been better to get the last 1318 steps but there you go!
