How I doubled my step count and improved my mood, energy, and overall health in the process

I first became aware of my daily step count around 2015, back when I was commuting thirty minutes a day to my sedentary office job. I was still exercising, hitting the gym, and I even played soccer after work once or twice a week. Even with all that, I was only averaging about five to six thousand steps per day. I remember days when soccer pushed me over eight thousand steps and I thought I had crushed it. Looking back, it’s kind of funny because eight thousand steps is now a low day for me, but at the time it was my personal ceiling.

When I first got a Fitbit, it was not to gain a profound understanding of health. I wasn’t aware of the connection between step count and all cause mortality like I am now. In fact, I assumed I was doing fine because I exercised and five to six thousand steps sounded respectable. Then I started noticing people talking about ten thousand steps per day as a benchmark and friends on my Fitbit leaderboard getting over a hundred thousand steps per week. That was when my mindset shifted from passive tracking to active change.

My transformation did not happen quickly. I started adding more steps to my day by taking ten minute walking loops around my office campus and parking farther away from the store. Over four to five years, my Fitbit average moved from six thousand steps per day to seven thousand, then eight, then nine, until I eventually hit around ten thousand steps a day. Gamifying my step count through tracking taught me an important lesson which I now apply to almost everything: what gets measured gets managed.

In 2020, Covid happened and working from home removed every remaining bit of friction that used to block movement. My daily step average soared above ten thousand and it felt effortless. In an office, it’s easy to get locked into long stretches of sitting. At home, I can wear gym clothes all day, step outside between tasks, and take calls while walking. This level of flexibility is a privilege, but it also showed me that the real lever is not motivation. It’s designing your environment so movement happens naturally.

Guiding principles of walking

• Walking is less exercise and more basic health maintenance. It is simple enough to do every day and powerful enough to change your long term health trajectory. Structured exercise is great, and I obviously recommend it, but it is not a full substitute for daily low level movement. Higher sedentary time is associated with higher risk of mortality, even in people who exercise. The data is most concerning at extremely low levels of activity. You should treat walking like brushing your teeth. It is basic hygiene for a body that was built to move.
• Ten thousand steps per day is a useful target for most people. Not because it is magical, but because it pushes you out of the danger zone. Many adults average around four to five thousand steps a day, and that is where the slow creep of stiffness, low energy, and metabolic issues can start to feel normal. Large population studies have shown higher daily step counts are associated with lower all cause mortality, with the largest gains occurring as people move from low step counts into moderate ranges.
• Short frequent walks beat occasional long walks. A daily movement habit changes your entire physiology. A single long walk is great, but if you sit for hours before and after it, you still spend most of the day in the state and posture of inactivity, which is not how humans were meant to live. It’s not uncommon for me to take six to eight walks throughout the day, which has been transformative for both my physical and mental health. Think of sitting as a disease and movement as a repeated interruption of sitting.

Benefits of a daily walking routine

• Outdoor walking, specifically in the morning, improves sleep onset and quality. When I made it a point to get outside within an hour of waking, my sleep became more consistent. This is because morning light exposure anchors your circadian timing and can improve sleep onset and quality many hours later by influencing melatonin timing later in the day. Almost no one connects the dots on this, but once you experience it, it becomes a virtuous cycle that you crave. I credit this one habit alone to turning me into a morning person.
• Walking gives you steadier energy throughout the day. When I used to sit for long stretches, a big lunch would make me feel lazy to the point of being useless. A big part of this fix was food quality. But frequent movement, especially outdoors, also helped tremendously. Now, I can’t remember the last time I felt sleepy at 2 PM. Light activity improves blood flow and glucose uptake, reducing the magnitude of a post-meal insulin response. Practically speaking, you feel less foggy, less sluggish, and don’t need as much willpower to stay productive.
• Walking is a mental tool for creativity and problem solving. I can’t count the number of times I stepped away from my desk, went for a short walk outside, and debugged some code or fixed an Excel formula in my head before I arrived home. This effect isn’t limited to work. I often find solutions to minor problems arrive mid-walk, especially when I let my mind wander without forcing it. This is because walking can boost divergent thinking, which is the type of thinking tied to creativity and idea generation.
• Walking helps foster relationships and connection. This was an unanticipated benefit, but short walks with my wife a couple times a day created much-needed opportunities for us to talk and debrief without distractions. Phone calls to my mom became more routine because I would make them while walking. These touch points give walking a purpose bigger than just chasing steps. You are creating a daily rhythm that improves your mood and supports your social and emotional life while improving your physical health.

My daily walking protocol

• Step count target: My baseline target is ten thousand steps per day across the week, on average, without obsessing about any single day. Some days I land under ten thousand and some days I go well over, but the weekly average keeps me honest and keeps the habit sustainable. I track steps daily using my Apple Watch so I am not guessing, and I use the feedback the same way you would use a budget. If I have a seven or eight thousand step day, I try to walk more the next day. If I hit fifteen thousand, I know I can ease off without losing the pattern.
• Daily morning walk: This is a simple and repeatable habit because it happens before the day gets complicated. Within fifteen to twenty minutes of waking up, I go outside for about ten minutes and get roughly fifteen hundred to two thousand steps. I do it outdoors to combine movement with early light exposure, and I often walk barefoot on grass as a grounding practice. This is the anchor that makes the rest of the day easier, because it creates early momentum and it gives you a circadian signal that your body can build around.
• Weekday walking structure: As I mentioned, my daily walking habit is built around multiple short walks rather than one long session. I usually end up with six to eight walks per day, most of them seven to fifteen minutes, and that usually gets me to ten thousand steps without having to carve out a large block of time. A typical weekday includes the following:
  • Early morning circadian anchor walk
  • A second morning walk when I take my daughter to school
  • A mid-morning work break walk
  • A short cool-down walk after the gym
  • An afternoon walk to pick up my daughter from school
  • One or two quick neighborhood loops with my wife when the weather is nice
  • If timing allows, another short walk near sunset (evening circadian anchor)
• Rucking: A few times per week I add rucking to a normal walk to increase the training effect without turning it into a high intensity session. When I walk my daughter to school, I sometimes throw on a weighted backpack with a thirty pound plate and treat it as a short loaded carry session. I do not do this every day because there are days when I need to prioritize recovery, but three or four times a week feels like a sweet spot for me. The goal is to make an existing walk more challenging rather than creating a whole new workout that you might skip.
• Post-prandial walks: After meals, especially heavy meals, my protocol is to do some kind of low level movement, even if it is brief. If I can, I take a short walk after dinner to help digestion and to get that sunset cue. If I can’t walk, I will do a few minutes on a stationary bike because the key is not intensity, it is movement. This is one of the most practical things you can do for blood sugar regulation because even light activity after eating can lower post meal glucose spikes. It is also a simple way to end the day feeling better instead of heavy and sluggish.
• Weekend walking routine: On weekends, I keep the morning walk as a non-negotiable anchor and let the rest flex. Most weekends I do a longer run, which naturally drives step count up so I don’t have to go out of my way to chase steps. In general, weekends are less structured and variance in my step count is much higher. If we travel somewhere walk-heavy, like a theme park day, I can easily hit fifteen thousand steps without trying. The weekend protocol is more about maintaining identity and momentum, not rigid structure.

Recommended prodcuts

• Apple Watch (or something similar): I recommend using some kind of wearable step tracker because measurement creates awareness, and awareness changes behavior. I started with a Fitbit (now part of Google), which gave me the feedback loop I needed to increase my step count. Now, I use an Apple Watch because it syncs nicely with the rest of my Apple ecosystem. The best device is one you will wear consistently with an interface that makes it easy for you to check your trends over time without turning it into a stressful obsession.
• GoRuck Bullet Ruck Classic (optional): For rucking, I use and recommend GoRuck gear because its sole purpose is built for carrying weight comfortably and it holds up over time. I keep a GoRuck backpack near the door so I don’t forget about it, and I use a 30 lb ruck plate designed to fit the pack properly. That matters because a random backpack with loose weights shifts around and can feel awkward on your shoulders and back. GoRuck feels stable, which makes it easier to keep good posture and stick with the habit.
• Snipd podcast player: Podcasts are my go-to walking companion. If you struggle to sit and read long books, listening to audio while walking can be a more natural way to learn because your body is busy and your mind is open. I use walks to absorb conversations with experts and to stay up to date on topics I care about without adding more screen time. I like Snipd because it lets you take notes (snips) of everything you listen to and premium features include YouTube and audiobook uploads.
• Xero Barefoot Shoes: I used to have ankle pain from running. After I switched to these, the pain was completely gone. I’m convinced the natural barefoot style shoes helped strengthen my feet and ankles. They are also super comfortable. I love these so much I own three pairs:
  • HFS for running
  • Prio Neo for gym and walking
  • Aptos for casual street wear

Conclusion

Bottom line: Do not rely on willpower to get your steps in. Build small habits to make walking automatic and reinforce them throughout the day. Keep your walking shoes where you will see them, find short breaks in your day, whether you’re in an office or work from home, and choose routes that you can do in five to fifteen minutes so you never talk yourself out of it. The beauty of walking is you don’t need complicated plans, perfect schedules, or a lot of motivation. Even an extra thousand steps a day yields significant health benefits.