By Humairah Irfan

This summer were running a 10,000 Steps Challenge from July 1- July 30, 2021.

The challenge is very simple. As we are a large group, youll be responsible for following the rules to keep your steps up 🙂

Everyone who enters the challenge and completes all daily steps will be entered into a draw to win!

Ive included a 30 day Step tracker and some ideas to keep your steps up.

Whether your goal is to lose weight or get more active, tracking your steps is one of the simplest ways to measure your daily activity levels and keep getting better at it! The best part is that walking is a simple exercise you can do at any age or weight.

How to Get Started – Tracking Your Steps

There are all kinds of great pedometers and fitness trackers on the market.

I personally have a Fitbit. I just wanted a plain watch, but my husband gifted it to me when I completed my Yoga certification. It counts my steps, monitors my heart rate, tells me how many times I climb a flight of stairs each day, and tracks my sleep. It also doubles as a watch, which is great for me because I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get used to using my mobile phone as my primary watch.

You do not need a smartwatch at all. There are plenty of fitness trackers that connect with either the fitness app on your phone or comes with its own app. Do a quick search online to find a pedometer or smartwatch that works for your needs. I’ve even seen steps trackers at the dollar stores, but not sure how accurate they are!

Once you get a pedometer to track your steps, wear it a few days to see how many steps you naturally take during your regular daily routine.

After three or four days of wearing your monitor, you should be able to see an average amount of steps taken each day.

The goal for this challenge is to hit 10,000 steps from July 1 to July 30, every single day!

For many of us women that work from home or stay at home moms, it can be difficult to get 10,000 steps in! Going outside for a walk isn’t always in the cards for us, given the unpredictable Canadian weather, but during the summer we can certainly hit some milestones.

Now, before I get into the list, make sure you have good support & comfortable walking shoes. Indoors, bare feet is perfectly fine if that is your style.

Here’s a list of things I did to get my steps up to my weekly goals:

How to Get to 10,000 Steps a Day At Home & Outside

1. Make a go-to “loop” in your house.

Yes, this is very goofy, but it’s effective. Find a place where you could walk around in a loop (the larger the better) for an extended period of time. One of my clients has a “loop” from her kitchen to her front door, and another one in her hallway. If you have a few minutes to get some steps in, walk the loop. This helps you make use of those few minutes here and there.

2. Walk in place while watching a show or your favourite drama.

I figure the walking cancels out the time wasted watching people argue and gossip about each other for an hour, haha.

3. Make laundry last forever.

If you’re trying to get steps in and get laundry done at the same time, make putting away laundry as inefficient as possible. To do this, take an item out of the dryer, fold or hang it, and then put it away in the proper closet or dresser. Then go back to the dryer, and do the same thing with the next item. Once the load is done, everything is put away, and you have put in a lot of steps! Now of course you probably rolled your eyes at this suggestion because who has that much time, right? Ok, let’s see what the next idea is!

4. Take a walk with your favorite podcast.

I love listening to audiobooks, so if I’m able to go for a walk outside the home, I listen to one as I walk. It makes the time go by quickly, and I’m either entertained or learning something new as I walk.

5. Mall walk.

For those with younger kids, this would work well. Go to the mall and walk around on hot days!

6. Walk in place (or in your loop) while on the phone.

If you like to chat on the phone, this is a great way to get in some extra steps every day. I walked while I was on hold with customer service last week, and I let them know how many steps I got in while I was waiting for them. They were not amused. But make sure you hold your phone up high enough so as not to develop the “forward head syndrome”.

7. Put things away.

One at a time. Take a room, and one-by-one, put everything back in its place. If you have to bring an item all the way to the other side of the house, do it! It helps you to get in more steps.

8. Take a walk as a family.

Seriously who is not doing this? Our mailbox isn’t right in front of our home, so I make a daily walk of going to pick up the mail. Depending on the moods of the littles, this may be extended. Usually my toddler always comes along, I’ve stopped asking my girls now (guilty!)  A friend of mine made a neighborhood scavenger hunt, and walked around the neighborhood with her kids looking for items she had written on a list (things like garden gnomes, flags, red flowers, etc.)

9. Park far away at the store.

Ok here’s the funny story. For the entire part of my life since I got my driver’s license, I would make mad dua to find the closest parking spot and always get it! The dua manifests itself each time, and it would make me squeal inside knowing that Allah swt is answering my little duas! If you want the authentic dua, message me and I’ll share with you. But now, I still make dua, and I still find that perfect golden vip parking spot, but I proudly drive away from it and park further away to get more steps in.

10. Power Walking workouts

Last Sunday I taught an online 30-min power-walking (2mile endurance walk) workout and I hit 3100 steps! That felt really good. 1/3rd of the days steps in 30 minutes! My clients doing the workouts also got more than 3000 steps. So indoor power-walking is a great way to get a lot of steps in.

During this challenge, if you’d like access to my app, simply reach out to me via email energy@humairahirfan.com  or facebook.com/Humairah.irfan/  and I’ll set you up with a 1-month trial account.

The app is very cool as you’ll get reminders to complete your steps daily, record your progress, earn badges, and get motivating messages from me in hitting your personal goals!

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