“Walk Your Talk” is just a 3-word guiding principle for life. It is as short as it is powerful. I am constantly advocating movement and so when COVID-19 lockdowns hit us in 2020 I made a conscious effort to track how many steps I was walking or running every day. The tracking increased my awareness and, thus, compliance, aligning my walk with my talk. I am saying that but I also say that talk is cheap, so did it really?

How could you benefit if you looked back and examined your ability to meet the self-improvement targets you set for yourself?

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Contents

Why Dissect?
1234Why I look inside
1234Why should you dissect too?
12341234If you track your steps count
12341234If you do not track your steps count
123412341234and you are fit
123412341234and you are unfit
A Profit & Loss Metric
Setting the Daily Target
The Window Length for Analysis
ANALYSIS
12344-Year History
12342023
12341234Puru Target Downward Spikes
12341234Progress over Time?
12341234Explaining the 4 Losses
12341234Comparisons with Country Averages
12341234Walk vs Run
12341234The “What if? Fat Gain Game”
The Lessons for You and Me
Parting Message

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Why Dissect? [top]

When we dissect something, we get to see what is happening inside it. To understand what is happening by looking inside is a first step. Implementing actionable steps for future progress from the lessons learned from looking inside is a second step.

Why I look inside [top]

I have a constant drive to improve my future and looking into the past – with introspection and analysis – is a key practice within many ongoing processes. Developing a better understanding of the function of both of my tools, my mind and body, is instrumental for spiritual prosperity over future decades. Specifically, observing how my movement on foot has changed over the last few years is useful for planning many things both tactically (day to day) and strategically (for the months ahead).

Why should you dissect too? [top]

If you track your steps count – it is good to see what your pattern of behaviour has been. If you are tracking your steps count it will be with a target in mind, even if you did not keep a daily record of what that target was for each day. How often do you meet your target? Are you a person who sets very easy targets and so does not push themselves? Is your target such that it is at a recommended level for good health and you meet it easily? Is your target unnecessarily high and you still meet it or rarely meet it? [top]

If you do not track your steps count – and you are fit you may not see the need to track your steps count. However, there are times when events and circumstances dictate that we cannot do the kinds of physical activity that keep us on top of our game – we can then try to be in maintenance mode. I believe that walking is an essential physical activity but not a form of exercise for healthy adults below the age of, say, 70 years. It is essential that we get it, and a lot of it. If you track how much you are moving on foot, it will give you a good baseline to target when you cannot get to your more intense physical workouts for extended or even short periods. Dissecting your steps count history will help you plan for bumps in your workout schedule. [top]

If you do not track your steps count – and you are unfit you may not see the need to track your steps count. However, you know already that walking is something that even the most unfit person can do. Just imagine this – you already do a physical activity that is common with Olympic sprinters and Marathon record holders – it’s called walking! Now, use it to get on the path to fitness. If you measure, you will control, and then improve. Gamify and track your steps! Then, dissect the history! [top]

A Profit & Loss Metric [top]

When you have a numerical target, it is easy to think of a profit (P) or loss (L) relative to it. I gamify the activity of movement by thinking of a “daily P&L” and you can also expand that to a “weekly P&L” which is simply a total of the 7 individual daily profits and losses.

Setting the Daily Target [top]

Any target you set should make sense. If it is unrealistically high you will keep generating daily losses very frequently and that might demotivate you. These daily profits and losses for are just a notional P&L and what matters is the actual activity you accomplish.  But if it is too low then you might not push yourself enough. I call my Daily Target the Puru Target.

The Window Length for Analysis [top]

Today, I present information that is mostly about 1-year windows, specifically a calendar year. However, there is nothing at all sacrosanct about a year. Pick whatever windows are useful for you for analysis and setting better future actionable paths. If you have started tracking your steps quite recently, you can even take actionable steps based on weekly numbers for the last few weeks.

ANALYSIS [top]
The slicing and dicing can be done in many ways but, for the purpose of illustration, I keep things simple here. The idea is for my presentation today to be informative and instructive for you to do useful things with your own life with the help of your steps count data.

4-Year History [top]
Coincidentally it is now precisely 4 years of daily data that I have. You can see that it is sketchy near the start and during that phase I had no conscious daily target. The Daily P&L is depicted in green, and over the years there were some “loss days” when I did not meet my daily target. Those loss days are not shown in red.

From the chart, the most obvious impression we gather is that, over time, my baseline steps per day have increased to a level that is a lot more than when I started keeping track, and a lot more than the typical person in most population groups. I have increased my target from the 10,000 steps recommendation that gets argued about in the media to a much higher number. I think that we can all achieve something like this if we plan each day carefully, to live each day better. Tracking steps has helped me ensure I move more. 

2023 [top]

Zooming into the 4-year chart, we can look at the Daily P&L chart for 2023, the most recent full calendar year.

The Puru Target that now tends to stay at 20,000 has periods (Ramadhaan, Mumbai Monsoon, Paryushan) when it is lowered but [a] kept high relative to the population [b] and the actual steps are often quite high. For example, during the fasting month of Ramadhaan, with a daily target of 15,000 steps, I still walked an average of 25,641 steps per day. So, in unusual circumstances, I set the target at a safe level, but I also dislike an attitude of “just do whatever little to pass and hand in the homework.”

Puru Target Downward Spikes [top]

A question that might have popped into your head is, “Why the occasional downward spikes for the Puru Target?” There’s a simple answer – they are days of long inter-city-rail or inter-continental flights. Often, even on those days, where the target might have been set at 10,000 or 15,000, I will have typically far exceeded the target in some smart manner e.g. walking around an airport before boarding. 

Progress over Time? [top]

Comparing 2023 with 2021, the following are immediately obvious:

• A fixed low target of 10,000 steps in 2021 versus a much higher and variable target in 2023
• The lower targets in 2021 were missed more often (51 times) than the higher targets in 2023 (4 times)
• The year 2023 (9.9mn) had many more steps done than in 2021 (5.5mn)
• Already, in 2021 the average number of steps was respectable enough (15,162 per day)
• And, in 2023 the average number of steps was serious (27,212 per day)

Summary comment: WTF!!! 

Explaining the 4 Losses [top]

There were only 4 days of losses and 361 days of profit in 2023.

The single large loss (5,783) of 2023 was in Dubai when I hurt my leg one evening in an “Accident” at home and did 14,217 steps instead of 20,000 – forgivable.

The “Emergency” was also forgivable – a friend I call “CC” and I were accidentally locked out of another friend’s house and I did 19,254 steps instead of 20,000!

The two “Lost focus” I took seriously – I never like to lose focus! Doing 19,408 and 24,802 steps is decent, but they still represent days of missing a target because of lost focus. Losing focus is not how you score 100/100 in an exam! Lessons learned!

Comparisons with Country Averages [top]

How do country averages taken from 2 published reports compare with what I did in 2023?

The distribution of my 365 daily step counts and its average was always going to look abnormally high compared with country averages. What disappointed me, because I know it is close to a reality that I have been seeing anecdotally, is the low number for India. I had not seen actual population sample statistics for India earlier and what the study reports does not surprise me. In each of the places I stay in in India, whether urban or rural, I see the same trends. In the concrete jungle of Mumbai, peaceful Goan villages, Kolkata, Delhi, and my beautiful village in Assam – no one really wants to walk anywhere. If they can cough up the money to place their bums on something that will take them there, they will pay the money and avoid better health.

Walk vs Run [top]

In 2023, I ran, on average for only 13-min and 8-seconds per day. But what does that mean in terms of steps and efficiency relative to walking? How much bigger is my running ROTI?

Although running contributed only 5% of the duration of the steps count, the simple fact of a longer stride and higher cadence (fast leg movements) when running compared with walking, meant that I could cover a much longer distance and burn significantly more calories step-for-step. I have already said you need not run to be fit, but if you do, this is a set of advantages of running that I am reminding you about today.

The “What if? Fat Gain Game” [top]

A fun scenario to consider is the following, “What would my body fat gain or loss have been if I walked X steps per day instead?” The idea is to be aware of how our health might have been better or worse today had we walked a different amount. A simple calculation for a scenario assumes “everything else stays the same” (ceteris paribus) but we know, that if we walked a lot less every day, and listened to the needs (not wants) of our body, on average we would eat correspondingly less too. While looking at the chart below consider the fact that my weight stayed within a tight band through 2023.

I chuckle when I think that, all else being equal, I would have gained 30kg of fat in a year if I had walked only the 10,000 steps per day that are recommended and that most people still do not achieve. That is not to say that I walk a lot. I walk as much as I feel I need to for thinking, for learning, for feeling alive and being close to nature. It is more accurate to interpret the fat gap as a reflection of just how much more I eat than the normal person – who does not manage to do even 10,000 steps per day.

The Lessons for You and Me [top]

So, some quick lessons from all this analysis could be the following:

The money (or God) is in the details and so examining your past in detail highlights a better path for the future.

Talk is cheap – even intention is meaningless without action. Walk the talk.

It does not matter what others do or think – ask yourself if you are becoming a better version of yourself.

Consistency is key – be a consistency conqueror.

At times you can have your cake and eat it too. Life can be good with French Fries! Just don’t forget to walk to buy the potatoes.

Parting Message [top]

You might have glossed over the details of what I presented about my steps count history and that is OK. What matters is that you learned some implementable steps for examining your own life more closely, so that you can have a better future.

If everything you do is consistent with your core beliefs and desires, then a long and healthy life of joy is pretty much guaranteed to be yours. If you want to be guided in detail, you know how to reach me, and if you found this useful, please do share it with others.

Puru

Dr Purnendu Nath spends his waking hours focusing on helping individuals and organizations reach their goals, to make the world a better place. He speaks, writes and advises on topics such as finance, investment management, discipline, education, self-improvement, exercise, nutrition, health and fitness, leadership and parenting.