Last autumn, my friend (let’s call him enthusiastically upholstered) announced he was embarking on a fitness journey.
The timing was impeccable: we were halfway through a feast of chicken tikka masala, onion bhajis, poppadoms, and garlic naans at the weirdest Italian restaurant I’ve ever visited.
His fitness plan wasn’t overly ambitious.
No marathons, no CrossFit memberships.
Just the World Health Organisation’s advice to walk 10,000 steps a day. A nice, round number. Manageable, right?
Fast forward to last week. I spotted him waddling, I mean, walking, down Fabian Way, Swansea.
Strangely, he seemed to have gained weight. Naturally, I handled this with my trademark subtlety.
“Oi! Chubster!” I bellowed.
His head snapped in my direction, proving the nickname still worked.
Both of his hands were full: one clutching a Greggs pasty, the other, mid-gesture with a Greggs sausage roll. I couldn’t criticise; I was holding my own sausage roll at the time.
Between mouthfuls of pastry, I asked, “Weren’t you supposed to be doing 10,000 steps a day?”
He sighed. “I was. But I couldn’t find one building in this city with 10,000 steps to walk up and down.”
You can’t fault his logic.
Curious, I looked into this “10,000 steps” idea.
Turns out, it wasn’t pulled out of thin air, like the whole “five-a-day” fruit and veg thing.
It started in 1964, when researchers in Japan found that walking 10,000 steps burns about 20% of your daily calorie intake.
Brilliant! By my calculations, walking 50,000 steps would burn 100% of your daily calories. Trouble is, if you walk 50,000 steps every day, by the end of the week you’d have marched to Hereford.
I hear Hereford’s lovely, though.
Maybe there’s a Greggs there?
My friend could certainly use the walk – and I could use the sausage roll.