Last autumn, my friend, let’s call him ,“Couch Potato Extraordinaire”, decided it was time to embark on a fitness journey.
The timing was impeccable, considering we were halfway through a glorious feast of chicken tikka masala, onion bhajis, poppadoms, and garlic naans at the most bizarre Italian restaurant I’ve ever encountered.
Seriously, who serves tikka masala in a place that specialises in spaghetti?
His fitness plan was refreshingly low-key.
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, and I spotted him waddling, sorry, I mean walking, down the Kingsway in Swansea.
Oddly enough, he seemed to have gained a few pounds.
Naturally, I approached this delicate situation with my usual grace and subtlety. “Oi. Chubster,”  I hollered, because nothing says “friendship” like a good old-fashioned nickname.
His head whipped around, proving that my nickname still had its charm.
But here’s the kicker: both of his hands were full, one clutching a Greggs pastie and the other mid-gesture with a Greggs sausage roll.
I couldn’t really criticise; I was busy devouring my own sausage roll at the time.
Between bites of flaky pastry, I asked, “Weren’t you supposed to be doing 10,000 steps a day?”
He sighed dramatically. “I was. But I couldn’t find a single building in this city with 10,000 steps to walk up and down.”
You’ve got to admire his logic.
Intrigued, I decided to investigate this “10,000 steps” phenomenon.
Turns out, it wasn’t just plucked from thin air like the “five-a-day” fruit and veg mantra.
It all started back in 1964 when some clever researchers in Japan discovered that walking 10,000 steps burns about 20% of your daily calorie intake.
Brilliant. By my calculations, if you walk 50,000 steps, you’d burn 100% of your daily calories. The only problem? If you actually walked 50,000 steps every day, by the end of the week, you’d have marched all the way to Hereford.
I hear Hereford’s lovely, though. Maybe there’s a Greggs there?
My friend could definitely use the walk . . . and I could use another sausage roll!