I want to achieve 100k steps in a day.

[Onmyfeet]

I want to achieve this goal and I want to start early. I'm a night owl and normally workout late at night. I was wondering staring this goal at midnight just to finish sooner in the day. 

I workout at a 24 hour gym, and I will be using the treadmill for most of it, but I also want to use the elliptical machine. I will only workout at the gym for the first 7 hours of the day, since I don't feel comfortable working out in the middle of the night for safety reasons.

My question is if I decided to use the elliptical or cycling machine should I count it towards my 100k steps or will that be considered "cheating" since those machines will make it easier on my joints? Thoughts? Thank you. 

I'm using the FB Charge 3, if that matters. 

[WendyB]

Dont worry about what  others might think. Do your 100K any way you can.

Please keep us posted

Rooting for you!!!

[Dominique]

That’s an ambitious goal. I agree with @WendyB: it doesn’t matter whether you do it on the treadmill or the elliptical, it’s a tremendous feat any way you do it.

How have you been preparing/training for it? Did you have any progression towards that goal? I would look at it like training for a marathon: you need to progressively build endurance over time. Have you already done 30k, 40k, 50k, 75k?

I know I’d never be able to do it my walking outdoors the way I normally do. I get about 7000 steps per hour while walking briskly without stopping or slowing down at any time. I would need to do this for more than 14 hours in order to reach the 100k steps mark.

[Onmyfeet]

I'm currently doing some training walking 20,000 30, 000 about 2-4 a week. The highest steps I've had in a day is 61,000 it took me around 12-14 hours with a nice 4 hour nap in between. I feel like I have a long way to go, it just feels like it will take forever and I will need more mental strength than anything. But so far I'm enjoying the progress. 

[Dominique]

OK, sounds like you’re well prepared! 61k is already impressive, and even if you "only" manage 70k or 75k this time, it would still be a new record and get you closer to your ultimate goal.

[BruceM]

@Onmyfeet wrote:

I want to achieve this goal and I want to start early. I'm a night owl and normally workout late at night. I was wondering staring this goal at midnight just to finish sooner in the day. 

I workout at a 24 hour gym, and I will be using the treadmill for most of it, but I also want to use the elliptical machine. I will only workout at the gym for the first 7 hours of the day, since I don't feel comfortable working out in the middle of the night for safety reasons.

My question is if I decided to use the elliptical or cycling machine should I count it towards my 100k steps or will that be considered "cheating" since those machines will make it easier on my joints? Thoughts? Thank you. 

I'm using the FB Charge 3, if that matters. 

I have a question. Why do you want to do 100k steps/day? It seems to me that a lot of people lose sight of the purpose of a Fitbit. I average around 20k steps and it's what I need to maintain my weight, blood pressure and keep me healthy. Sometimes I'll do up to 30k/day but that's when I'm active hiking or doing an activity that I like to do. My health is the real objective of my Fitbit use. I could set an 100k objective but why? I might hurt myself or lose out on other activities if I tried that. I do ride  bike and consider the steps I get on the bike as steps.

So, why have you set the goal?

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[Onmyfeet]

For me it's almost like climbing Mount Everest but for fitbit. I see as a goal that fitbit put out for me. It will give me the sense of accomplishment if I get it. I know it won't demonstrate how fit I am or make me really fit if I attain it. I see it almost like the boss level of a video game. 

[GSaldiveri · Accepted solution]

@Onmyfeet  I managed to do this 3 weeks ago. It took me about a year to get my head into it lol, I did a few high step days where I managed to get my 65k and 70k badges then I did a lot of 40-50k days after that. Plan on a long day no matter how you wind up doing it, it took me 18 1/2 hours of almost continual walking to make it happen.

As far as using the treadmill or elliptical, I use them regularly and do not consider them cheating. Some things to consider though -  I use a Gazelle Glider which basically works like an elliptical as far as the movement is concerned but it does give a full body workout. One hour on an elliptical is not the same workout as walking for an hour, it's a lot more, especially if you are moving with any kind of speed. When I did my 70k I used my glider twice for an hour each time. It wore me down and it made it harder on me towards the end. When I did my 100k I stayed off the equipment and just walked the steps. It was hard but I wasn't working my upper body at the same time so I had more energy to push through.

Here's a shot of my activity for that day 🙂

Good Luck!!

[Dominique]

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@BruceM wrote:

I have a question. Why do you want to do 100k steps/day?

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Different people are motivated by different things. For instance, older folks like you and me are usually motivated by health considerations. Younger folks may be chasing visible abs (the elusive six-pack), as shown in this other topic. Some want to run a 5K, a 10K, a half-marathon, a full marathon or even an ultra marathon. Some want to hit their 10,000 step goal every single day. Others are fine with hitting a 70k weekly goal. Some want to set a one-off record, like @Onmyfeet. All these are fine IMO, and we can still all be Fitbit users. Fitbit is not a one-size-fits-all, it can accommodate a wide range of people who are in a different place and have different goals.

[BruceM]

I suspect that it will make you more fit in some way. Sometimes people do harm by trying to to steps. For example I know someone who was very active in Zumba and yoga but wanted to get her steps so stopped other activities to walk. She's lost some conditioning to exceed her step goal. At 76, I know what keeps my weight down and heart in condition so I do a variety of exercises.

[DanielleinDC]

Wow, that's incredible. You pretty much spent all day walking. I salute you. (And also wonder if it's doable for me.)

[GSaldiveri]

@DanielleinDC- Yes, I started at 3am and finished up about 9:30pm. I tried to keep as steady a pace as as I could, not too fast and not too slow. I think anyone could do it if they build up to it and prepare mentally 🙂

[DanielleinDC]

I'm not sure I could get up that early. I wonder if walking for say, 30-45 minutes, and then a five-minute rest would work with meal breaks. (And a slower pace after eating.)

[Corney]

Onmyfeet:  Why?  If you actually accomplish this, please tell everyone if you believe that someone could do this 7 days a week for a month.  

[Onmyfeet]

So I achieved walking 100k steps on July 24th. I normally work two jobs but I had that day off from both of them so I decided to go for it. 

I started my day at 4am, and was at the gym by 5am. I decided to star using the elliptical to get the first half of the steps faster. All I brought with me was water and Clif bars. 

When I was done with the first session I noticed that my fitbit only calculated about 5k steps and only detected 3. 96 miles but the elliptical said 6 miles. So I didn't think it was a big deal I just told my self I'll go a little bit faster the second run and the third and still... I only had about 15k steps.

I walked on the treadmill for an hour at a 3 mile pace and got 6k. I knew something was wrong and knew that I had to get more at the elliptical. I didn't want to take my watch off and put in my sock since it doesn't detect heart rate and I didn't want it to look like I was cheating. So I placed my hand on my leg as I worked the elliptical one last time. It go more steps but not enough to keep on doing it until I got 100k. 

At this point I felt really frustrated and exhausted. 

My plan was to do 5 hrs on the elliptical 1.5 hours in the treadmill which would equal close to 40miles and the rest using the bike to be easy on the joints. At this point you're probably thinking you should've manually put in your steps. 

By 3pm decided to just use the stationary bike to get what fitbit didn't detect faster since at this time I was only at 35k steps. I was on the bike for 8 hours. 

When I was done I felt miserable, was really dehydrated and tired. I was really happy to reach 100k, but knowing what in know now I would've just done the treadmill at a 3 mile pace. 

For those wondering if it can be done...it can. It could be done everyday if the person is on their feet for 10 hours a day or more. If you want to do it that up to you. Before you do, make sure you know how long does it take you to walk a mile and calculated well. Pay attention to how you feel drink a lot of electrolytes and water and take heavier snacks with you if you plan on leaving your home. Take breaks to stretch and make it a day when there's some kind of festival in town to walk around and keep your mind off the challenge. I don't suggest going to the gym unless os the only option. Don't be afraid to eat a lot you'll be burning so many calories. It is physically and mentally exhausting. Good luck. 

[GSaldiveri]

@Onmyfeet- Awesome effort, and yeah lol, I agree with the gym part. Like I said in my post, it wears you down much faster and IMO makes it a lot harder. Walking is good exercise but unless you are walking really fast it's not exactly cardio... The elliptical and stationary bike are things I stay off of if I'm trying for step count.

Congrats on your 100k, you may never want to do it again, but I think you will always be happy you did it once 🙂

[Dominique]

Wow, that’s impressive! If you want to analyze your day with more granularity, you can use the 24-hour graph found at https://www.fitbit.com/activities (as opposed to the one from the app, which you posted). The graph from fitbit.com displays your activity in slices of 5 minutes, instead of 15 minutes for the app.

What puzzles me is the fact the detected intensity changed dramatically at 8pm: you still had relatively tall bars (more than 1000 steps per 15 minutes), but they turned from green (very intense) to red (light), skipping yellow (moderate). You did say you switched to your stationary bike, but that was at 3pm, so if it was the same activity from 3pm to midnight, what caused the sharp drop in detected intensity at 8pm? Or was it just tiredness, which is quite understandable after so many hours!

[checking]

@Dominique regarding the 'intensity' drop to low at ~ 8 PM. This is a glitch that I have noticed a few times on long hard days - Fitbit stops crediting active minutes after (near) 720 minutes accumulated. (Also a 100k day, orange and green are 'active', yellow are not - with usual consistency, Fitbit has changed the color sequencing between Web and App dashboards)

[Dominique]

@checking : interesting! I wasn’t aware of that (strange) behaviour, having "only" maxed at 54k steps so far.

[Onmyfeet]

I couldn't tell you why it happened but I'm glad I'm not the only one it happened to. The fitbit stopped counting the calories burned around 8pm as well. I just wish it was better at sensing steps on machines.