40K Steps Later: My Brain Negotiated, My Body Gave Up… But My Fitness Won!

The hardest part isn’t walking. It’s agreeing with your brain to start.

So, I’ve officially walked more in one day than I ever thought possible. No, I wasn’t lost in the mountains. No, I didn’t miss a flight and decided to hoof it home.

Hi, I am Sahil K., and the story I am about to write isn’t just about numbers on a pedometer. It’s about resistance, the kind that lives in your mind.

Once again, during our annual Fyle Health Challenge, I set out to break one mental wall: Could I walk 40,000 steps in a day?

🫐 The Silence Before the Steps

In May 2025, Fyle dropped another health challenge on us, and with it, a weekly series of tasks quietly escalated from ‘harmless’ to “you expect me to do what now?” A simple-sounding challenge with some not-so-simple bonus missions.

If you haven’t read already, I highly recommend reading Krupa Hebbar’s blog: The Full Circle Health Challenge - a personal journey…; it beautifully captures the essence of the entire challenge: the prep, the week-by-week chaos, the water bottles on baking scales, and the slow, glorious transformation into a hydrated, meditated, screen-conscious human.

But me? I’m here to zoom in on one absurdly specific day, one specific bonus challenge.

By Week 3, I’d already been moving daily, sipping water like a camel, and living like someone whose mobile screen had betrayed him. But then came the challenge that made me tilt my head and squint at the Slack message from Meeha:

🔥 Bonus Challenge: STEP UP - SOLO EDITION 🔥 📅 When: 6th May 2025

👣 Goal: step count for the day

⏰ Deadline: latest by 10:00 AM on 7th May 2025 in this thread.

🏆 Reward: top 10 individuals highest step count +1 bonus point each

Who’s stepping up for the MVP race? 🙋‍♀️

Simple. Dangerous. Yet Exciting.

I was in.

There’s something about a vague metric like “as many as you can” that speaks to a specific part of my brain, the part that believes walking 40,000 steps in one day is easily doable. A bonus point was on the line, and my team was counting on me. (Okay, maybe not specifically for this, but still. 😆)

🍊 A Challenge Worth Every Step

The day before the walk, I sat down to do what any rational person would do before attempting something potentially unhinged: research. 🤓 (For science, of course.)

And, here’s what I learned:

• The average person takes about 10 minutes to walk 1,000 steps. So to hit 40,000? I’d need 400 minutes of walking. “Yeah… 400 minutes. I think that’s doable, as long as I block out the rest of the day, except my working hours.”

• So I decided to divide this walk it into phases.

  • Morning walk: knock off 10K steps

  • During work: sneak in 5K steps through indoor pacing

  • Evening grind: a heavy 5 PM to 8 PM push

  • Final lap: a late 9 to 10 PM finish, if my legs hadn’t already filed a formal complaint

• And since I was taking this seriously (and also didn’t want to faint by sunset), I looked into calorie burn too. Turns out, you burn about 400 calories per 10K steps, meaning 40K would wipe out roughly 1,600 “EXTRA” calories. Now, I wasn’t trying to turn this into an accidental cut; recovery matters A LOT. So I made a plan: I’d eat my usual meals spread throughout the day, plus give myself a 400-calorie treat every 10K steps. A license to indulge in all the high-calorie foods I normally eat with suspicion: Walnuts, cashews, peanut butter, milk cream, butter, raisins, dates, figs…😋 the snack list goes on… In this way, I was still going to eat enough ‘healthy’ calories to support my effort.

Weirdly, that snack strategy turned the walk into a game: Walk 10K → Eat treasure → Repeat. 😅

But beyond all the math, prep, and peanut-butter bribes, the real goal? Not just to hit 40K steps, but to prove something I wasn't sure about yet: “Could I override the mental resistance that usually stops us far before my body ‘actually’ does?”

I didn’t fully know what I’d discover yet, but I could feel it; something was waiting for me on the other side.

And so, with a charged watch, a water bottle, and slightly too much confidence, I went to bed the night before, knowing that tomorrow I was going to walk, walk, walk, and some more walk.

🍒 The Long Walk Home (Literally)

It’s 6th May 2025, Morning 7:00 AM, the challenge began like most do with optimism, clean shoes, and a wildly underestimating brain.

• ☀️ 7:00 AM – Morning Walk (10K Steps)

  I stepped out, sun on my face, the first 10K steps felt light, almost easy. I was fresh, energetic, and kind of excited. My brain was like, “Hey, this might actually be fun. 🕺”

  It’s cute when your brain says things like that. I clocked those 10K by around 8:30 AM. So far, so good.

• 💻 12:00 PM – 6:00 PM – Work Hours + Indoor Laps (5K Steps)

  I knew I couldn’t let work hours become step-free hours. So, every chance I got between meetings, build times, or any slight pause, I was up and walking. Indoors. Like a caffeinated ghost, walking round and round in circles through the bedroom to the hall to the kitchen. 👻

  It wasn’t glamorous, but it worked.

  By the end of the workday, I had added another 5K steps, bringing the total to around 15,000.

  And this is where the real game started.

• 🌇 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM – The Big Evening Push

  This block was the main event. The make-or-break walk. I laced up again and headed out, legs slightly tired but spirit still intact. The first half-hour was smooth, I told myself, “Just keep walking, walking, and walking until it gets dark.”

  But around 20K steps, I hit that first mental dip. I was halfway done. But that meant I still had halfway to go. I had to walk almost the same distance I walked since the beginning of the day 🙀!

  Strangely, my legs were not complaining at all, but my brain started negotiating.

• 🧱 30K: The Wall

  This was the hardest stretch.

  Not physically, entirely, but more so mentally. It felt like time had slowed down. Each 100 steps took effort. My calves were a little sore, and my mind started spiraling with thoughts like “You’ve walked enough, right?”, “What if it affects your recovery?”, “What if your immunity dips?”

  This is where my brain was forcing me to stop. And honestly, this is where I usually stop.

  But that day, I decided to keep going. Just to see what would happen. I walked till 8:00 PM. Headed towards home for dinner.

• 🌙 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM – Final Lap (7K Steps)

  And just after having dinner…. I went out one last time. Legs heavy, calves tight, lower back starting to protest. But something had changed. Weirdly, the final stretch felt… quiet. Almost meditative. Maybe because I was talking on the phone with my friend 😉.

  So, I wasn’t checking my watch constantly. I wasn’t overthinking. My body was tired, but my mind had finally stopped resisting.

  Coming back home, I walked straight into the kitchen. Ate my final 400-calorie reward like I had just won a championship.
  At exactly 41119 steps | 29.11 km, I stopped. Smiled.

  And then?

  I slept like someone who had taken the entire bottle of sleeping pills…! 😴

🥝 One Bonus Point + Many Lessons

The next day, I checked the thread, and I was placed 3rd among the top 10. And had secured the bonus point for myself and my team.

But to my surprise, I was not as sore as I expected. I thought I would feel like I’d done hundreds of squats and lunges, the kind of soreness that makes stairs feel like Everest.

But strangely, I wasn’t even as sore as I usually am after a regular leg day workout.

Though I was not experiencing any major muscle soreness, I was still tired… So, I listened to my body and took a deload week, reduced my usual workout volume for that week, letting my system recalibrate.

And here’s what I realized: The hardest part isn’t the walking. It’s the idea of walking that long. That far. That endlessly. The real resistance? It lives in your head. Once you break through that mental wall, the voice that says, “This is too much,” or “you can’t keep going,” or “what ifs”, your body just follows. In reality, our body is capable of far more than we give it credit for.

My brain, like most of ours, is a mischievous little storyteller. It loves spinning worst-case scenarios, dramatic dialogues, and catastrophic conclusions. But I’ve started learning something important. My job isn’t to silence it. That’s impossible. My job is to stop taking its stories as reality. Listen, but don’t obey. Acknowledge, but don’t believe everything it says.

And somewhere between step 35,000 and 40,000, I really understood that.

🍋 A Heartfelt Thanks

Before I wrap up, I want to take a moment to send a big thank-you to Fyle for putting together another incredible health challenge.

A special shoutout to Meeha and everyone behind the scenes who made this happen. Your effort, energy, and consistency turned this into more than just a challenge.

So here’s to the journey once more,

Keep exercising, stay active, and keep pushing your limits.

See you at the next one!

Happy fitness…! 💪