I walked 10,000 steps every day for a week instead of going to the gym – here are 3 things I learned

January is traditionally a time when people commit to improving their health, and perhaps with it, embracing an ambitious new exercise plan. But what if you don't necessarily need burpees, weight training, or buckets of sweat? What if you could get fit just by going for a nice walk every day?

For years, messaging was supposed to advance 10,000 steps per day. This is the default goal of most of today's best fitness trackers. The origin of this number is actually surprisingly arbitrary. The original plan began around the time of his 1964 Tokyo Olympics, and was chosen because the Japanese word “10,000'' sounds a bit like a person walking.