Walking To A Better 2023 - Attending Physiotherapy

To improve my fitness, I had previously set a goal to clock an average of 8,000 steps on a daily basis for 2023. To put the numbers in perspective, my average step count for 2022 was about 4,656 steps.

It has been three months into the year and I thought I would share my progress and reflect on my journey thus far.

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The Numbers

March wasn't a good month and I only managed to clock an average of 6,061 steps daily. That pulled down the overall average slightly to 6,352 steps. That said, it is still way short of the 8,000 steps target.

For this "poor performance", I did have some legitimate reasons and for that I accept that it is probably a slight blip and I still have 9 more months to make up for it.

• Bad weather
  March was especially rainy and there were many days which I couldn't really go out to do my walks, be it after work or during the weekends. Hopefully, the weather will be more conducive in the coming weeks and the step count will reflect that.

• Increased workload
  Work has been exceptionally busy in March mainly due to all the events happening in the world. It's something that I don't have much control sometimes, but this has impacted the time I have for exercise. (You might have realised I have posted less in March too.) After a long day, I am sometimes too tired do anything and just want to laze and get some rest. I believe the workload should become more manageable in April.

Despite both abovementioned factors, I think it's still very commendable that I was able to clock slightly above 6,000 steps. So I am satisfied.

Month	Average Steps
January 2023	6,178
February 2023	6,865
March 2023	6,061
April 2023	?
May 2023	?
June 2023	?
July 2023	?
August 2023	?
September 2023	?
October 2023	?
November 2023	?
December 2023	?
Overall	6,352

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Doing Physiotherapy

I would share bits about my life along this journey of Walking To A Better 2023, and this month is no different.

I have been having pains and aches in my left knee for some time, probably close to a year. While it has affected my walking, I usually walk at a slower pace compared to the average person and can still get along with my daily life. I have tried knee guards or even medicated patches, but somehow, they only alleviate the pain and after a while, it comes back again.

I thought it would go away after a while (since I am not that old), but after one year, I decided that it was probably not going to go away so I decided to get it checked. The doctor suggested I do a X-ray, and I was actually semi-surprised that the X-ray showed that my bones were all normal. There must be something wrong that was causing my pains and aches right?

The doctor then suggested that I try out physiotherapy, and if it didn't help, she would refer me to see a specialist. I was initially skeptical because I didn't know what to expect for a physiotherapy session and how effective it would be, considering my pain lasted for a year. But I still went for it anyway.

The physiotherapist taught me to do some stretching exercises and I followed his instructions to do them on a daily basis. A few days after the first session, I was very, very surprised that most of my pain was gone!! How did it happen?

I continued to attend the second and third sessions where the stretching exercises were progressively tougher to train my muscles. By the third session, I was more or less recovered to 100% of my usual self and I didn't have to go back anymore.

This experience was definitely an eye-opener for me and I have a newly found respect for physiotherapists. Thanks to them, my knee pain that lasted for a year was healed under their guidance. On hindsight, I should have seen the doctor and attend physiotherapy earlier, rather than just shrugging it off and hope that it will go away on its own.

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Summing Up

Hopefully, with a stronger knee now, I can improve on my step count for the rest of the year.Well, I am still not sure whether I can hit my 8,000 steps target but I will just keep doing my best and enjoy the process! Like what some say, it's not always the outcome but the journey that counts! :)

Thanks for reading and have a pleasant week ahead!