Martin Lewis: I averaged 23,513 steps per day (burning 3,600 calories) in 2018 – here's how...

How I do this number of steps

These days, while I still work a lot of hours, I'm in a position to be able to dictate much of my workflow, which makes doing this number of steps much easier for me than for many people who are desk-bound.

I very rarely get any form of transport now – except the bus to take mini MSE to school (I then walk back) and the Good Morning Britain car early on a Thursday morning.

Usually I walk to and from MSE Towers and elsewhere in London, off to ITV or Parliament or wherever I am going for meetings. Walking across town and back more than once in a day for meetings is commonplace. So as not to lose productivity, my PA kindly organises most of my internal and external meetings (even talking to Ministers or doing newspaper interviews) for me to do on the phone while I'm walking, so the time is never wasted.

I've bought myself a headset with noise cancelling microphone, so the quality isn't too bad for those on the other end.

Plus even if I'm on the phone and don't have a journey, it is now habitual to find myself walking around the room as I make the call. Doing this for a 30-minute call can add a couple of thousand steps (and if I'm not at the target I want to hit, yes, I will walk round while watching TV to hit it late at night).

The change has been so significant that last year I gave my little sister my 14-year-old Smart car. It was used so infrequently it sometimes wouldn't start (and in the rare event I do need to be in a motor, we use Mrs MSE's car as the family car).

The health impact and cost

I'm substantially lighter than when I started stepping – no surprise, as I'm burning 3,500-4,000 calories a day. My core strength has increased, and a lot of my repetitive strain injury and back pain has gone (I'd never put this together until I mentioned it to a physio and he asked if I now walked more, as apparently it's a great help for backs).

It's also been very good for stress levels. Not just the running, which I see as a great boon to mental health, but also the walking – for the few minutes off the phone when I'm walking, a little bit of me time in a day is useful.

Last year, I wrote that the negative is that stepping this much has become a near-addiction – and I would manipulate my day and dictate my actions to hit my steps target. Taking my foot off the gas a touch has helped – I am still very step conscious, but think I've managed to balance it a little bit better this year.

Are the steps accurate?

Not 100%, no. In fact, you can watch Mrs MSE wearing four different trackers for a week to see how inaccurate they are. Yet that doesn't matter. I compete with myself based on the same metrics – number of steps in a day.

And my fixation hasn't only helped me – when friends who are linked via the app see my steps, they often up their own steppage. I have a number of friends who once they linked with me have substantially upped their steps (still, they rarely top me in a week though – I am super competitive about it).

If you're a stepper too, do let me know below how you've done this year...