Ten years ago, on April 5, 2015, at our annual physicals, our then physician asked me, as he usually did, about my exercise routine. I told him, “My major form of exercise is jumping to conclusions.” I thought that was hilarious. The doctor was not amused in the least. When it was Bill’s turn, the doctor shook his finger in my husband’s face and said, “If you don’t use it, you’re going to lose it.”

So the next day—the very next day, on April 6th —we started walking, gradually crawling our way up to that magic number of 10,000 steps, using our Fitbits to keep track. Although we didn’t realize it at the time, it turns out our phones were keeping track, too. The Fitbits eventually went away and were replaced by Apple Watches, but we kept right on walking, and the phones kept right on counting. Magically I dropped 65 pounds and went from a size 26 to a size 16. Suddenly clothing that had been hiding in the back corners of my closets for years were wearable again. In fact, I’m still wearing some of those original size sixteens.

Eventually Bill’s health situation changed, necessitating his using a walker and putting me behind the wheel of our family car. After decades of riding shotgun, I was suddenly back in the driver’s seat. That came as a shock to both our systems, but we managed.

Over time, dental crowns installed years ago tend to come to grief and need replacing. That’s happened to both of us in the past couple of years. Our dentist’s office (Thank you, Dr. Wendy Spektor) is only five minutes from our house. Crown appointments generally take two hours, so when I drove Bill to a two-hour appointment, did I drive there and drop him off? Nope, once he was ensconced in the chair, I went out and got my steps, walking laps around the parking lot—three hundred or five hundred steps per lap, depending on which route I chose.

Why am I telling you this? Because last week we went in for cleanings. As I was paying the bill, the office manager asked me where my step count was, so I showed her—on my phone. Turns out, they’d all noticed those times when I was outside marching around the parking lot, and now the dental practices’s employees are encouraged to go outside and walk during their breaks. In other words, why pay to go to a gym when you can use a parking lot for free?

What’s more, because of me, other people are walking, too. I’m not as fast as I used to be, but I’m walking nonetheless. And here’s my ten-year cumulative score: As of Tuesday of this week, my streak of walking a minimum of 10,000 steps adds up to 1,255 days. The total number of steps? 40,010,219. And the total number of miles? 19,007.

My hope is to make it all the way around the world—a total of 24,901 miles. The only way to do that is for me to keep walking.

Stay tuned.