So with the magic 10k in mind I was most excited to put the Silva EX3 Plus to the test. This isn’t like one of those standard pedometers that clips on to your belt (I don’t wear a belt, so that isn’t much use). No, the EX3 is a tiny piece of kit that you can hang around your neck with the provided necklace or slip into your pocket – whichever way you want to wear it, this nifty device will count your steps. Once you’ve inputted your stride length and weight, it will also work out how many calories and miles you’ve clocked up too, and best of all it keeps a record of your achievements from the last seven days and resets itself at midnight so you can start your fresh 10k quest each morning.

It’s about now that I feel that I should make a confession – I’m a bit of an obsessive, and this great pedometer has brought out this side of me. I wear it round my neck everywhere I go, and I’m always checking it to see how I’m progressing. Getting to the magic 10,000 is easy at the weekend – I’m usually out in the countryside on Saturdays and Sundays – but it’s on weekdays where the problems come. I’m pretty good – I get the train and walk to work each day – but that was only getting me to about 7,000. I needed to find a way to get those extra steps, and that was where my obsessive side came in.

We work on the 9th floor, so I now walk up and down the stairs instead of taking the lift. It wasn’t easy at first but it gets easier every time and I can really feel the benefits, both physically and on the number of steps I’m clocking up. As a family we’ve been walking more and taking friends’ dogs out just so we can get our steps up, and my friends have also been walking more as a result. I’ve even started writing down the number of steps I take each day and working out a weekly average – I don’t always quite make 10,000 a day, but over the week I easily average it out (told you I was obsessive).

It would be a bit dramatic to say that this pedometer has changed my life, but it really has made me think about how much exercise I’m taking and it’s given me a focus too. Of course, it could have been any old pedometer that brought about this change, but what makes the EX3 stand out is that it’s easy to use, it’s so small that you don’t even remember you’re wearing it, and it’s accurate. There are downsides – it can have a few problems registering steps when you’re walking up and down stairs, and it’s not waterproof, which could be a drawback if you sweat buckets – but essentially this is superb piece of kit. I never leave home without it.

Silva EX3 Plus