WELL DONE ERIC!

Congratulations to our first ever member of the month Eric Walker. Eric receives a free month’s membership for his impressive walking habits that saw him take up to an incredible 38,000 steps a day in the last week of February.

Eric Walker, from Guisborough, is evidence that just because you go on holiday you don’t have to let your activity levels slip.

A Fitbug member since May 2005, Eric usually incorporates between four and eight thousand steps into his day.

But rather than seeing a holiday as a time to put his feet up and do nothing, he saw it as the ideal opportunity to raise his steps tallies to unprecedented levels.

In fact, he got so into his walking routine that he would regularly take 6,000 steps before breakfast.

He explains: “We arrived in Lanzarote on Wednesday and from the Thursday the first thing I did in the morning was go for a walk.

“We were staying in Playa Blanca, which is on a five mile promenade, so I could easily go for a walk in any direction and it would put five to six thousand steps on my Bug before breakfast.

“I would remain active throughout the day and my wife and I would often walk together, either along the coast or one day we even wandered up a mountain.”

Back home in the north east, Eric, who works as a Stockbroker, has found organized activity is the best way to meet his daily targets - and nothing helps more than an early morning walk.

He adds: “I came across Fitbug in an article in the Telegraph and I have really found that it encourages me to do more daily activity.

“Ideally I like to go for a walk in the morning before I go to work because that sets me up for the rest of the day.

“I have joined a weekly walking group which goes out for a two-and-a-half hour walk every Wednesday and I also try to play golf - which adds about 12,000 steps to my daily total - about once a week.”

Next on the agenda for February’s member of the month is a walking holiday in Italy when he is planning to even surpass his own sky-high daily steps totals.