My Low-Grade “Zone 2” Cardio Regime Torched 56 Pounds of Fat and Kept Me in the Best Shape of My Life at 37.
It’s a fitness secret weapon that only requires 150 minutes per week, but many underestimate its importance.
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Some people go outside to touch grass—I head off to the gym to lift weights—hope you enjoy.
Going slow is how you go fast.
Neuroscientist Andrew Huberman says the best tool to improve your fitness without sacrificing extra time is to “Mesh Zone 2 cardio with your daily activities”.
He has a simple guideline to identify if you’re engaging in zone 2 cardio:
“It’s when your cardio elevates your heart rate and increases your breathing somewhat but allows you to carry out a conversation without pausing or gasping to complete your sentences.”
Think of a brisk walk or low-intensity jog.
Studies show this moderate intensity of working out “enables you to use fat as an energy source for longer and more efficiently”.
It keeps me in the best shape of my life, but not for the reasons you might think.
This moderate intensity of working out is how I melted 56 pounds over eight months and have maintained 12% body fat ever since.
My formerly inactive lifestyle left my fitness looking like a rusty old pickup truck, and with a diet a drunken sailor would be ashamed of.
But something changed.
My employer forced me to go into the office during the pandemic, which sent my anxiety to the moon like one of Elon’s rockets.
As I arrived at my uninspiring and spirit-crushing desk job every morning, even before I could plug in my laptop, I found myself brainstorming strategies to postpone the inevitable act of sitting down.
I’d walk around the one-way system implemented to keep me away from other humans while heading to the furthest kitchen in the building.
I’d methodically pour water in two cups and brace myself for the journey back to my chair.
Then, I’d repeat this mind-numbing activity three or four times before lunch. Little did I know I was weaving Uncle Huberman’s advice into my routine.
When lunchtime arrived, you’d see smoke coming off my feet as I bolted through the turnstile for a dose of sunshine and a walk around the block.
It was all in aid of removing that overwhelming pressure the anxiety brought to my chest, not some scientific formula for keeping fit.
My weight began to fly off, and research shows my need for low-grade movements was not only burning calories but making performing other exercise activities easier.
The entire pandemic and work fiasco unintentionally resulted in me moving more.
Short strolls turned into longer walks, then into jogging and weight training three times a week.
But, my gateway drug to all of this was low-intensity movements.
The low-grade nature of “Zone 2” wasn’t just for optimal fat burning. It also removed my intimidation to exercise and actually made me excited because the bar didn’t feel as high.
It was as if all the psychologically discouraging roadblocks had been removed, positively impacting the other larger fitness dominoes like my weight training.
Get comfy, Buckle up, and let’s dive in.
Weave “Zone 2” into everyday life with a NEAT twist.
Try to avoid skim-reading this part. Take your time to understand all the intricate details and nuances.
Once you understand and implement this, it works like a wizard’s potion because it becomes something you’ll do for life.
When you add a twist of Non-exercise activity thermogenesis or, as Dr. James Levine coined the term, NEAT — torching fat becomes as simple as tying your laces.
NEAT is an even lower energy expenditure you use up laying down, standing, stair climbing, fidgeting, cleaning, or my stray walk across the office to the water cooler multiple times a day.
Research shows when you include all non-strenuous activity, it makes up about 60% to 80% of all the calories we burn daily.
High levels of NEAT are directly associated with lower levels of obesity.
It seems small, but it’s significant because you can burn 350 calories a day from “Low-grade activities”, which for the average person is 40 extra pounds a year, by making minor and seemingly insignificant changes.
When you layer in my 8,000 daily steps at my current fluctuating weight of 77–79 kg at 37 years old, I burn approximately 329 calories.
In my weight training sessions, which are min three times a week, I burn around 600 calories (read more here).
Then I lock my weight training in with a ‘Zone 2’ cardio workout of 300–500 calories from the stair climber, cross trainer or a jog on the treadmill while I’m usually reading something on my phone or chatting to a buddy at the same time.
That’s 1,229 calories + my 350 NEAT calories, roughly 1,579 calories burned on training days.
Fat on my body hasn’t got a prayer.
As someone who avoided exercise like the plague for longer than I should have, building up to those numbers was easy.
But as the great Mr Jim Rohn famously said — “The simple things that lead to success are all easy to do. But they’re also just as easy not to do.”
I wasn’t doing this stuff when I was clinically obese because it was easier to park my lofty fitness goals until another week.
What helped me overcome that barrier and for my cup to spill over was low-grade movements.
Final Thoughts.
The part no one speaks about most is that I turned myself into a dedicated athlete at 37 without even a sign of getting injured (touch wood).
My former self would train like Rocky Balboa ahead of a fight with Ivan Drago — only to walk around gingerly like Robocop for days afterwards.
My brainwashed idea of keeping fit was to train at high intensity, which made the idea of going to the gym feel like climbing a skyscraper.
Fitness guru Joe Delaney hit the nail when speaking about achieving your best body.
“It’s the cumulative result of small, gradual, repetitive, and distinctly undramatic actions. It’s the expression of routine, the manifestation of unspectacular but unrelenting habits”.
He’s right.
What helped me bring these undramatic moving parts together was to make myself accountable to an expert who could monitor my routine and take out the guesswork.
Chris, my online coach, helped me burn the last 33 out of the 56 pounds in weight loss, which I could never have done by myself.
And if I can do it, so can you.
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