Productive Cardio: How to Get those Steps In when You Have a Busy Schedule
Cozy Cardio, while I love the idea of it, just didn't work for me. Enter: Productive Cardio.
While dealing with an immense case of burnout, my hormones went berserk and within the span of a year, I packed on over 40 pounds, even though I was exercising 4-5 times per week and eating a mostly-healthy diet. It was incredibly disheartening. Once I got my hormones balanced and lowered my stress levels by a million with a job change, the weight that I gained slowly came off, but not without a consistent effort in my workouts and a complete change of how I was working out.
A cardio queen at heart, I LOVED hard core, high energy fitness classes like Kickboxing, HIIT, and Drills. I loved them so much, in fact, that I became a fitness instructor, and taught a huge range of fitness classes for over 10 years. My natural response to gaining weight in my burnout era was to work out harder. It worked for me in my 20’s and 30’s, so of course I thought it would work for me in my 40’s. I cringe now, knowing what I know about hormone health and the impact that Zone 3-4 cardio has on hormone health. It isn’t good, friends. Zone 2 cardio is your best friend.
But here’s the problem… it’s kinda boring. For someone who has “hummingbird energy,” it doesn’t take much to get my heart rate going, and before I knew it, even my low-impact workouts were spiking up to Zone 3-4 territory. I couldn’t help it - I love moving, especially in the form of kicks and punches to a dub-step-inspired beat. The only thing that effectively kept me in Zone 2 cardio was straight up walking. SNOOZE. While I do live in a beautiful, forested area and have a dog who loves to go on walks, I found it hard to muster the motivation to stay walking past an hour. I struggled to meet my goal of 10,000 steps a day.
Then, I learned about Cozy Cardio: the notion of walking indoors in the coziest of ways, on a treadmill or walking pad, created by Hope Zuckerbrow. I loved this idea! Hope encourages Cozy Cardio Clubbers to romanticize walking; dimming lights, getting comfy, making your favorite refreshing beverage, and watching your favorite show while getting your steps. It’s genius. Eager to try it out, I followed Hope’s advice, saving a good Netflix binge for only when I was on the treadmill, and doing my best to romanticize the experience.
The trouble came when I quickly grew bored, even when I was cardio-ing in the coziest of ways. I struggled to stay consistent, AGAIN, and was so frustrated with myself. I still love Hope and the idea of Cozy Cardio, but I had a bad case of Burnout Brain, and I needed something that gave me the high of a good TurboKick class, but didn’t spike my heart rate.
Enter: Productive Cardio. I set up a desk over my walking pad and found that I could stay walking on it for a looooong time if I had administrative-like things to do. It doesn’t matter what the “things” are, it’s just a way for my brain to stay engaged in small tasks while my feet are moving.
My most popular Productive Cardio walking pad tasks include:
1. Work toward “inbox zero.”
The battle between my inbox and myself is perpetual. There are always emails to read, emails to send, emails to delete, and emails to schedule. I can usually kill at least 20 minutes on the walking pad while tackling my inbox.
2. Pay bills and complete a budget check-in.
Part of healing from burnout was getting my act together in several areas of my life, including finances. I complete a financial check-in every day, even if I haven’t spent anything that day, just to keep an eye on my income and expenses. This small practice has given me so much more control over my finances, and checking in while stepping has been a perfect match.
3. Take an easy or fun online course.
Speaking of finances, I also use my Productive Cardio time for completing an online financial literacy course. The tasks are easy - there are a lot of articles, short videos, and mini-quizzes, so it’s not too intense to do while walking.
4. Practice a new language.
After teaching French for 18 years, I thought it would be fun to learn Spanish, and it’s been incredibly rewarding to do so during my Productive Cardio time. It’s easy to keep your streak on Duolingo when you have time to be productive.
5. Plan next week’s meals and workouts.
Part of bouncing back after burnout was realizing that consistency doesn’t have to mean that you stick to perfect meals and workouts every single day. What I learned in this process is that consistency means sticking to the plan that you create for yourself. I thought I was “broken” for so long because consistency evaded me in all areas of my life. Now, I have the energy and motivation to plan my workouts and meals around my schedule, and as long as I stick to my plan, I count it all as a win. Every Sunday, I look at my schedule for the week ahead of me. I know that if I will be home at 8pm one night, there’s zero chance that I will want to do a workout when I get home. So I schedule a rest day for that day and make sure I get in what I need on a different day. I know this sounds so stupid… like duh, that’s how life works. But in the past, I would make these ridiculous promises to myself like “Okay, I’m going to work out EVERY DAY this month, no rest days” and I would never be able to stick to them (of course!). The same would go for meal planning. I would blindly order meal service from EveryPlate or Hello Fresh, and some weeks the meals would go unmade because I was too exhausted to make anything when I got home. I unsubscribed to meal kit services and started scheduling the making of insanely-easy meals (like 5 minute prep time and 20 minute cook time), and because I schedule them out according to what is going on that day, I never feel the need to opt out. For example, last week, we had a late vet visit for our dog, Diesel. I knew we’d be getting home around 7pm, so I scheduled a rest day for my workout and put chili in the crockpot that morning, because I just knew we wouldn’t feel like cooking when we got home. The best part about this plan is that there’s no negative self-talk. I don’t get mad at myself that I didn’t work out that night, because it was part of the week’s plan. It’s such a great feeling!
6. Make lists (to-do lists, grocery lists, home improvement lists, etc).
This is pretty self-explanatory, but making lists require a certain amount of focus, and there’s something about the walking pad that puts my brain into major focus-mode. Not only can you make all the lists that make your brain happy, you get to revisit them and check them off when you come back to do your Productive Cardio the next day and get that little dopamine hit. Win-win!
7. Unsubscribe to marketing emails.
Back to the inbox! If part of your 2025 goals are to spend less, unsubscribing to marketing emails must be on your to-do list. How many unnecessary dollars have I spent on impulse buys when I see those flashing red “50% off!” emails sitting in my inbox. Too many. Time to unsubscribe.
8. Gratitude journal or do a walking meditation.
I’m sure it will be no surprise to hear that I have also struggled with consistency around gratitude journaling and meditation. I love doing both, I just always fall off the wagon. But once again, while in the mindset to be productive, journaling and doing a walking meditation feels so much easier to do and stick to. Try it out!
Now listen, I know Productive Cardio is not for everyone. Just like I tried to make Cozy Cardio for me and it didn’t end up being a perfect fit, Productive Cardio may not be your soulmate way of getting steps in. I’m just sharing what worked for me and my post-burnout-hummingbird-energy-task-oriented-type-A-gimme-a-checklist-brain. If you can identify with any of that, I can almost guarantee that Productive Cardio is for you. This also does not mean that I don’t know how to relax or get cozy. Quite the opposite, actually. When I get all of my tasks done at once, I have more time to dedicate to snuggling up with a hot tea and my favorite true crime mystery.
If you’re willing to give it a whirl, here are a few tips:
- having upbeat background music will get your feet moving!
- start slow; it takes time to build up to a normal walking speed safely
- if you wear a step-tracking watch (like an Apple Watch), you may want to strap it on one of your ankles while you walk if both your hands are occupied (i.e. typing), because it may not catch every step you take otherwise (if that’s important to you)
- speaking of typing: it’s much easier to type than write, in my experience, so digitize your lists, journaling, and other content
- practice good posture: ensure that your desk is at an appropriate height, and your computer is at eye level (for me, this meant putting my screen higher than my keyboard)
- make your space pretty; it encourages you to return daily!
- if you need a walking pad rec, try this one, and if you need a walking desk setup rec, this is the one I have; it hangs on the wall and folds down, if needed
If you give Productive Cardio a shot, let me know how it goes for you!
To your health,
- L
P.S. While typing this blog entry, I put in over 10,000 steps!
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