Why do cardio? I have Reasons:
1. It improves mood. Seriously. My spin bike is actually called The Magic Mood-Fixing Machine. Science says that you will feel better after.
2. It makes your brain work better.
3. It burns calories.
4. It reduces stress. Remember this when your house is full of contentious relatives. Going for a walk is way better than ending up in jail for assault.
So: yesterday we took a look at where we are in our cardio fitness. If we’re not quite where we’d like to be, I have good news: we can make a good amount of progress by the end of the year.
Of course, all good news has a dark side. You have to do stuff. I’m going to use walking as my example, but this system works for whatever kind of cardio we happen to like. Walking is just accessible to most folks and doesn’t require any stuff besides good shoes.
When we start, we want to build consistency more than anything else. Cardio is a habit. It thrives on daily or near-daily feeding. In the first week, you want to make a stupid-easy goal that you can do for six days in a row. Depending on where we’re starting from, this can mean anything from walking around the block slowly one time to spending half an hour walking. The key thing is that we have to do it six days in a row. That last day, we get a rest.
The second week, we just add a little more: one interval. If our first week was a five minute walk, our second week is two minutes of walking at regular pace, one minute going faster, and two minutes of walking at regular pace. Or, if we’re going around the block, the first two sides are at regular pace, the third side is faster, and the last side is back to regular.
After that, we add a little more time or distance or another interval each week. (It’s easier to add intervals when we’ve already built up a little more time or distance.) The overarching goal remains consistency. This has to feel manageable.
What if it isn’t? I got you. Let’s say you miss a day. OK: restart the clock. You need six days in a row.
Let’s say that week one goes great and week two is OK, but week three is suddenly harder than you could possibly imagine. Hang out at the week two level until you are ready to progress. No one is watching. You can take as much time as you need.
Tomorrow: some motivation for the process.
News flash from Captain Obvious: it’s December and that means we’re coming up on the end of the year. That means we have an opportunity to reflect on where we are and what we’ve done over the last year and maybe also an opportunity to choose some gifts for ourselves for 2026. Over the course of the month, I’ll talk about a bunch of different things we might want to evaluate and celebrate. This first week, I’m going to talk about cardio.
Cardio exercise is not the main focus of my work with my clients for the very good reason that it’s dumb to pay me to watch cardio. Of course, the kind of workouts I design do get people’s heart rates up and clients will be getting some cardio intervals built in to their weight workout. It’s just not the main goal.
Ideally, the time my clients spend with me working out is not the entirety of their workout time. I sincerely hope they are getting in some cardio and maybe more weights when they’re on their own.
Cardio fitness is one of the things that first pops into mind when folks think about what being fit means to them. We all know what it’s like to get to the top of a long hill feeling out of breath and unclear on our reason for continuing to live and it’s not a good feeling. We all like to feel like our hearts and lungs are up to whatever it is we have in mind.
There are actual assessments of cardio fitness. (If you want one, let’s talk.) But most of us know when we’re at the level we’d like to be. Take a minute or two and think: are you where you want to be?
If so: good on you. If not, I have some suggestions tomorrow.
This workout is a flexible one. Folks who want more challenge can add the back lunge to the step ups or swap renegade rows for the regular ones. If jumping is not appropriate, folks can still get their rotational work done with curtsies. And plain lateral raises are always available for those who don’t want to be on hands and knees. Whatever folks choose, aim for three rounds.
step ups | 30 |
rows | 20 |
kickbacks | 10 |
| |
suitcase swings | 30 |
bench press | 20 |
quadruped lateral raise | 10 |
| |
skater jump/curtsy | 30 |
flies | 20 |
pretty princesses | 10 |
Things I am grateful for, for real.
1. Awesome family and friends.
2. Eggs.
3. Murder mysteries.
4. Cardio exercise, especially spin and swimming.
5. Sweaters.
Obviously not an exhaustive list. What’s on yours?
I have a Secret Weapon that helps with gratitude practice. I learned it from the amazing and talented Bronwyn Emery of Live. Write. Be.
(This is a plug for Bronwyn and her coaching services. She is an awesome and talented person with a gift for drawing good work out of people who write. Check out what she has to offer here.)
If gratitude practice in the classical sense doesn’t work, may I recommend What Went Well and Why. Here’s how it works. Every day, you notice three things that went well and you write them down and then you also write down why they went well. The trick is that you have to say what you did to make that thing go well.
Let me give an example. Let’s say you notice that you had a fabulous workout. That went well. When it comes to why, you don’t get to say it was because your trainer is amazing. You need to look at what you did and maybe you’ll write that it went well because you actually showed up instead of crawling back in bed or because you have finally figured out how to breathe and do pushups at the same time or because you didn’t let how mad you were at your boss derail you, but in fact used the rage as power.
What I like about this practice is that not only does it train us to notice the good stuff like gratitude does, but it also builds a sense of agency in us. Things went well and it wasn’t all blind luck or other people being fabulous, but rather because we did stuff.
Try it!
For Reasons, I tend to resist gratitude practice.
By Reasons, I mean that gratitude practice doesn’t play particularly well with my depression. The Monster gets gleeful when I look around at my life and all the many blessings I have because he gets to point out that I have all that and I am still a depressive and that’s just messed up on a whole different level. I mention this in case anybody else has a similar Monster.
My experience notwithstanding, there is research that says that practicing gratitude is good for us.
In point of fact, even I benefit from it at the times when the Monster is under the bed or wherever he goes when he’s not actively sitting on my chest.
It doesn’t have to be complicated. I can be grateful that there are dogs sleeping under the tables on the patio at the café where I like to write blog posts, or that there is a moon in the sky when I get up in the dark, or that it is not actually possible to stab annoying people through my computer screen when they say irritating things in Zoom meetings. There aren’t rules, really. I can be snarky and grateful at the same time!
The point of the practice is that we notice. We have, evolutionarily, a negativity bias. Times being what they are, it is not surprising that many of us conclude that everything is terrible.
That might even be mostly true. But, again, there is sunlight on raindrops and hot cocoa and the sound of little kids laughing.
Let it transform us.
