The Secret to staying fit all year round and be in better shape than 99% of people
A hack to taking control of your fitness level all year round
Undoubtedly, getting into good shape is harder than staying in that shape. However, life is a rollercoaster for each of us, things don’t always go according to plan, and you might get out of shape.
What if I tell you that there’s a secret to staying in good shape that:
- Doesn’t cost a fortune! Actually, it’s completely FREE!
- Doesn’t require any kind of membership or plan!
- Can be done while being a parent! It can be done along with your kids!
- Can be done mindfully and has mental health benefits!
- Can be done at any time of day!
- Won’t get you injured!
- Has been used and proven since pre-historic times!
- Can be done while on holiday!
- Can be done regardless of your goals! It’s highly adjustable so you can do it while losing weight, building muscle, or burning fat!
Have I got your attention?
It might sound too good to be true, but with a surge in holistic health approaches in the past few years, I need to hop on this trend and bring something to you that’s natural, beneficial, has no side effects, and is not a made-man medicine with 1000s of ingredients!
With life and food especially becoming alarmingly artificial, people are seeing amazing benefits by returning to the natural state, natural food, and natural activities that our bodies are built for!
Let’s stop hacking our bodies, and just listen to them!
The secret to staying in good shape all year round
Alright, I’ll stop keeping you hanging in suspense. It’s not my purpose! But I wanted to create the momentum so you can properly understand the benefits of this secret, without quickly dismissing it like we’ve always done.
The Secret is … WALKING!
Just like that! The thing that we do since a few months of age. One of our first major milestones in life. The thing that you realize is so precious, when you lose the ability to do it.
I’ve been doing many experiments on myself! I’ve been into fitness, and well-being for a few years, and I have a great plan:
- Gym 4 times a week
- Boxing once a week
- Swimming once a week
I’ve been doing this for a long time, while also paying attention to my nutrition. However, I still could not always hit my body fat goals, even though I was making a lot of compromises and putting in a lot of work.
While I was having this analysis, and experimenting with myself, me and my wife got a dog. Once she was allowed to go for walks, I started going around the neighborhood. And she was a puppy so this was happening a lot! I was doing all this while still adhering to my training schedule and eating the same. And I started losing fat!
Then I made sure my Apple Watch and Whoop were charged so I could monitor the steps, and I realized I was hitting 10k steps easily, while my dog was inherently happy to be spending time outside. Win-Win!
After an analysis, I realized that a cardio session of 30 minutes on the treadmill would burn 200–300 kcal in my case while hitting 10k steps a day was burning 400 kcal, the same as my strength training sessions.
How to use walking to achieve your goals
In my case, walking helped me by adding 400 kcal burnt per day, which contributed to a bigger caloric deficit, which helped me burn fat. However, if your goal is to build muscle, you need to shape this according to your goal. This is the beauty of walking and why I call it the secret:
Walking is highly flexible! You can monitor it and see your caloric expenditure, and stop whenever you want:
- You can walk slower and faster depending on how much you want to burn!
- You can listen to music or a podcast!
- You can do a walking meditation!
- You can enjoy nature and do grounding!
- You can do errands such as shopping and walking the dog!
So let’s do a breakdown based on your goals:
- Losing weight — use walking alongside training to burn more calories, try hitting 7k then 10k then 12k
- Building Muscle — in this case, you don’t want to burn a lot of calories, but you can use a lower step count as your cardio source since it’s LISS (low-intensity steady state) and regulates your weight increase to gain more muscle and less fat
- Losing fat — in this case, you still need to do the 7k, and 10k steps or enough to keep you in the caloric deficit you need. You might have eaten 2000 kcal instead of 1900 kcal today so you can quickly adjust your caloric consumption by increasing the steps a little bit.
Monitoring your steps
To be able to make the most out of this very flexible secret to gain control, you need a way of tracking your steps and knowing how much you walked. Here are a few ways:
- Your phone — most phones can do that nowadays, but it’s the least accurate option.
- Apple Watch — this option is very optimal and accurate. It will track your steps and calculate how much you burnt by walking.
- Whoop — this is the cheapest option. A band, or bracelet you wear that tracks your vitals, sleep, activities, your active recovery, and strain on your body. It’s an amazing tool that has one feature that all the others don’t have: It tracks your whole caloric consumption of the day, including not only activities but also calories burnt by breathing, sleeping, carrying shopping bags, or any other activity.
If you wish to look into buying a Whoop and also get a free trial, use my affiliate link below: http://join.whoop.com/alexlazar
In conclusion, walking is not only a great tool for cardio, but also the most flexible way you can burn fat! You can adjust it to your goal, to the season, can be done anytime, anywhere, and will keep your caloric consumption in check.
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