Sal DeStefano (2:14)

Let's go Every time we. We bring this up or talk about this on the podcast, it always reminds me of what a terrible trainer I was. It does. I have. I have just. I have really. I have. You know, we all have our own little stories that we share about, like, when we admittedly weren't the best trainers, but I could. I could like, literally remember, like, scoffing at people.

Justin Andrews (2:35)

Totally.

Sal DeStefano (2:36)

When I used to. We had these. We had this intake form that you would give somebody when. The first time you met with them. And it's like a full questionnaire on their, you know, their exercise. Yeah. Their history, their medical history, their past history, and working out what they currently do for exercise. And, you know, a lot of times people. I walk. That's what I do for exercise.

Justin Andrews (2:55)

You don't do anything.

Sal DeStefano (2:56)

Basically, you walk.

Justin Andrews (2:57)

Yeah, basically.

Sal DeStefano (2:57)

That's what. Basically checking off nothing.

Justin Andrews (2:59)

You know what I'm saying?

Sal DeStefano (3:01)

And I'm laughing tongue in cheek now. But it always makes me feel terrible because it's crazy how it's been a 180 for me later in my career realizing that this is the first place I start with damn near everybody, almost everybody, no matter what your goal is, is actually managing their daily activity. And it's. It makes me feel terrible because I. It was something that I. That I scoffed at and made people feel like they weren't doing a good job or. That doesn't count. And yet here I am today. It's almost always the first thing I peer into and the first thing that I start to move people in the direction of. And so ironically.

Adam Schafer (3:41)

So it can even experience lifters.

Justin Andrews (3:43)

Yes. Yeah.

Adam Schafer (3:45)

It wasn't just beginners, like, and that was the thing I always thought just, like, for the people that are, like, had no idea how to train and like, this is just the first, you know, introduction. But there's so much value in walking for so many different aspects.

Sal DeStefano (3:57)

We just had a conversation on the podcast earlier the other day when we recorded an episode about us not walking and, like, we're setting walking goals for ourselves.

Adam Schafer (4:07)

For real?

Sal DeStefano (4:07)

Yeah, it's important. Very, very advanced lifters, I'd say. Yet, you know, need more of that in our lives. So it's. It's interesting how valuable and how high I rank it today versus what I

Justin Andrews (4:20)

would have ranked it 25 years ago. Someone listening might be thinking a few things, right? They might be like, well, walking, it's not strenuous. It doesn't burn a lot of calories. Why is this, like, a great form of exercise or activity? Again, to be clear, all Forms of exercise, if done appropriately, right? So apply it appropriately for the right person. They all have lots of value. Okay? So almost any form of exercise, as long as it's done appropriately, is going to bring some value, will improve your health. Depending on which one you do, you're going to get more stamina, more strength, more mobility, more flexibility. And if we were to rank forms of exercise for like, athletic performance and strength and stamina, walking wouldn't make it too high on that list. And yet here we are saying that walking is this great form of activity. It's this wonderful form of activity. So I think we should explain why we're saying that when walking isn't the best for athletic performance, it's not the best for endurance, it's not the best for building muscle, it doesn't burn the most calories, yet I place it at the top of lists when it comes to just general activity, I place it

Sal DeStefano (5:31)

at the top as one of the things for fat loss.

Justin Andrews (5:33)

Tool. Yes, yes. And so here's the thing that. So let me just paint the context. We trained people for many, many years, for decades, and we have trainers that work for us now here at Mind Pump, that work with people. And there's a lot of things you have to consider when you're recommending a form of exercise. And if you're not a trainer or you're not a coach, you might not even think of these things. But a trainer or coach has to consider these things because you have to recommend something that's appropriate for somebody that has a high adherence rate, that allows someone to be consistent and so forth. Otherwise, who cares, right? If I recommend a form of exercise that someone's not gonna be able to do, is inconvenient, has a high risk of injury, or is gonna take away from, let's say, our primary form of exercise, which is typically strength training, what Rick recommend, it's not a great form of exercise. So I'll start with the first thing. And this is a big one. This is a big one, everybody. A lot of people don't even think about this. This is a big deal. Walking is a low skill type of movement, meaning If I took 100 regular people outside, just 100 normal people without major injury, all of them can walk and they won't get hurt. I can't say that for pretty much any other form of exercise. It took 100 normal people out there and I said, go run. In fact, I want you to run every single day. Why don't you cycle every day? Or I want you to go do CrossFit. Every day, the risk of injury becomes really high. Walking, Everybody can still walk. It's appropriate. I could apply it to anybody. It's low skill. I could tell my aunt to walk. I could tell a bodybuilder to walk. I could tell an athlete to walk, anybody to walk to increase activity. And the injury risk is extremely low, which makes it very appropriate, by the way. There's more that goes to this, but that alone makes it very appropriate form of activity that I could recommend to anybody.

Sal DeStefano (7:26)

Well, and in the context of what you're talking about with starting a client and training them, it's one of the easiest things that you can build, like what you can give to them and consider them continuing that forever. Yes, Right. Like, even the best, most intense program that burns the most body fat builds the most muscle, the likelihood that that person can continue doing that for forever or a long time is much lower than can I create habits. It's a sticky habit around walking more frequently throughout someone's day and at what percent or how likely can I keep them doing that forever? Much higher than any other modality.

Justin Andrews (8:06)

It is. And I'll also add this. Trying to burn calories manually is kind of a losing strategy anyway. So, yes, there are forms of exercise that burn more calories while you do them. But if you've listened to past podcasts, past episodes, your better bet is to try to speed up the metabolism through building muscle. Okay, so if you want to try to burn more calories, better off teaching your body to burn more calories on its own than trying to burn it manually. But does that mean there isn't any value to increased activity? No, there's tons of value to increased activity. You have improved insulin sensitivity, which means you're not going to get these big spikes and drops in blood sugar. That affects lots of different behaviors. It affects cravings, energy and mood changes, your eating behaviors. It's also great for metabolic health, especially if you stretch that out over years. And so walking is just this great form of activity that's low skill, low injury risk. It's also this. It's very hard to pick a form of exercise that is appropriate for the person that is overstressed and overworked, or the person who's well rested, slept, is well fed, who can get after it. What form of exercise is going to benefit both of them? Walking. Yeah.

Adam Schafer (9:13)

Well, and two, like in settings, if you're in work setting where you're sedentary a lot, there's not a lot of exercise. You could just Say, hey, do this right within, you know, your work environment. Whereas walking, you could plan that out where you could actually take these breaks and actually be somewhat productive with that with your body to also like spike your mood, spike your energy, get things moving, like, and that has a cascading effect, you know, back into the training and the nutrition.

Sal DeStefano (9:42)

Well, back to your low skill point is that, you know, when you first meet a client, you're learning a lot about that client to your, like what you're talking about with their other stress that they have in their life. And it right away, after the first day I meet you, I can feel confident that telling you to walk X amount of, you know, steps or minutes in a day, every day. Fine is fine for everybody without with knowing very little information.

Justin Andrews (10:08)

Yes.

Sal DeStefano (10:09)

I don't know if you know, three days of full body routines is going to be too much for you right now. I don't know if you can handle running for a half hour. Like I don't know any. I don't know if you could handle some hit sprints post or pre workout or once a week, like where I'm figuring that out. So as a trainer, when you, when you first get somebody started is why the irony of how we started this conversation is that this is the first place I start everybody right away because I know that it's got so many other benefits besides just creating more activity and good habits and good behaviors around this person, which you'll get to the other four. And so right out the gates, I know we can start doing this thing,

Justin Andrews (10:51)

but I really like it because it's recuperative and meaning it won't take away from your body's recovery ability that you're going to need for the other more important or intense form.

Sal DeStefano (11:04)

It won't just take away, it will facilitate and speed up.

Justin Andrews (11:08)

That's right.

Sal DeStefano (11:08)

More blood flow, more oxygen, more nutrients flowing through the body is going to facilitate and speed up recovery. I remember again, another mistake. I know you could definitely relate to this because we've talked about this before where I thought, go hammer the gym as hard as possible.

Justin Andrews (11:24)

Lay down, don't move, don't burn another calorie.

Sal DeStefano (11:26)

Don't burn calories. Let, let. That would build the most muscle. That's not true at all.

Justin Andrews (11:31)

No.

Sal DeStefano (11:31)

In fact, I would have built more muscle going out for 10,000 step days of walking and moving that blood, moving that nutrients, moving that oxygen through my body. It would facilitate that recovery faster than just laying there still.

Justin Andrews (11:46)

In other words, someone who's interested in fat loss A good routine. Typical person may look something like two or three days a week of strength training. Appropriate intensity, compound lifts, you've heard us talk about this before, get stronger. What other activity can I add to that that's not going to take away from the adaptation, the recovery that I need for the strength training? Walking. Walking. Now if I took that same person, let's say we're doing three days a week full body strength training and I'm having them do an additional two or three days of hiit cardio. Well, it's going to take away. I'm going to have to really scale down the intensity and volume of the strength training oftentimes so that they have some of that ability, the recovery that they can use for the hiit cardio for walking, it doesn't take away, it often adds to that. So it's just a great addition to a strength training routine.

Sal DeStefano (12:34)

Also, when you start talking about hiit and more volume of training intensity, other things like that, you also have to consider calorie deficit or surplus. If they're in a deficit, having them walk more is gonna lean them out. Your body will tap into fat, their body will utilize fat to, to fuel them through.

Justin Andrews (12:51)

You don't really pair muscle down with walking.

Sal DeStefano (12:53)

No.

Justin Andrews (12:53)

You'd have to do a lot of walking.

Sal DeStefano (12:54)

Yeah. The amount that someone would have to do and the deficit walk like 40,000 steps. Right. And so that's another great positive. Again, I don't need to know a lot of information. They could be in a, in a place where they're not even in a calorie surplus or maintenance. It could be in a deficit and I can add a bunch of walking in there. And most likely what's going to happen, they're going to just lean out from that. They're just going to lose.

Justin Andrews (13:16)

Muscle preserving.

Sal DeStefano (13:17)

Yeah, it's very muscle preserving versus if that person who's in maybe extreme calorie deficit and training. And then I also stack high intensity cardio on top of that. I sacrifice their body. Potentially paring down muscle.

Justin Andrews (13:31)

That's right.

Sal DeStefano (13:31)

Or that's way less likely to happen with walking.

Justin Andrews (13:34)

Here's one of my favorite things with walking. It's ev. Very easily stacked with other habits. So one of the obvious ones is you could put on some headphones, take a scroll, stroll, listen to a book, really get lost in the book or whatever. But here, that's an obvious one. But my favorite habits with walking look like this. You're at work, you've got, you're there till 5 o'. Clock. Or 6 o', clock, you can go on a walk and have a meeting. You can go on a walk and have a conversation with your friend. You can build your relationship with your wife. When you get home on a walk, you can make the walk so meaningful that it's not even about the walk. It's about hanging out with that person, connecting with that person and making it something entirely different. In fact, this is one of my favorite reasons to walk later when I get home after work is I go hang out with my wife or take the kids with us.

Adam Schafer (14:21)

Started out with, yeah, start out with the wife and then it's like, okay, let's bring the kids. Okay, let's bring the dogs. And it was just like this whole thing. But again, everybody comes back in a better mood and then, you know, a lot of this stuff, uh, I feel like it's like unresolved energy. You know, it gets expressed.

Sal DeStefano (14:38)

There's other habits that are great to stack it with too. Most of us end up going to the grocery store at least once a week. Park your car super far from where that's right, you gotta go, you know, intentionally go, go to the grocery store instead of maybe instacarting it. You go to the gym probably or some other place. Park far away. Like there's walking. There's a lot of ways that you can make walking, you know, five, 10 minutes here or there. In all these things that you do every single day on a regular bas that increases, this activity increases.

Justin Andrews (15:09)

I'm so glad you said that. Oftentimes exercise needs to be scheduled and done kind of all at once. Right. I'm gonna go running today. Well, you typically don't do three, you know, 10 minute runs. It's typically one 30 minute run or something like that. With walking, you split it up throughout the day. If you work in an office, you do three 10 minute walks. That's 30 minutes. And each one of those you could stack with. Take your co worker with you or I need to discuss this thing with my boss or my employee or I got to work on this idea and I'm going to be on my phone, but why don't I go for a walk while I do it and you can split up the walks throughout the day. By the way, the data shows if you do it that way, especially if you do it post prandial, meaning after a meal, you actually get better health effects.

Adam Schafer (15:51)

Oh yeah.

Justin Andrews (15:52)

It's actually better for you to split up a bunch of little walks than it is to do one long walk. Especially if it's after your meals.

Sal DeStefano (15:59)

I mean, Justin's notorious for this. And as I've gotten older, I've reframed. The way I look at this at home is just, you know, I many times now choose to like clean up around the house or organize a closet or wash one of my car. Like, this becomes like a thing that I, I do it not only because that thing needs to get done, but now it's like, oh, you know what?

Justin Andrews (16:21)

There's my activity.

Sal DeStefano (16:22)

Here's my activity doing that. And I remember when we, we talk about this when the first tools came out. Now you have the Fitbit, the Oura ring, all these things. There's so many components, competitors. At one point, it used to be just the body bug way back in the days. And you know, we, they partnered with 24 Fitness, so we were some of the first people to get to test those things out. And I, and by the way, this is back when I wasn't a good trainer. This is back when I was still trying to like kill my clients in their workouts and burn as many calories as we could in the workout because I thought I had to do that with everybody. And I remember all my clients, I got on those body bugs and you know, we would sit down when we, we'd meet once a week and look at their report from the week. And I remember many, most, not a couple or anomalies. Most of my clients burned a majority of their high calorie days. Not with me.

Justin Andrews (17:14)

Yeah.

Sal DeStefano (17:14)

How's this possible? Whooping the shit out of them for this hour? It's got to be like how. But it was during, on their Saturday when they did yard work or they went to the mall or they like they were just active. And the calorie expenditure, even though you're making the case that it doesn't burn a lot of calories, it really adds up when you make it a part of your life.

Justin Andrews (17:33)

It does.

Sal DeStefano (17:34)

When you compare a sedentary day and everybody has normally at least one of these a week when you just, you sleep in for two hours, you don't have to go anywhere and do anything. Maybe you watch a little TV or you come in early that night, that day of steps compared to another day when you would consider your high activity day. Maybe you move a lot, whatever, go grocery, all the things. The calorie burn is actually pretty significant. I've seen thousand calorie burn differences.

Justin Andrews (18:01)

That's a good point. Because walking so accessible because you could track your steps and just try to move more cumulatively, it is more calories.

Sal DeStefano (18:09)

Right.

Justin Andrews (18:09)

You're right. Like a 20 minute, hardcore, intense cardio session is going to burn more than, you know, 20 minutes of walking. But typically what happens is if you're tracking this and you're trying to hit 10,000 steps a day, you do more of it. And overall, it does add up.

Sal DeStefano (18:22)

And that's what blew my mind was because we. Again, this is back in my.

Justin Andrews (18:25)

So I saw the same thing, not

Sal DeStefano (18:26)

good trainer days when I was trying to burn a lot of calories with my clients. And I'm going like, well, this is crazy.

Justin Andrews (18:32)

Well, the reason why that happened, I saw the same thing, Adam, because I same. Actually thought that the program was wrong. And I had to go through a couple times. What it was is that people would train with me, typically on the work days. Yes.

Sal DeStefano (18:41)

So they'd come sedentary jobs.

Justin Andrews (18:42)

That's right. So they'd come see me, they'd work out. Let's say in the morning, we'd have an hour hard work. Spike, you would see on their chart spiking calorie burn. And then the rest of the day there was nothing.

Sal DeStefano (18:50)

Yeah. They had this crazy 5, 600 calorie burn with you.

Justin Andrews (18:53)

Yep.

Sal DeStefano (18:54)

Okay. And that's. That's an intense workout. Right. You really. Let's circuit them, moving them, hitting them with some hit cardio, everything. So you get like 600 calories burned over their maintenance. That, that, that day that they train with you, then they have a day where they burned a thousand calories more. And it's just because they were doing yard work. They were just busy all day. And it's like, I remember. What did you do? I didn't do. I didn't do anything. It's like, I just, I just walked. I just had this. I did that. And then I was like, oh, my

Justin Andrews (19:22)

God, what a. I had a client went to the mall, and she was at the mall all day with her teenage kids. And I'm like, what did you do? Yeah. Say nothing. I'm like, this is crazy. Yeah. The other thing too, is that what makes walking so great. One of the reasons why walking. When people try to increase their steps, one of the reasons why they're more consistent with it is it requires no setup and no equipment.

Sal DeStefano (19:44)

Yeah.

Justin Andrews (19:45)

I don't got to go change into my workout clothes. I can go for a walk on my work clothes. I don't need to go to the gym. I don't need special equipment. I just go for a walk. And so because there's no setup, because it's so convenient. I end up doing more of it than if it were. Like, I have to go on this run. I got to get my shoes on. Better change my clothes. I'm going to get all sweaty. And then I go shower, whatever it requires. No setup. You just go for a walk. Makes it super easy, you know, that's

Sal DeStefano (20:11)

part of why I think it's so underrated also is there's this myth around, like, sweat is correlated to fat burn.

Justin Andrews (20:18)

Yeah.

Sal DeStefano (20:19)

And that you need to be sweating and exhausted in order for the body to burn fat. And it's so not true. Your fat being utilized as energy is being in a caloric deficit. And if you can create a caloric deficit through walking and never sweating all day long, you could burn as much body fat, if not more body fat. And I would argue you more because of the point you're making right now. It's really easy to make it, you know, when you're dressed in work clothes to just, oh, you know what? I have a lunch break every day. Instead of me just eating lunch and sitting with my co workers at the loan. How about, I think I had 15, 20 minutes of that time with a walk.

Justin Andrews (20:53)

That's right.

Sal DeStefano (20:53)

And then I park further. And you just. And you create these habits. And all of a sudden you become a person. By the way, average American steps less than 4, 500 steps a day. You also become the average American who steps 4,000 or less to the average American who's now stepping 8,000 steps every day. And I'll tell you right now, if you take a person from four to 8,000 steps, you've doubled their activity. You've doubled their activity and movement, and

Justin Andrews (21:15)

they don't even feel like they've worked out real hard.

Sal DeStefano (21:17)

And that does add up.

Justin Andrews (21:18)

It does. And lastly, you know, walking does. And it does this quite consistently and quite well is it typically gets us outside. Now, other forms of exercise do as well. But because walking requires so little setup or no setup, I can do it whenever I want or need to change my clothes. I end up going outside a lot. I end up going outside a lot more than I normally would. And that has its own health benefits. Like getting sunlight is good for you. It's very good for you. Especially when you compare it to not getting any sunlight. Most people, especially people who work office jobs, get so little sunlight that when they go for walks, part of the health benefits and the mood lift that they feel is just getting out in the sun. It also gets you outside around people. And this may not have been a big deal 30 years ago. But these days it makes a big deal to be around people and that is rejuvenating and can encourage relationships and conversations. It gets you out, it gets you out from the cave. We're so locked in to be indoors.

Sal DeStefano (22:17)

I don't think that this is talked about enough. I think that it's one of those kind of afterthoughts that yeah, yeah, we know getting outside is important. Like everybody knows but you, you. And you think because you walk to your car, you do this like yeah, I get outside. It's like. But to your point about today versus 30 years ago, the, the average person spent several hours outside compared today where we've now completely flipped that. So this has changed a lot. And we don't have a lot of history to show all the detrimental stuff to not getting any sunlight consistently for we haven't had enough generations age and get older to see that. And so I think we'll look back 40, 50 years from now and talk about this period of time when we've got under a bunch of fluorescent lights, locked ourselves indoors for 8, 10 hour days all the time, for decades on how detrimental that was to our health. And so I, I think this isn't talked about enough how important it is for us.

Adam Schafer (23:17)

There's definitely some kind of physiological benefit to being in nature, not artificial, you know, environments. And I remember listening to the guy in a podcast, he was trying to like define it and there was like, you know, certain doses of it, whether it was like at a park or whether, you know, you're immersed, you know, in a field or you're actually in a forest where there's no other signs of civilization. And he's like, that's like the mega dose.

Sal DeStefano (23:42)

Yeah.

Adam Schafer (23:43)

And there was some kind of like calming effect to that. And like you're, your brain received, you know, a lot of benefit.

Sal DeStefano (23:50)

It's. Are you anybody who's ever worked, I feel it an office job consistently for weeks or months and then taking a vacation to the coast or the forest for three days. Can't tell me you don't feel that.

Adam Schafer (24:05)

It's definitely something too to seeing very far versus like always seeing things right in front of you.

Justin Andrews (24:11)

That's right.

Adam Schafer (24:12)

And so yeah, from that perspective, you don't really get that unless you're really observing like a big expansion.

Sal DeStefano (24:18)

Well, I'll tell you, you know, it's funny that how, but well before the science has got up to even prove any of what you're saying, humans have naturally gravitated.

Adam Schafer (24:26)

That's it yeah, we want to live

Sal DeStefano (24:28)

by the coast and in the trees and see, see long the, the, the, the horizon. Like I mean we just naturally have done that. There's a reason why we've naturally gravitated. And by the way, parasympathetic, this is for me for, for, for centuries. And when we did everything outside already, when we still gravitated to that. Today we're locking ourselves in these boxes with, with blue light on us all day long. You cannot tell me some of the

Justin Andrews (24:53)

best health you'll see in populations are in cities that are coastal. So it's the, the weather's decent, so they go outside a lot. And then these are older cities that, where driving is inconvenient. You know, think of like San Francisco

Adam Schafer (25:06)

built their own walk.

Justin Andrews (25:07)

You have to walk everywhere you go and people have longer lifespans. I can speak personally to this. We produce this podcast and this show. We're locked in this kind of sound proofed room all day long. And if I don't go outside a few times a day, man, by the time we're done here, I feel totally fried. I looked up the data, by the way. A majority of Americans spend roughly 30 minutes total a day outside. Total. Yeah, that's outside. Wow.

Sal DeStefano (25:34)

So, and what Was that just 30 years ago?

Justin Andrews (25:36)

Yeah, I mean you were outside quite a bit.

Sal DeStefano (25:38)

Yeah.

Justin Andrews (25:38)

So you know, going for walks tends to put you outside. It's low skill. Anybody can do it. It's recuperative, won't take away from your other more intense exercise. You stack it with other habits. It's pro relational. That's my favorite part. Requires no equipment, no setup and you go outside walking. Phenomenal form of activity. By the way, we have a guide on losing fat. Lose fat in three steps. It's free. You can get it@mpfatloss.com thank you for

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