Zone 2 Cardio

I have exercised to be skinny. I have exercised to be in control. I have exercised to numb.

And I have exercised with regularity since I was a junior in high school, always making sure that cardio was the #1 box to be checked each day.

I honestly thought that if I didn’t leave a workout completely drenched, it wasn’t worth my time. I needed a hard cardio session to “make up” for an indulgent meal. I completed multiple rounds of both P90X and Insanity, and thought that I should be putting my body under that stress for as long as I could humanly stand every day. There were years that I spent up to 6 hours a week on an elliptical machine.

Then, when my time started to be more limited, I thought that weighted cardio was the way to go. I didn’t have to do it as long, but still got a “good workout”. {Barf}

But the results of hard cardio can be confusing for someone like me - I want to be healthy, but I also (deep down) want the number on the scale to be as low as I humanly possible. I was trading skinny for healthy, both physically and mentally on a daily basis.

So, I boycotted cardio altogether for a while and focused only on lifting and that helped me to shift my mindset to being strong instead of small. Then I started to go through perimenopause.

Perimenopause is a huge buzz right now, and I’m so thankful it is. Perimenopause is something that I’ll cover in depth in another post, but I learned that heavy zone 1 and zone 2 cardio is a great workout during this stage of life for women.

Zone 1: Brisk walking, swimming, pilates, gardening

Zone 2: Jogging, cycling, walking uphill

Maybe I was looking for an educated excuse to “quit” hard cardio, but I saw this as a sign to update my exercise regiment based on both my body and my goals.

Currently, I lift 4-5 per week with free weights and work to get 10,000 steps each day. Some of these walks are with my 10 lb weighted vest and some are not. I get my heart rate lifted with both my walks and weight lifting, helping my heart to be as healthy as I possibly can. I walk on my cheap Amazon treadmill inside when it’s dark and cold outside and I walk outside in the nicer months in Minnesota.

Don’t hesitate to re-evaluate your routine. Don’t hesitate to start a new routine. Don’t hesitate to stop doing something if/when you realize what you’re doing is detrimental to your mental and physical health.