Ben Greenfield

And I'd love to walk on a treadmill.

I think it's great to do like low level physical intensity during the day.

I think it can be a little bit of a waste of time to do it at the gym.

Like I'm not talking about people who actually are doing that for,

a race, like a triathlon or a marathon or something like that.

People are just wanting to burn fat.

I would rather see people getting zone two cardio by walking on the treadmill during a Zoom call or by wearing weighted vests while you're cleaning the garage or by parking a few blocks away from the restaurant, taking a brisk walk there and eating food and brisk walking back.

And that's where I get the majority of my zone two cardio, just kind of like moving during the day, jumping on the trampoline in your backyard.

But the issue is that

So if you look at exercise physiology, there's this term called the RQ, the respiratory quotient.

And if you were to go into an actual exercise physiology lab and put on one of these masks that measures the amount of oxygen that you consume and the amount of carbon dioxide that you produce—

you can look at that ratio and get a pretty accurate evaluation of how much fat you're burning and how many carbs you're burning at rest or during exercise.

The exercise version is you do it while you're on a treadmill or on a bicycle.

The at-rest version is you're just laying down, getting your metabolic rate measured.

And if I were to put you on a treadmill and do that test, if you were walking at a really low intensity, you'd see a lower RQ.

A lower RQ means you're burning more fat and less carbs.

And then as you get more and more intense, you begin to shift away from fat utilization.

You begin to burn a higher and higher percentage of carbs.

And then you get to the point where you're just like running so hard up a hill, almost ready to fall off the back of the treadmill, and you're burning like almost 100% carbs.

So people hear that and they hear that like this lower intensity or cardio burns a higher percentage of fat.