Coach HubSteps and cardio as levers
Expenditure first, food later. There's only so much food you can take away. Increase movement before you cut food further.
Why steps come first
| Extra steps | A structured cardio session | |
|---|---|---|
| Life cost | A longer walk from the car, a walk after dinner | A gym trip, a shower, roughly an hour |
| Recovery cost | Almost none, it runs underneath everything | Real, and it stacks on top of training |
| Sustainable for life? | Yes | Rarely |
| Easy to verify? | The phone or watch says yes or no | Fuzzy (did the warm-up count?) |
The order of levers
flowchart LR
A[Steps] --> B[Structured cardio<br/>e.g. StairMaster] --> C[Food]- Steps. Build the daily step count first.
- Structured cardio. When steps are at their realistic ceiling, or a few weeks in and progress has stalled. A conservative start is 3 sessions of 10 minutes on the StairMaster at a moderate level.
- Food. When cardio is already high, take food down rather than piling on more cardio.
Principles, not magic numbers
Remember Module 1: 10,000 steps isn't magic. It's a reasonable default for a lot of people. Luke sat at 8,000 steps and wasn't going to walk more, so I worked around it: lower calories to match his real output, and some StairMaster added to gym sessions he was already doing.
Start from the client's real baseline and build in steps they'll barely notice. If they average 4,500, the first win is 6,000–8,000, not 12,000. Add about 2,000 at a time and give each new target 2–3 weeks to become a habit before raising it.
Build steps with habits, not wishes
"Walk more" isn't a prescription. Give them a number, a 7-day average to hit, a minimum for bad days (say 6,000 on a travel day), and the specific habits that get them there:
- Park at the far end
- A walk before screens in the morning
- 10–15 minutes after lunch or dinner
- Walking phone calls
- Get off transit a stop early
- Walk anything under about 1 km
Read the 7-day average, not single days. Weekends are where step counts usually quietly fall apart.
Progress one cardio lever at a time
When structured cardio needs to do more, change one of these per week:
- Frequency: more sessions
- Duration: a few more minutes
- Intensity: a higher level
Stacking all three in one week blows up recovery.
Know the ceiling
At roughly 3 hours of structured cardio a week, stop adding cardio and move to food. Past that, the recovery, joint and adherence costs outweigh the benefit. And be very cautious adding cardio to someone already on very low calories (around 1,200 for women or 1,400 for men). That's a recipe for muscle loss and binge cycles.
High flux beats low flux
Two clients can have the same deficit in very different ways:
- High flux: eating more and moving more
- Low flux: eating less and moving less
The high-flux client is usually less hungry, looks less depleted and sticks to it better. When their life allows it, hold the food up and drive the deficit through movement. That's why expenditure comes first.