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You might remember two weeks ago. I told you about having young children, kindergarten, gastrointestinal viruses. In short: All plans canceled! This continued for 2 more weeks and I got sick, too, yippie.
My energy resources? Were more or less depleted. With the pathogens more or less out of the system after a couple of days, the question occurred:
What is the next step now to build energy?
We had (in retrospect) a clear tipping point at home when we were all feeling better, but still decided to stay at home resting, instead of moving. As this got worse over 1-2 days, we realized:
We were still feeling “too tired to move or exercise”, but we actually weren’t.
We (especially the kids) were craving movement to build energy.
Well, here comes the Why, How To and How.
Let’s start.
Today at a Glance
Movement as an Energy Investment, Not an Energy Cost (the “Why”)
The (Neuro)Science behind CRF (the “What for”)
The Top#5 to Build CRF efficiently (the “How”)
Movement as an Energy Investment, Not an Energy Cost (the “Why”)
Movement is an an energy investment.
Though, often, we frame movement and exercise as a cost, a drain.
"I'm too tired to exercise" therefore becomes a budget fallacy.
What’s the trick here?
Last edition I wrote about the Brain-Body-Budget. Your brain, as an energy manager, burns resources for prediction and regulation. For maintaining the basics. This again: Is very expensive for us! And you KNOW (this is deeply encoded) how a balanced system FEELS (pleasant/high energy) and how unbalance feels (unpleasant/low energy).
So, in the short term exercise, of course, is a “cost” that depletes your reserves.
But: As a medium-term strategy exercise expands your energy capacity, lowers your baseline energy draw, and creates surplus for life’s demands.
Ok. This “why-part” is, by definition, a circular argument. But for a mindset intervention, it’s the first step. We need more. We need the “what-for”.
The (Neuro)Science Behind CRF (the “What for”)
Let me take you from Budgeting Energy to an undeniable fact:
High cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) HALVES all-cause mortality risk compared to low fitness (HR ≈0.47 across 199 cohorts and 20.9 million people).
“Fit” people—even if overweight or obese—match the mortality profile of normal-weight fit individuals, while unfit people face 2–3× higher death rates regardless of BMI.
Let’s break it down:
CRF is one of the most powerful single predictors of longevity we have.
The landmark studies for CRF show several implications:
Improving CRF by even 1-2 METs (Metabolic Equivalent of Task) is not a marginal gain; it moves people into a substantially lower-risk stratum.
Sitting is 1 MET, brisk walking is 3–4 METs, jogging is 7–9 METs, and vigorous cycling can hit 10+ METs.
Being “fit” is more prognostically meaningful than BMI category per se. Better “fit, but overweight” then “unfit, but normal or overweight”.
Interesting: A day with 8,000 steps and no >60-90-minute uninterrupted sitting blocks is physiologically very different from 60 minutes of gym time wrapped in 10 hours of sitting.
Lastly: Movement is not just "heart and muscles"; it is a structural brain intervention, supporting the neuroenergetic framing (more efficient networks, better perfusion, higher BDNF).
The framework and tools for building energy via improving your CRF efficiently is simple:
The Top#5 to Build CRF efficiently (the “How”)
The good news?
CRF is trainable at any age, with modest doses yielding outsized returns.
The tools are fairly simple. I think about it as a ladder from “almost no effort” to “more athletic”.
Start: Count and gently increase steps
Wear a tracker/phone, just observe your normal week.
Then slowly add +1,000 steps/day every 1–2 weeks until you’re usually at 7,000–8,000+ steps.
Next: Brisk walking blocks
Turn some of those steps into brisk walking:
10–15 minutes per day, where you can talk but not sing, 1–2×/day.
Goal: reach ~150 minutes/week of this “slightly out of breath” pace.
Add: Simple home strength 2×/week
15–20 minutes, two non‑consecutive days: sit‑to‑stands, wall push‑ups, rows with a band, calf raises.
1–2 sets of 8–12 reps per exercise.
Upgrade: One short interval session/week
5 min easy walk warm-up (stroll, comfortable chatting pace)
1 min FAST walk ("hard but sustainable" - breathing heavy, can say short sentences)
Pace where you couldn't comfortably sing, but can say "the weather is nice today" between breaths
2 min EASY walk (recovery, catch your breath)
REPEAT this 5 times (5 min fast + 10 min easy)
5 min easy walk cool-down
Refine: Reduce long sitting with “movement snacks”
Every 30–60 minutes, stand and move 2–5 minutes (walk the corridor, a few stairs, or 10× sit‑to‑stand).
This lowers the extra risk from long, uninterrupted sitting on top of your workouts.
There you go.
Just work your way up the ladder.
Own it! Make it yours :-)
That's it for this Saturday.
The next newsletter edition will come out on Saturday, the 28th of March 2026.
We will continue with:
“Teaching Your Nervous System to Idle Lower.”
Yours,
Moritz
PS:
Can you rarely make time for physical activity or regeneration? Do youI feel emotionally unstable and have difficulties to stay calm under pressure? Is managing people emotionally and energetically draining for you?
If that sounds familiar, Mastering Emotions is for you. I began coaching in 2023. Since then, l've coached over 30 executives, entrepreneurs, and high potentials on building Emotional Intelligence and into becoming future leaders.
If you want to learn more about my coaching book an orientation call here:
PPS:
What I love about beehiiv, the newsletter tool I use here, is it motivates me to explore ads and monetization at a very early stage of my newsletter.
This is, not only, tons of fun for me, as it gives me the feeling that I own money writing.
Also, these stats motivate my team which is an extra plus for me and them.
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