You Don't Need a Workout. You Need a City.

Hey {{first name | reader}},

It's Tuesday, which means your weekly fitness check-in. Welcome to Week 14.¹

I didn’t work out once this week. Kyoto is a city of hills and temples built on top of those hills, so the past three days have been 25K+ step days hiking up to holy places. Temples with red gates and rocks to lift. Bamboo forests with monkeys. A temple tucked high on a hillside, built without a single nail. With days this packed, I didn’t even check out the hotel gym in Kyoto. I also did not do nearly enough push-ups.²

Walking Is the Workout

Our primary mode of transportation in Japan has been walking and trains. Most days we hit 30K steps. Average: 25K. No day under 20K. The first couple days I heard a lot about hurt feet. Then the body accepted the load and adjusted.³

We haven't worked out once. And we're moving more than I do in my most disciplined weeks at home.

My nephew and I took the Tokyo metro to Shibuya Crossing, and we crossed it. It was the culmination of a long day—countless steps through the electronic wonderland of Yodobashi Akiba and the video game nerd heaven of Super Potato, then another wander through the stationery playground of Itoya in Ginza.

On arrival in Kyoto, we lost ourselves getting to the summit of Fushimi Inari at night—about 12,000 steps up through thousands of red torii gates—and an encounter with a less-than-friendly family of boars. Over the next couple days we walked through so many temples that my nephew commented, "Temples are the new waterfalls." Referencing how on our trip to Iceland we saw so many waterfalls that by the end, no matter how big, we were like "meh, another waterfall."

In Hiroshima we spent a morning at the Peace Park and visited the Yamato Museum and Hiroshima Castle in the afternoon. The next day we spent summiting Mount Misen and traversing the island of Miyajima.

Traveling with a 12-Year-Old

The hotel room exercise circuit? He's fine with.

Wandering aimlessly through a city just to walk through the city? He's not. If we’re not going somewhere or doing something, he gets frustrated. So I adjust. It's not just my routine I have to fit fitness into, it's his as well.

Compromise. Not my favorite thing.⁴

But here's what I've noticed: he did not once ask, "Are we getting exercise today?" He also didn't sit down unless food was involved. Children, it turns out, have accidentally solved fitness. The rest of us are just trying to reverse-engineer it with apps and $200 shoes.

"At what point does walking stop being 'good for you' and start being too much?"

The great thing about walking is that you can walk at a steady pace all day. You may get tired, but you’ll rarely get injured. You can keep going all day and accumulate far more movement than you would in a heavy gym session.

In our day-to-day lives we spend far too much time sitting when we should be thinking about how to incorporate more movement. I'm not advocating foregoing resistance training, but an active vacation won't compromise your fitness.⁵

The most disorienting part of Japan is how little anyone talks about exercise. No one is optimizing. No one is "getting steps in." No one is closing rings. And yet—everyone is moving, all the time. It's unclear whether this is cultural enlightenment or just better urban planning, but either way it's deeply inconvenient for the $30 billion fitness industry.

Myth: Walking doesn't count as exercise.

Reality: It's probably the most sustainable form of fitness you're not doing enough of.

There's a growing body of research suggesting that this kind of low-intensity, all-day movement—what researchers call NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis)—plays a disproportionately large role in overall energy expenditure and metabolic health. In some cases, it contributes more to daily calorie burn than formal exercise sessions.⁶

The Japanese aren't doing HIIT classes. They're walking to the train station, standing on the train, walking from the train station, climbing stairs because the elevator is for luggage. It adds up. Quietly. Relentlessly.

On some level it's frustrating not to have access to a kitchen or any real control over my diet. But one easy snack I've found everywhere: onigiri rice balls. 🍙

Nephew is fond of the 7-Eleven version. Basically protein (salmon, tuna, pickled plum) surrounded by rice, eaten with a seaweed wrapper. Available at every convenience store, train station, and random corner shop. You could build an entire diet around it and no one would question your life choices.

It's the ideal food for people who don't stop moving. Portable, filling, cheap, and you can eat it while walking without looking like a tourist. (You will still look like a tourist.)

Article: "Why Walking Helps Us Think" - The New Yorker

A look at why walking—the most basic form of movement—might be the most underrated exercise we have. Covers the research on NEAT, the benefits of low-intensity sustained movement, and why our obsession with "real" workouts may be missing the point.

Book: In Praise of Walking by Shane O'Mara

A neuroscientist makes the case for walking as essential to how our brains and bodies function. Short, readable, and might make you feel less guilty about skipping the gym for a long walk.

The "Japan Day" Challenge

For one day this week, recreate a Tokyo day in your own life:

Track your steps at the end of the day. See what happens when you stop optimizing for efficiency and start optimizing for movement.

Stay strong, {{first name | reader}}

P.S. The problem isn't that we don't work out enough. It's that our lives don't require us to move. So keep moving—don't take the shortcut, take the stairs, walk a few extra steps. It adds up. And it all counts.