Dhru Purohit Show - The Lost Art of Weighted Walking: The Simple Habit That Burns Fat, Protects Bone Density, and Builds Strength & Longevity with Michael Easter

Episode Date: February 18, 2026

This episode is brought to you by BiOptimizers, LMNT, Maui Nui, and Branch Basics.  When we think about fitness and health, walking is often seen as “too easy” to matter. But this episode challenges that assumption, revealing how walking with weight taps into a deeply human ability that builds strength, resilience, and long-term health in ways most modern workouts miss. Today on The Dhru Purohit Show, Dhru sits down with Michael Easter to explore walking with weight, a forgotten human practice that quietly shaped our bodies, minds, and resilience, and what happens when modern life removes it. Michael traces the evolutionary roots of carrying and movement, explains why many popular fitness approaches fall short, and reveals how this deceptively simple practice can transform strength, endurance, metabolic health, and mental clarity. Michael challenges our obsession with comfort, unpacks the science behind walking with weight, and shares practical insights on how small, intentional discomfort can help us live stronger, more capable, and more resilient lives in a hyper-convenient world. Michael Easter is a New York Times bestselling author who travels the world uncovering practical, science-backed ideas for living healthier, happier, and more remarkable lives. His reporting has taken him from war zones to the Arctic to the Bolivian jungle, where he’s interviewed thousands of experts, from Nobel laureates to elite athletes, and analyzed cutting-edge research. He shares these insights through his bestselling books The Comfort Crisis and Scarcity Brain, as well as his newsletter Two Percent. His work is used by professional sports teams, Fortune 500 companies, and elite military units, and has helped millions rethink health, performance, and modern life. In this episode, Dhru and Michael dive into:  (0:00) Intro (00:37) Why humans were designed to walk and what we’ve forgotten(04:28) What happens when you add weight to your walks(12:37) Running, carrying, and the hidden blueprint of human movement(20:00) The Tarahumara tribe and what modern fitness gets wrong(26:11) The real idea behind “Walk With Weight”(31:29) Why choosing comfort may be costing you health and resilience(34:24) Simple, real-world ways to start walking with weight(38:24) How weighted walking quietly increases calorie burn(40:04) What the research actually says about walking with weight(47:27) The easiest way to begin walking with weight(56:12) The overlooked science behind weighted walking benefits(1:02:00) The surprising mental and emotional gains from walking with weight(1:09:39) How Michael suggests introducing this practice to others(1:12:07) Where to explore more of Michael’s work Also mentioned in this episode: Walk with Weight: The Definitive Guide to Rucking Walkfully Site For more on Michael, follow him on Facebook, X/Twitter, Instagram, Threads, Substack, or visit his Website. This episode is brought to you by BiOptimizers, LMNT, Maui Nui, and Branch Basics.  Upgrade your digestion with enzymes! Go to bioptimizers.com/dhru now and enter promo code DHRU to get 15% off any MassZymes order and all BiOptimizers products during their Valentine's Day deal. Right now, LMNT is offering my listeners a free sample pack with any purchase. Head over to drinkLMNT.com/dhru today. Right now, Maui Nui Venison is offering my listeners exclusive access to their brand-new Always Summer Sausage, the cleanest, most nutrient-dense lunch meat you’ll find. Just go to mauinuivenison.com/DHRU to get yours today.  Right now, Branch Basics is offering 15% off the Premium Starter Kit; just go to branchbasics.com and use the coupon code DHRU. Make 2026 your cleanest, healthiest year yet with Branch Basics! Sign up for Dhru’s Try This Newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michael, welcome back to the podcast. Pleasure to have you here, brother. Yeah, it's good to be here in person. Glad we can do it face to face. We're talking about something today, which has the opportunity to radically shift how people interact with their body, with the world, and can burn more calories than a lot of exercises that people are doing. And it has kind of a crazy backstory, a two million year old backstory.

that has to do with women putting things together to try to figure out how to carry their kids. What am I talking about? We're talking about walking with weight. So I'll start this by saying, we'll go even farther back than two million years. Humans are physically good at two things compared to other animals.

So humans evolved to be good at covering long distances on two feet. That is to say, walking or running. And then the second thing is that we often did that while carrying things. So humans are the only mammals that can carry weight for significant distances and that totally shape our species. It allowed us to expand out of Africa, carry tools, carry our children, carry all these different things so we could effectively end up eventually sort of taking over the world and

expanding into this sort of like apex species that we are. But to bring back to women two million years ago. So you have a new baby. Baby can't walk immediately, right? A lot of animals just come out of the womb and they can just start walking. Humans take a really long time to walk two years, about, or a year. You're telling you. I don't have kids.

So year, two years. But even when they start to walk, they suck at it. They're falling all over the place. They can't go long distances. So human kids take a long time to develop. And they need to be carry for a really long time. So for all of time, women, mostly, but also the men in the tribe, when they would help, you'd have to carry your kid in your hand. Now, we have all just hunter gatherers.

So if you have to carry this kid in, say, your left hand and you're also having to gather stuff with your right hand, like, that's kind of hard. So eventually a very clever woman at some point in history changed the course of humanity and goes, what if we, like, got the hide of an animal and we put this kid. in the animal hide and we slung it over our back. So this is like the first backpack. And it was a invented in order to carry kids. Okay. So why is that important? Once you're not carrying the kid in one of your hands, all of a sudden you have two free hands. So now you can gather a lot of other stuff. Like life just becomes a lot easier if that kid is attached to your back and form a backpack. And then from there people went, oh, well, if we can carry kids in these things, we could probably carry a lot of other stuff. We could put tools in there. When our hunters go out and they kill an animal and we need to

get the meat back to camp, oh, we can throw the meat in a backpack and we can carry way more. So this leads to effectively the evolution of carrying devices. And from there, humanity really exploded. And so in the book, sort of big picture, it's called Walk with Wade. On one hand, I look at that history of walking with weight and why humans are so uniquely good at it, but also how it's been engineered out of our lives. So plenty of people still go on walks for exercise. Plenty of people still go for a jog for exercise, but very few people as a form of exercise will throw some weight in a pack or carry something and just walk. And I argue that that was actually far more important to how we evolved to move and also more beneficial, arguably for our health, yet we don't do it that often.

So I'm trying to make a case to bring back walking with weight. And top line here, for our audience, it might be new to this idea of walking with weight or they've heard of the term rucking, but they're not doing it. Let's give some of the top line health benefits. You know, my audience cares about longevity. They care about, you know, having strong bones. They care about their metabolic health. What do you find in your research?

Actually, that started with the comfort crisis where you started talking to a lot of people about rucking and really made this idea of walking with weight a lot more popular. What are some of the top line notes for our audience that we could share just as a little bit of a preview of some of the benefits? You mentioned one of them, and that is calorie burn. So if you compare it per mile,

walking with weight, whether you're doing that with a backpack with some weight in it, whether you're doing that with a weight vest, you're going to burn more calories per mile. So it burns anywhere from 20 all the way up to 300% more calories compared to walking or running alone, depending on the weight you're using. So there's that. That's really important because now you're getting more from every step.

Number two is that it seems to help with bone density. That's really good as you age. So bone density is interesting too because typically we've thought about it as a issue that women face. And of course they do. But because of how sedentary more people are, it's actually becoming an issue in men. as well. And doctors often don't even test for it. So by the time it's a problem, we learn it's a problem because someone broke something. So it improves bone density. And the reason that's important is because as you age, if you were to fall or get in some sort of accident and you break an important

bone like a hip, that is not good. Like the data says, I think you have a 30% chance of dying in the next 12 months if you break a hip after the age of 65. That's like a big deal. So you want to start thinking about, okay, well, what can I do to improve bone density? Rucking is a good way to do that. Of course, there's a lot of other things to do that. Lifting weights seems to help. Jump exercises seem to help.

But rucking is a really approachable way to do that, in my opinion. It also gets you outside. You know, I think we live in a world now where a lot of our physical activity happens indoors. Great. I love that you're being physically active, but I do think that we miss something by doing everything indoors. So when you go outside, a lot of great psychological things happen. People stress levels tend to go down. We become calmer, tends to incite better ideas.

So if you're like a worker, you know, and you need big ideas for your company, like go for a walk. If you throw some weight in the pack, like now you're getting even more out of the walk and you're probably going to come up with some good ideas. So that's another thing. Heart health is great for. I mean, all endurance exercise is. But I think one thing that makes walking with weight unique, and this is kind of a big top line, I probably should have led with this.

I've buried the lead. You're combining strength and endurance. So this is important. So you're getting endurance because you're covering ground. But because you have weight on your, back in a pack or through a weight vest. You're also working your strength system. So especially for women, when you look at the who meets the federal exercise guidelines.

So in general, only 22% of Americans meet the exercise guidelines, which basically say, lift something twice a week, do strength training twice a week, and get 150 minutes of cardio. 22% of Americans meet it, but when you look at it, 26% of men meet those. and I think it's only 18% of women meet them. And you go, well, why the hell is that? And it's because women generally lift weights far less than men do. They're getting all the endurance exercise, but they're not doing the weight lifting. There's a lot of different reasons for that, most of them cultural.

So if you can throw weight in a pack and walk, you're getting a great strength stimulus without having to go into a gym that may or may not be full of sweaty, grunting dudes that are making every single person in there uncomfortable, including me. So I think that's a huge benefit, too, is that you're working your muscles, and that's really important for long-term health. So you want a big endurance engine? Yes. You also want to be strong enough.

And I'm not telling people to go like, yeah, you've got to get real big and bulked up. Like, no, you just need to be working your strength system in some way, so you have enough strength to handle what life is going to throw at you. So if you care about bone density, which you covered, if you care it about metabolic health, if you care about being strong as you age, if you care about being outside and also getting, we've been doing a lot of episodes recently on sunlight

and the benefits that come with sun exposure on a regular basis. If you care about that, these are all things that are combined into this activity of walking with weight. And the beautiful thing is that we're going to do on today's episode, which is all based around your book, is that it's a guide of how to get started and that for anybody who's being more active, especially as they age,

in one of the more low risk, low injury activities you could do. So you have low risk, low injury that I learned from your book, but you have all these incredible benefits that come along with it. So you couldn't think of a better, perfect storm to help you with your health and longevity goals. One protocol that I've stuck with for years is tapping into the power of digestive enzymes, especially when I have a meal that's a little too heavy

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To get this offer, it's easy. Just go to drinkelement.com slash droop. That's Drink, D-R-I-N-K, element l mn t.com slash d hr you because real self-care isn't about doing more it's about supporting your body better i think people should do all sorts of exercise but to me it's like this should probably be the foundation of most people's approach to fitness assuming you like it because you are killing many many birds with one stone like you're just getting so many benefits packed into one thing and to sort of circle back to what you said about injury risk, that becomes really important.

So with running, which a lot of people do, that has a really high injury risk. It's anywhere from 20 to, I think, 79% of runners get injured in a year. That's huge. Now, not only are injuries painful in the moment, but one of the big problems is that once you get injured, what happens? You stop doing all sorts of activity. And once you stop doing all sorts of activity, now, a lot of bad things start happening. Your metabolic health goes down. Your mental health goes down. All these things go down. So to me, it's like when we're thinking about what sort of activities do we want to do,

we want to think about, okay, what can we do in the long term? What can I start doing now that I can still be doing in 20 years? And when you look at walking with weight, the injury risk is very, very low. It's, so the injury rate of walking is 1%. Now, of course, when you add some weight to a pack or a vest, it goes up, It goes up very nominally. So it's arguably one of the safest activities you can do, assuming you don't overload your pack or your vest with a ton of weight, and we can get into how much weight people should use when they start and get going. Well, you talked about one of the first big ideas that you talk about inside of the book,

which is this idea that so many people, especially nowadays, you look at the beginning part of the year recording this in like early January. You look everywhere, especially in a city like L.A., even in cold cities, You see people running everywhere. And one of your central ideas is that, yes, running is an important part of our evolution. But just thinking that we were born to run is missing the boat. So just tie that together with some of the things you shared earlier. 2004, this paper comes out from these researchers at Harvard.

And it basically said if you look at why the human body is built the way it is, one of the reasons is that we evolved to run long distances. Now, in the past, we are hunters and gathers. And we have a really unique ability as humans to stay cool in the heat because we sweat, we don't have that much hair, yada, yada, yada. Other animals, they tend to overheat when it's hot out and they start to move a lot. So how people would hunt millions of years ago, they did this thing called persistence hunting where basically you just keep running an animal down for miles upon miles upon miles until that animal eventually topples over from heat exhaustion. And then it's an easy kill and then you have dinner for your tribe, right? So we would run these animals down for miles and miles miles and kill them.

But then what happens after you kill the animal? You've got to carry it all the way back to camp, right? So carrying was equally important in that equation of how do humans survive? And I argue in the book, too, if you just look at what most people were doing for most of time physically, we were carrying weight far more often than we were running because you would have some members of the tribe out hunting, running, but a lot more of them would also be gathering. What is gathering but walking around while carrying the food you found all day?

Not to mention you're carrying your babies, you're doing all these things. So I think caring really is the missing part of the equation. And today you have a lot of people who still run to your point. but we just sort of lost carrying to time because of technology effectively, right? We came up with strollers, so now we don't have to carry our kids. We can just push them in the stroller. We came up with shopping carts. Now we don't have to carry our food around.

All these different inventions over time start to remove carrying from our lives. And I do think it is one of the most important physical acts that we can do, and we've lost something as we lost it. I think the backstory around this is also worth sharing. You were on a hunting trip, right? Yeah. The Arctic Tundra, is that right? I was up in the Arctic Tundra for 30 days, 33 days. So we're on this caribou hunt, and this was for my book, The Comfort Crisis.

So after we do that, now we have to pack it out back to camp. And so I had been familiar with this Born to Run research that originally came out of Harvard. And then there was a book, I think, in the early 2010s that was called Born to Run that sort of kicked off this barefoot running craze. And the paper in the book basically talked about humans evolved to run long distances. But as I'm like, okay, and it was for hunting. So I've just hunted. And now I have to carry this caribou back to camp.

It's 120 pounds in my pack. And I'm with two other people who also have about the same amount of weight. Once I have to carry it back, I'm thinking, I'm like, oh, yeah, just. But wait a minute. wouldn't you have to carry the animal back after? And I start thinking, oh, that's interesting. I wonder what other animals can carry. We're the only animals that can carry weight for distance.

And that became just so, and so then I get home. And I start going down the rabbit hole. I go meet the researcher at Harvard. His name's Daniel Lieberman. And when I met with him, he was like, yeah, yeah, you're right. We're actually starting to look into the evolution of caring. He had a grad student. That was his entire thesis.

And he's like, yeah, people probably carried far more than they ran in the past. I mean, the example he gave me was, you know, think about water. Today, if you need water, you just flick on a faucet and water just comes out like magic. And you think that's normal. But for all of time, if you wanted water, you had to walk down to the water source. You had to fill a bag or a basket or whatever you're using with this water. And then you had to hike it all the way back to your camp. That was a daily act of carrying water to survive.

And yeah, now we don't ever do anything like that. And you start to look at that and you go, okay, well, I can start to understand why people aren't as physically capable, which results in people having higher rates of chronic diseases, heart disease, diabetes, litany. I can just keep naming them. My audience may not actually be super familiar with the Born to Run book that came out there and kind of launched that craze of barefoot running and just to add a little bit more to what you were sharing is that so many people started getting excited now

and thinking that, hey, if we're not doing long distance running and if we're not prioritizing running, especially barefoot running in this whole barefoot shoe craze that came out with those five-finger shoes that a lot of people were wearing. Another thing that you also sort of saw is that this group that they were highlighting,

this tribe that Tharo Mara in Mexico, which was one of the tribes that they were highlighting, that the way that they evolved, like a lot of, and the way that they survived is that they just outrun when people were trying to attack them or take them over and then they just kind of kept on moving. But one of the things you notice is that they don't like running on a regular basis. They actually just do it primarily for ceremonial reasons. Can you talk about that? I think there's been a misconception that these people just go out and go for runs every day.

They just, oh, I'm going to go for a run. Yeah, that sounds good. I need to train. It's like, no, they're not doing any of that. If they don't have to run, they're never running. They very rarely run. The times that they do run, to your point, are as a form of prayer. It's almost a spiritual act, these sort of traditional games they play, but they don't happen that often.

And I think there's also a misconception that they don't get injured from running. It's like, well, if you send an anthropologist down there and they've been down there, they go, after these runs, these guys are destroyed. They've run like 50 miles in a day. And the next day they're hobbling around, their knees hurt, they're bent out of shape. They can hardly do anything for about a week. So I think it's a misconception that, you know, there's these super tribes that just run all day. That's how they can just run forever. And they never feel any get any running injuries because they're not wearing the right, you know, not wearing shoes.

It's like, it's not actually right if you go look at scientifically. So that brings us, you know, to you including those ideas, some of the things. them in the comfort crisis. But then when you look out of the landscape, you saw that even though we have all this data and we're going to go into some of those, I made a list of some of the studies that you talk about inside of the book, even though there's more awareness about the power of walking with Wade and people getting into rucking and people understanding that it's a unique and sort of super powerful exercise for women in particular, it just wasn't fully translating as far as it could into the marketplace.

And I know that a lot of people that listen to this podcast, they've heard of the term rucking. They've seen people talk about it like Dr. Ronda Patrick and Andrew Huberman, who's been on this podcast before, but they haven't translated into a practical way into their life, largely because, similar to your own mother, they'll go online, they'll type in the term rucking, and they'll just see it look very military-based.

In fact, right before we started recording, I was chatting with Valerie our videographer over here. She said, oh, okay, got it. That's what it is. I was in Manhattan Beach other day. I was walking down the strand and I saw somebody and I thought it was a bulletproof vest and it looks so intense. But now I get it. They're walking with a rucksack. That's there. So I think a lot of my audience can relate to that. Totally. And that's why we were super excited when we heard you had this book and you were making a, you know, the podcast rounds. We were super excited to help you translate this for our audience who cares about this because they're here.

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So the reason that it's often called rucking is because walking with weight in a backpack has been the foundation of military training basically since we had militaries. So the backpacks that the military are using, they called them rocks, and they would go on these long marches with weight in their packs, and they would call that rucking. So that term kind of came out of military culture. But you have to remember, which we recently talked about, is that people have been walking with weight in packs for two million years before that.

You know, it's sort of like the term just sort of got adopted and put into the public consciousness as rucking. And if you Google rucking, you find images of these super tough special forces soldiers with these giant backpack, it becomes kind of intimidating. And you're like, oh my God, I can't do this. So I've been trying to shift the language to more walk with weight to help people understand that it is unbelievably approachable. Humans have been doing this far before we had militaries, right?

And I think when you start with a lighter weight, it becomes extremely easy to onboard yourself into the act. So how do you begin? You just begin. I'm sure everyone has a backpack at home right now, whether it's your kid's school backpack, whether it's the backpack you used in college, whether it's this backpack you used for travel. All you got to do is get that thing. You got to find something that weighs something in your house.

So it could be some bottles of water. It could be some books. If you have a dumbbell, you could use that. Just wrap it in a towel. So it's not like jamming into your back as you go. And then just start walking. Put the thing on, start walking. Weight-wise, I usually tell people to start lower than you would think.

I think one of the problems with the military is that has made people think they need to start really heavy in order to get a benefit. And it's like, that's not true at all. You can start with 5, 10, 15% of your body weight and just go out for that normal walk that you take often. It's a great place to start. Originally we're sharing this with my wife. She's like, well, I got a heavy purse. Talk about how that is maybe not the best idea, not exactly what we're talking about. Nothing wrong with a heavy purse that has a lot of stuff in it, especially now that we have a baby.

you know, some extra, you know, things inside of there. But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about a backpack specifically. Yeah, the backpack. And a lot of people use weight vests, too. The reason I tell people generally start with a backpack is, one, you don't have to go out and buy the weight vest. There's a lot, there's some benefits that a backpack has, that a weight vest doesn't. And then the other thing is seeing the people on the beach is that the weight vest sometimes looks like a bulletproof vest.

And it's a little bit intimidating. I'll tell you a good story. I had this friend in college. Kid was a very good-hearted kid, also an idiot. So it's winter in New England, and he decides he's going to go out for a walk with this weight vest he has, right? But it's also freezing cold. So he puts this weight vest on. It looks exactly like a bulletproof vest.

And because it's cold, he puts on a full-knit face mask. The one with just like the eyes and the mouth, and he starts walking around campus. What do you think happened? Oh, my gosh. we got an active shooter on campus. Holy hell. So the public safety gets called in. They detain him and he's like, no, I'm just trying to get some exercise in.

I'm not trying to cause a problem. So it's like long story short, makes you look kind of weird if you got this big sort of military style vest on. Whereas if you just wear a backpack with some weight in it, that looks pretty normal. You see people walking around with backpacks all the time. You shared this earlier, but this is an important part of the foundation of this thesis you're bringing here

that walking with weight is one of the best things. you could do for your health, for your life, for your mood, for your energy, is that in the book The Comfort Crisis, which we had you on for, you were talking about this idea that our lives have gotten so comfortable that we're suffering from all these downstream consequences of that, not just in our body, but in our mindset, our mental health, everything. And so because human beings, just like these Taramana runners, like, we don't want to necessarily exert ourselves. We have to remind herself while why it's a good thing. We have done all sorts of things to engineer out any kind of carrying. You talked about shopping carts, strollers, roller luggagees, cars. And even if we're

not necessarily carrying anything on your Instagram story this morning, you showed a photo of an escalator. And the only reason nobody was taking it was there was a sign in front said, it's broken. Broken. So go around, right? Take the stairs. So we are naturally surrounded by comfort. That was the thesis of the book. And if we're going to actually thrive, not just survive, we have to go out of our way and seek discomfort. So along with that, we're in a place now where we have taken out all these ways that we carry. And so this is another reason why we want to reprioritize walking with weight, because if we don't, life will have stolen that opportunity from us. I mean, humans evolve to do the next easiest, most comfortable thing. For all of time,

served us because life was hard and uncomfortable. You didn't have the option to go out and walk the earth looking for food, right? You had to do that every single day to survive. But at the same time, evolution did not want us to exert more energy than we had to. You wanted to do the minimum amount of physical activity you could to find that food and get at home. Because there's never enough food, right? You don't want to be out, like no exercise because you're just burning, be burning calories and you could never replace them. They think you're crazy.

Yeah, they think you're crazy. And you were. You were. It'd be a death sentence. The problem is, is that we still have those old genes sort of screaming at us to do the next easy thing in an environment where for the first time in human history, we can do easier things. We have escalators. We have cars. We have shopping carts. We have delivery food. We have insert a bazillion other examples, right? And so those traits we have backfire. And so to me, living well today means you have to conscientious, seek out doing things that are going to be uncomfortable and that you may not like, but that really is the secret recipe to live better, more healthfully, keep all the important health markers

in check in a direction that you want them to be. And also, I think that there's a mental benefit to that. Because when you look at what makes humans happy and find meaning, it doesn't come from things that come easily or for free. It comes from having to face challenges big and small and having to rise against them and come out the other side, a better person. And we look back on that and we say, yeah, that was hard in the meantime in the short term.

But look at me now. I'm a better person. That's how we really find meaning. So my argument, sort of big picture of my work is that you need to seek out doing hard things today to live better, even though it's kind of counterintuitive in the grand scheme of time and space,

but we're in this very strange new moment where we need it. And the beautiful thing about walking with weight is that it's one of those things that you may have an image, especially again. If you Google rucking, you may see somebody on some hill looking like they're preparing for an eventual

like Everest hike, you know, Everest climb. But part of a little bit of the preview of how to make this super actionable in your life, you're talking about how anybody anywhere, but especially for the female demographic who's listening to this podcast, this is something that you can do when you're at home vacuuming. Totally. Right? This is something that if you have a treadmill at home and you only have a few minutes because you're a new mom and that's what you have access to, you can do it while you're on the treadmill. Yeah. Right. What are some other

examples of ways that can be simply incorporated into activities that people are already doing to get some of these benefits? My wife and I, so I'm a pretty active fitness person. I was an editor at a big fitness magazine for a bunch of years. So I've always been into working out. My wife is not as into like gym stuff as I am, but she does love to walk. And so we realized like, oh, I can throw on a pack that has 35 pounds. She'll throw on a pack that has anywhere from 10 to 20 and we can go out and walk together and have a long, deep conversation. So when you look at research, walking shoulder to shoulder tends to elicit the best and deepest conversations between people.

So we're having those conversations that connect us as a couple, but we're also in the meantime getting in a great workout, right, because we've got our packs on. And it's just become this like really great thing for us as a couple. So there's one example, but I love your vacuuming example. So when I was preparing to go up to the Arctic and I recently just did this really long backpacking trip in southern Utah, part of my preparation for that, was doing my chores with a big pack on my back, you know, with like 35 pounds because it's just like I'm burning more calories. I'm getting ready for that. It's getting me really fit. But I'm just

inserting a little bit of hardship into something I already have to do. So that's one of the big messages that I have in my substack, which is called 2%, is to if you already have to do something and you can make it a little more active, a little more challenging, you should do that every single time because those benefits are going to accrue over time and they're going to end up in a massive, massive change in your life. So even something like, I'll give you an example, there's this lady named Mary who reads my substack and she had a job where she took phone calls pretty much all day. She was only getting two, three thousand steps a day, something like that, very small number. And she realized, you know, I do have to take these phone calls. That's part of my job. I don't get

a paycheck if I don't take these phone calls. But I do not have to take them sitting. in my house behind a screen. So she popped in her AirPods and started going for walks while taking those calls, eventually added a pack to that. And she got her step count up past 10,000. She's able to do her work while also adding in this extra element that makes it a little bit harder, sneaking in activity. And when you look at the date ongoing from 2,000 steps a day to 10,000,

it's like more than a 30% decrease in all-cause mortality, which is a dorky scientific way of saying, dying at any given moment. Like, that's really important. And so I just think about, you know, big picture is where in my life could I find ways to make what I already have to do a little more challenging? And then lean into that. Like example, I'll be flying home back to Vegas tonight.

I'm going to be at the airport. I'm one of those people who arrives early because I don't want to be stressed out and I'm going to miss my flight. So I could just sit there and scroll my phone or I could just walk the terminals. And I usually have a backpack with some. you know, my laptop, books, whatever in it. Just sit and walk the terminals. Oh, I'm getting like exercise.

I'm allowing my thoughts to be able to sort of go in more interesting places. And I'm also not sucked into like Instagram and TikTok nonsense. It's just going to stress me out and burn my brain out. I love it. It's something that anybody can do. Take your normal activities. See if you can add a little bit more movement in it. Yeah.

And in particular with the thesis of. today's podcast actually can weight help you achieve some more of those goals that you're looking for. It's obvious to me, but there's also a little bit of a deeper mechanism behind it, but just explain it for our audience. How does walking with weight burn more calories in the body, right? What are the mechanisms that are going on? Because there's a little bit more to it than just the idea of like, okay, great, you're carrying something heavier that's there. It incorporates ideas of balance and core and other stuff. Can you explain that? Long story short, is you're having to use your muscles.

Your muscles are working harder with every step. So each step works your lower body a little bit harder. What's really interesting about when you have the weight on your back in a backpack or if you have a weight vest that has most of the weight on the back, not as much on the front, your body naturally sort of tips forward to sort of counter that weight. And what happens is that to sort of balance yourself, your core really engages, really works hard. And so it's like this low-level way to sort of work your core for a long amount of time, which is really important for injury prevention, especially with back health. So 80% of people

will experience low back pain at some point in their life is often one of the most debilitating pains. Like it's bad. You don't want to have that for a long time. And the reason is often because our cores are really weak. So when we go to pick something up or whatever it might be, our core it's too weak to handle the weight, weight shifts to our spine, bam, now we got a problem. Whereas if you can do things that strengthen your core, you're less likely to have that happen. So there's obviously multiple ways to do that. You can do planks. You can do whatever. Those are boring, though. To me, it's like, if I can just throw on a weighted pack, I'm going to get in a lot of core work for a long time and it's going to benefit me, not to mention also burn more calories.

When you looked at the level of research that was there to support this idea of walking with weight, what were some of a couple of studies that really stood out for you? It's a good question. There's a lot. It's a big index in that book. Walking with weight is a rather understudied form of exercise. Most of the research has been conducted by the military because rucking, is the foundation of military training.

So there's a lot of incentive for the military to figure out, okay, how do we do this better? How do we do this safer? All these questions, right? So the research was hard to find, but I managed to find a lot of it. Probably some of the more surprising studies dealt with injury rates and how low they are compared to running. Even lifting had a higher injury rate than rucking in these different military studies.

There's also this paper I came upon, and this is actually important for you in, in the season of your life right now with a new kid. So I told you how we had to carry our kids for all of time, right? We first started with hands and we figured out, okay, let's make these like, you know, kind of crude backpacks to carry our kid in. Well, it turns out that carrying your kid in like a pack or a sling or your hands, it allows the child to develop better than if they're off your body.

And the reason for that is there's a lot of ways that it helps. One is that if I am carrying my child and we are having a conversation, they're looking out at the world the same way that I am. And so they're seeing like what's happening with you. They have this worldview where they can sort of pick up, start to pick up these sort of social things about how people behave. Where if I just had the kid on the ground, they're just looking up at the ceiling, right?

And their bassinet or whatever. So they're getting a lot more social stimulation, which helps brain development. And there's all these reflexes that children still have that, evolved mainly because we carried our kids for most of time. So there's these like neck strength reflexes where if your baby's head starts to do, you know, lean over and they kind of pop it back up. That was to keep the head steady as they were being carried.

Even the sort of when you put your finger in the baby's hand, they'll tend to grip it. That was the sort of cling on while being carried. And training those now seems to help infant development quite a bit. So I think there's a case to be made. Like, obviously, sometimes you're going to need the stroller. Sometimes babies just has to go in the crib or whatever. But if you can carry your child more often, whether that's through one of those carrying slings they make for babies or whether it's just in your hand, I think that's really important for childhood development, something you just never hear about.

Yeah, they don't talk about it enough. And, you know, we've gone the opposite direction. We're keeping babies down. We're putting in the strollers. We're putting shoes on them. We're putting mittens on them because people think it looks cute or they're worried about it. them scratching their face, which actually is, you know, a tough thing. You don't want to see her baby all scratched up all the time because their nails are growing all, you know, so quickly. But we've,

we've made our babies so comfortable inside this process out of this idea that we are trying to protect them, but in a way we are delaying their development is what I'm hearing from you. I think most the evidence points to the idea that they would have better development if they were carried more often. You know, you talked about how there's so much research about the benefits of conversations shoulder to shoulder and how you and your wife go walking together and you'll add this backpack as a way to practice what you preach. I was sharing with you that I have a men's group that meets every Thursday and we've been doing it now for 13 years or so here in Los Angeles. And we're blessed with pretty good weather, just like Vegas. And so year around, you can pretty

much walk all the time. And there's plenty of great places to be able to walk all the time. And there's plenty of great places to be able to walk all over LA in different parks and by the beach. And we not only get a chance to, so the framework of it is that you have a group of guys that get together on Thursday morning and they're simply talking about what are they celebrating in life and what are they navigating in life, right? It's just an opportunity to elicit conversation. We know from the data men are not always great about talking about what's going on in their life. and in particular with this group,

who are all entrepreneurs, there's a lot of weight that men carry in their own way of feeling like financial pressures or other aspects and just being a human being. Human beings all carry a different weight on them. And what we noticed initially,

even though we didn't plan it this way, is that by doing it walking, we ended up having these levels of things that would come out that when we had a rain day one time, we said, okay, let's sit at this coffee shop. we'd all sit down and we say,

this feels super weird, where you're just sitting in front of another group of guys and you're just talking about these same questions we ask. What's one thing you're celebrating? What's one thing you're navigating? And we were like, oh my gosh, a core tenant of this group should be, we call it man mourning,

a core tenant should be that we walk as part of the process. And then I was listening to an episode of the Humoran podcast one day and he was talking about Francine Shapiro and some of her research that's out there, showing that we evolved, and she's the inventor for the audience that's not familiar, of the rapid eye movement back and forth, the psychological technique that helps people reprocess sort of traumatic

experiences. She found that when her and her students would walk, it was easier to talk about things that they were navigating and dealing with their own life and so she turned that into a therapy that people use as a combination with talk therapy. That was there. So it just was easier to process things. It was easier to talk about stuff. It was easier to open up. And now the added element, as I've been preparing for your podcast, we do have a couple of guys that Ruck on their own and they're a big fan of it. I'm like, why aren't we doing that together? We already have all the other foundations. We need to all add just like a little backpack for those that want to try, because then we'll get in, you know, the additional benefits of it turning into a

workout as well. Totally. I think you should. Absolutely. I mean, like I said, I mean, the quick tagline This allows you to get more from every step. And it's not going to impede the conversation unless some crazy person is like, I'm doing 100 pounds. Don't do that. But as long as you keep the weight reasonable, those conversations will flow. And I think there's also, I mean, there is other research that says what really bonds people is shared hardship.

That almost adds a little bit more hardship to that walk because now you're both having to carry this weight as you have a conversation. and that really is what sort of binds people together. Like people are never closest until after a firefight, metaphorical and actual, right? And so I think that adds a little bit of that in there as well. Let's go deeper on this idea of like don't go heavier, especially right away. And that's not even necessarily the goal. You know, one of the big ideas inside the book is the goal isn't to go heavier,

it's to go longer, right, and be consistent really with things. So give us the how to on that. If somebody's listening today, they're like, okay, this book is. the deep how to highly recommend people pick it up, but high level, if you're starting off, are there some guidelines for choosing the amount of weight that somebody might end up using? You are on social media, you've talked about past podcasts before, that a good weight for you often is like 30, 35 pounds. Somebody hears that today.

They're trying to decide, how should I start off? Honestly, I think when you're starting, it's better to just start lighter than you think. because I don't want people to go out on their first one, and they brought way too much weight, and they're like, oh, this sucks, because your body's not going to be ready for it. We never carry anymore, right? And so your body kind of screams back at you, like, what the hell are you doing? So I'd rather people start light.

I think for women, you could start with, you know, depending, it depends on your body size too. Like if you're bigger, you're okay starting a little heavier. If you're smaller, start a little lighter. But I think for women, 10 pounds, it's a good place to start. and then just slowly work your way up to that. So my wife uses 20 pounds often. My go-to is 35 pounds, so I weigh 180 pounds.

It's about 20-inch percent of my body weight. I think for most people most of the time for your average everyday walk, I think trying to wind up at about 20 percent of your body weight is a good goal. So if you wait, you know, do a little math. If you weighed 100 pounds, I'll be 20 pounds. if you weighed 200 pounds, I'd be 40 pounds. That sort of, to me, for a lot of people, hits the sweet spot of where you can go a long distance,

but it's also heavy enough that you're getting the strength stimulus. Now, for me, if I go way over 35 pounds, let's say I do 60 pounds, it's like, yeah, I can do it, and it's a good workout, but at the same time, all of a sudden it starts to suck. I'm like, when is this going to be done? It increases the likelihood that I will cut the walk short. So for me, it's like finding that weight where you're like, this is hard. But I'm also actually enjoying this.

I can do it for the distance that I want to go and I'll be fine. And so ending up at that, but then starting somewhere lighter than that and eventually on ramping to that. And so another question I get is weight vests versus back. backpacks. I think both have their place. I think as a whole weight vests that cover your front oftentimes don't work for women for a variety of anatomical reasons. So part of this too is I started a company called Woffley that makes weight vests, weighted packs, and also weighted hip belts that are specifically designed for women. Because I found out with the guy who's name's Christopher Gavigan.

He founded this company that people probably heard of called the Honest Company. We saw what was out there. And for me, hearing from all my readers at my 2% substack, we've got people all over the world, I had a lot of women saying like, hey, I want to do this thing. The gear out there, though, it doesn't fit my body type because a lot of it is still based on military style gear. And the military is designing gear for dudes who are like six feet tall and 200 pounds. So like, yeah, of course it's probably not going to work that well for women.

So that's one thing we're trying to do at walkfully. But if you get a vest, I think for women a vest that doesn't cover your front totally is better because it doesn't fit your anatomy better. You're not having weight on your chest, which can make it harder to breathe. It also allows you to if you start to sweat, which might happen, It allows evaporative cooling to do its job. And then backpacks also solve that problem because they're behind you. If somebody's literally starting from scratch and they're picking up a backpack,

like you literally said like they could start off with their like kids backpack that was there as long as it fits. And they're starting small, right, like with the weight, right? They're starting lighter than you think that you should be able to carry. Any concern about where the weight is in the beginning, the distribution of it, how tight sort of the shoulder straps are? Any pointers on that? So in general, it's better to have the weight closer to your back. You want it to not be flopping out or side to side as you walk because I can just kind of throw you off balance as you walk.

Now, that said, if you're starting light, this becomes less of a concern. That becomes more concern when you're using heavier weights. So try to keep it in close to your back. One thing I'll say, too, is that a lot of people find that water bottles or like those hydration bladder, things, those are good too to start because if you, let's say you walk five miles and you're like, oh, I feel great. Five miles is long. And then you have to walk another five miles home. Well, if you go, oh my God, this five miles home is going to kill me with this weight. If it's in a water, if it's water in a water blotter, you just pour it out. And you'll be fine, right?

You just got rid of it. You didn't have to leave your weight by the side of the road or whatever. So I think water bottles and bladders can be a good place to start. And then with the straps, Just keep it simple. Do what feels good. You know, it's one of those things. The thing that I love about this walking with weight is that it is so simple. It's like just find a backpack, fill it with something that weighs something, go for a walk. Like it can be as simple as that.

You just got to, you know, to begin, begin. You can do it right now after you listen to this podcast. Just do it. You know, I think that's like a lot of times we overthink things. And the book does get into a lot of specifics. but at the beginning of every chapter where I get into the specifics, I say, remember, to begin, begin. Just like, start doing it.

I trust you to figure it out. If you have any issues along the way, like, we're going to troubleshoot these, and I'll help you sort of find your way. What are some of the biggest issues, just like top one, two or three? It sounds like one of the first ones is people go too heavy too soon. That's number one. Yeah, I think too heavy too soon tends to be more a male problem. I'll get a lot of readers who know these dudes who are like,

like, oh man, this thing, this is really hard. My shoulders hurt. Like, well, how much weight did you start with? Like, I started with 70 pounds. Like, yeah, well, no shit. For women, sometimes women will start way too light and they'll never work their way up. So on your first ones, like, you want to start with five pounds? Great.

I love it. But eventually you want to be sort of working your way up. So don't just stay at the five pounds. I kind of push that edge a little bit where you're like, okay, I was able to accomplish this distance I wanted to do, say, three miles, but it shouldn't feel super easy like a walk without weight. Like you should know you have some weight on your pack. So you're eventually going to want to go, you know, okay, now I was 10 pounds. And then a month, two months later, I'm 15 pounds.

Okay, this feels good. This makes this three miles like challenging, but also not soul crushing. I can have a conversation. If I'm listening to a podcast, I can concentrate on what the host is saying rather than the fact that like, oh, exercise is hard. So that would be my advice there. Sometimes, and this happens with people who, use heavier weights, sometimes their shoulders will ache after. It's very, very, very rarely a shoulder

injury. Rather, what it is is that we carry weight on our backs and shoulders so infrequently now that your body's just not used to it. You haven't done it since, you know, college or high school, whatever it is. So your shoulders will kind of go, what the hell is going on? And what they'll do is they'll send some discomfort or aches that way. But an easy way to get rid of those is if you have access to a pull-up bar, is just to hang from the bar. Like let your body go totally slack, hang for however long you can. Could be 10 seconds, could be 30 seconds, could be 60 seconds.

Hang there. That sort of resets because the straps are sort of compressive pulling down, whereas the hanging is sort of the opposite type of movement. So it tends to reset things. And if you don't have a pull-up bar, you can just kind of do some, like overhead shoulder stretch type things, that usually tends to fix it. One of the things you've been noticing is that because there's so many benefits and the downside is super low, especially when compared to many other activities, you talked about the injuries

that come with running and also the injuries that come with resistance training that people are starting to become more. We're well aware of, even though resistance training is a good feat to take on. You could still get so many of these benefits here without many of the downsides. So one thing you're noticing is that people are now prescribing this. Doctors are now prescribing this to their patients. Yeah. Any anecdotes that come up to you or things that you've heard from the listeners who find your work

or even I'm sure a lot of physicians, like just like my brother-in-law, I was a cardiologist down in San Diego. I know he's a huge fan of your work, has been to your retreats, Dr. Nail Patel. He's even talking about how he recommends it to many patients. as a great starting off point for the benefits. Any other anecdotes you want to share with our audience? Yeah, shout out to Neil. He's awesome. Yeah, I mean, so I have this substack called 2%,

and we've got like 100,000-something readers. A lot of them are physicians. And they've written me to basically say, you know, I have a lot of patients where it's hard to get them to exercise. Some of the patients will do nothing at all or they'll only walk, but especially with women, they're like, okay, well, we need to find a way to load your skeletal system. One, for bone health.

Two, also, we need you to sort of do something that is going to help you either build or hang on to the muscle you have now. So this becomes important because to go back to the question you have about interesting studies I found, there was this big study of a group of women, and it found that those most likely to die over the study period, they had a what would be considered a normal or healthy BMI, but they had the lowest levels of muscle. So you would think, okay, we have this group. I assume it's going to be the people who are overweight who are going to die. It's like, no, it was actually the group that was most likely to die

was normal weight but extremely low levels of muscle. So muscle becomes really important for women. And if you happen to get cancer, there was another study in women who had to go through chemotherapy for cancer. I think 40% of women will get cancer at some point in their life. Those who had more muscle were better able to handle their chemotherapy. They were able to sort of power through their treatment. They had fewer side effects.

They recovered better from it. So you want to be hanging on, you want to be trying to either build or maintain the muscle you have. And I think that walking with weight becomes a really approachable way to do that without having to always go into the gym. I'm not telling women, I'll never strain train. I would never say that. If you like strength training, absolutely do it.

If you don't like it now, try it because it's good for you. What I am saying is that walking with weight is a way to get in those benefits that is also giving you cardio, which will also help your heart health. So it's just like packs all these benefits into one thing. And big picture too is that, you know, there's a saying the best exercise is the one you'll actually do. A lot of people will stick to to rucking because it's fun. It's getting you outside. You're able to connect with people. it with your men's group or if I do it with my wife, whatever it might be.

And that makes it sort of addicting in a way. And so if you can maintain that over time, like to me, if you were to put a gun to my head and say, Michael, you got to pick the one exercise that everyone needs to do for the rest of their life, but they can't do any other form of exercise. This is a ridiculous scenario, which is for the purposes of argument. People love questions like this. Yeah. Just need a gun to make it real.

I would 100% say walking with weight. No question. Because you're getting, you're getting multiple benefits, stacking a ton of benefits that these other types of exercise, while they're very good, they're missing something. Like if you're only running, you're missing out on this whole element of strength. If you're only strength training, you're missing out on this whole element of cardio. And so this is combining those two.

So if you had to, if you forced me to pick just one, that's what my final answer would be. No, it's great that you brought that out because I think some of my audience has heard people come on this podcast asked and talk about the incredible research that there is on walking and its connection to reducing all-cause mortality, especially when, you know, the steps are at a certain level. And then they've heard a lot of the women and the pioneers that of strength training, especially for the demographic that's in the 45 and plus audience saying, hey, walking is not enough. A lot of that was going on, especially a couple years ago. Hey, walking is not enough. Like walking is great. I want you to walk. I want you do stuff, walking is not enough. And that also has some truth that's there to it is that

low impact, just strolling and getting a few additional steps or hitting your 10,000 steps, that might not be enough to help curve off some of the concerns with bone density, osteopinia, osteoporosis, and preserving that muscle mass. And they were really coming from a place of saying you have to focus on some sort of resistance, some sort of ability to challenge yourself. And as you mentioned, yes, we want that for those that can go down that area. And in addition to that, there is a lot of research on walking. And what does it look like when you combined some of those aspects where you get the best of both worlds and it doesn't prevent you from stopping anything else? And that's what it is to walk with weight. Absolutely. You nailed it.

You took a lot of boxes in one act. That's great. We're in a time now where we have more information about health than ever. That's great. I'd rather have more than less. At the same time, it can become exceedingly overwhelming because there's all this stuff you got to do for your health. And there was a recent survey, and it found, I think it was like 60% of people were feeling burned out by their wellness routines because there was just so much stuff they felt like they had to do. And when they would miss something, they would stress them out. And to me, this really just simplifies it. It's like, just put on a backpack and go for a walk. Like, you'll, you'll tick a lot of boxes. you'll be good to go. Yes, try and do that other stuff, but like, think about this as the

foundation. Let's, uh, as we're winding down here, just remind us again about some of the aspects of this exercise, walking with weight. We've been talking about the body, the improvements that are there, what you can notice, bone density, but let's give a little bit more love to the mind and how this regular practice of walking with weight, how it shapes and trains the mind. Yeah, I think that, I mean, so I will say that all exercise seems to improve mental health. And there are studies that say exercise is equally effective compared to therapy and SSRIs. There was a big media push a couple years ago that said exercise was actually better. That's not true.

But it is just as effective, which that becomes really interesting. Because the side effects of medication are the laundry list that you hear. after the commercial on TV, weight gain, blurred vision, possible death at any moment, blah, right, like they just start listening shit off. Side effects of exercise, hey, you look better, you think better. You can pick up stuff when you need to. Like, there's just all these side effects that are wonderful. And I think that part of that comes from, I think humans evolved to get a certain level

of physical activity every day if we don't start, stuff just starts to go a little crazy. Two is that it also tells you that you're a person who can do stuff, right? When you set out to whatever, I'm going to try and walk five miles with this pack, or it could be a half marathon. It could be I'm going to try and do this many push-ups. That becomes a metaphor for a lot of challenges in life. It's like, okay, well, I was able to accomplish this. This tells me I'm a person who I have evidence now that I'm capable. And that starts to translate to how you view many challenges that come in your path.

And that sort of mindset shift and that perspective, I think, becomes really important for mental health and how you frame your problems. Are your problems crippling or are they an opportunity to learn something about yourself and grow as a person? Like those perspectives, that's two different lanes. One will take you down somewhere that's probably not going to help you in the long run. The other, that'll help you in the long run. And then there's the fact that you do it outdoors. You see nature, you hear birds saying, all these things happen. And in my book, The Comfort Crisis, I have an entire chapter dedicated to the mental health benefits of nature.

Creativity, lower stress markers, increases in immune markers. It really is like this physical and mental health hack. So to me, it's like if you're going to exercise and you can just do it outside, now you're getting this side benefit that you won't necessarily get in a gym. I think the gym absolutely has a place, especially if you're strapped for time, or if it's, you know, you live in Michigan in January and it's like hurtling snow and negative 40 or whatever. But I do think if you can get outside, that becomes really important. And, you know, walking with O8 tends to happen outside. For me personally, the pace of walking seems to be better from my mind.

My thoughts just go into different interesting directions. I can start to sort of unravel my problems. you know, you start peeling the onion and seeing things in different ways. And it just gives you kind of this momentary escape as well from the speed that always more faster, harder, more content, more this, more that, that I think can, it's good we have access to all that stuff. But I think, too, when it becomes like 24-7, people start to go a little nuts. So like it just gives me this escape where I can just let my thoughts wander and just like, ah, I'm just going to love it. let off for a while. Yeah, I think a lot of people can relate to that. I can 100% relate to that. And we need that reminder about the importance of giving our mind that break. And when you have that

break, it feels so good, you're like, why am I not doing it more regularly? Well, just like the world is trying to, the environment around us for many well-intention reasons is trying to take out all the challenge, which you know about so well, and you've written about so well. The same way there's, stimulation is addictive. It's addictive to scroll, to see the latest crazy thing, to get that news alert, to even see, um, your text messages. It's, it's addictive to constantly check in and see that. So anything that gives us that break and helps us slow down the inertia of life.

I often ask myself when I'm going into a new task, a new activity, like I'm starting a podcast. Can I be present enough to know that I'm not bringing in the inertia of the last thing that I was doing? And so I can be most present to my guest and not worry about, oh, I have a new baby. Did I do enough prep? Is this going to go right? Oh, I haven't gotten a haircut recently. So I may look a little crazier on camera.

It's like, okay, let's just do a great podcast and be present to the guest and be present to the topic. And so anything I think that brings us back into that present moment and walking is, one of those things, especially if you're doing it outside, is that reminder that so much just doesn't matter. We are blessed to live in a world where I'm going to make some assumptions, but if you're listening to this podcast, I can probably make some assumptions that things are probably going all right in your life, you know, but we can, humors are designed to look for the, I wrote about this in the cover crisis, we're designed to look for the next problem.

It doesn't matter whether the problem is big or small. We're going to identify a problem. We're going to focus in on it and be like, oh, my God, this is. It's like, you know, and I think that sometimes colors our worldview to think for things are oftentimes worse than they are. Where for me is if I can like get out just totally disconnect, I can realize, you know, things are going pretty well in the grand scheme of time and space for me. I don't have to go out and hunt and gather my food or worry that, you know, a nick is going to get me infected and I'm going to die. We got modern medicine just on. I've running water in my half, just all these things. So yeah, it's kind of a tangent, but you get where I'm going.

Just like you have your newsletter. We have a newsletter. It's called Try This. Every week I talk about something that I'm thinking about in my own life or some research that I'm coming across and how I'm trying it, trying to apply it and that my audience could try it themselves. They can, you know, they can try this. And one of my most popular newsletters last year was a newsletter where I was talking about

seven different things that I'm doing to keep my parents aging in a healthy way that are really about them doubling down on the basics. And I got so many of my audience saying, I'm so glad you wrote about this because as I've focused on my own health, my own. mentality over the years, I have aging parents and I want to keep them healthy and I want to do, you know, suggest things for them and try them and support them. And obviously that comes with so many different layers. You can never tell somebody what to do. How great did it feel when your parents told you exactly what to do when you were a kid didn't feel great. So you're trying to

be a friend and listen and be supportive and also make sure you don't give your parents the run around by having them focus on stupid shit that's not going to move the needle forward. Walking is one of those things, especially walking with weight, that can significantly improve the health of your parents. You know, you talked about your mom and how she read the comfort crisis and was, oh, this looks interesting and then got a little discouraged because she saw all the military gear and military individuals doing rucking. Has she been able to successfully incorporate this in? And whether it's your own parents or things that you've seen from your audience of individuals who themselves are thinking about how to keep themselves healthy, but are like, hey, I want. to also get my parents into this. And you want to incorporate this because this feels like one of the you know, easiest and no-brainer items. Have you been able to get that successfully done in your

own family? It's easier to, I'll think of like recovery programs, right? Like those only work because you've been there type thing and you're doing it together. So to me, if like I can go for a walk with my mom that incentivizes the walk. And maybe along the way she'll say, hey, I like walking. And I'm going to do it alone now more. My mom already likes to walk, which is really good. So if you can kind of get in the bunker with people and take the fire with them, I think that incentivizes that. And then from there, it's like, okay, once the person starts walking, it goes, what if we added, hey, I'm going to throw on this like weight vest. I have this backpack. You want to put a couple bottles of water in it? And then just kind of tell them the benefits.

might start the habit. The foundation of recovery programs is that you talk about what you did and how that benefited you rather than saying you should do this. And that's worked for millions of people around the world. So to me, it's less telling the person what to do and sort of saying, hey, here's what I started doing. It's really cool. Here are all the benefits I've seen from it. Here's how my life has changed because of it. And then they can take that or leave that. And then if they take that, go do it with them. Yeah. Sometimes we have so much attachment because we think we know better that we want our parents, family members, husband, wife, whoever might be kids. You want them so badly to do something, but you're so attached to the outcome. Imagine if you had that

relationship with your friends. Your friends wouldn't want to spend time with you. Yeah. Right? Yeah. They would feel too heavy, too serious all the time. And so if you can deattach a little bit, but still have love and not identify yourself with, you know, if they choose to do it, choose not to do it, but rather make it inviting is just a whole different energy around it. We all want to do things when it feels exciting and fun and wanting it to do it in community. We don't want to do things when it feels like we're being told exactly what to do, when to do, how to do it, and look down upon when we don't do those things. Yeah, totally.

I think the community aspect is important. Like these women who read my substack, it's a group of older women. And they would always walk together and they started adding weight. vests and packs to their walks and now they call themselves the mother ruckers. Awesome. Like, that's awesome. So, like, having that group and that identity, too, right? There's an identity behind that, I think, is really cool.

That's great. You got man mourning. You got the mother ruckers. Yeah. Yeah. We'll put a whole list of all the different groups that are out there. You have the newsletter. You have the gear company.

And, of course, most importantly, you have the book that comes out at the end of February. and they're all available for folks. We have the links inside of the show notes as well. Just remind our audience again about the company in particular for women who are looking for the gear that's there, the name and the website. Yeah, it's called Walkfully. And the website is Walkfully.com, W-A-L-K-F-U-L-L-Y.com. And it is, it's gear to women for walking with weight. So we have a weight vest that's coming out in April.

along with the pack, and then we're starting with watching a weighted hip belt. So think about it as like a really badass fanny pack that weighs a little bit. And there is some really great benefits to weight weighting the hips, especially for women, especially if you're aging because it can be, if your pack is heavy, like just even getting it on can be kind of a pain. So we think that's a really awesome solution for a lot of people. So yeah, we're psyched about it. And the designs are the designs are great. We got a, one of the guys who's in on it with us was a gear designer for a lot of brands like

Arcterics and Patagonia. And then Christopher is like, he just has the most perfect level of like taste and design eyes. And it's just like, this is awesome. Well, I'm definitely going to get it for a gift for the women in my life. Yeah, man. We'll make sure you get one. Such a pleasure to meet you in person. Thank you for coming on.

Walk with Weight. The book is available for pre-order from the time this podcast is out there. Check it out. We have the link of the show notes. You can get it wherever books are sold, Amazon, etc., all the great places. And I'm hoping that you use it as inspiration along with this podcast to incorporate this incredible activity into your life so that you can achieve all your goals and dreams in 2026. Thanks for having me, man. Thank you for being here.

Thank you for quick things. Number one, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you haven't already, subscribe, just hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. By the way, if you love this episode, it would mean the world to me. And it's the number one thing that you can do to support this podcast is share it with a friend. Share with a friend who would benefit from listening. Number two, before I go, I just had to tell you about something that I've been working on that I'm super excited about. It's my weekly newsletter.

And it's called Try This. Every Friday, yes, every Friday, 52 weeks a year, I send out an easy-to-digest protocol of simple steps that you or anyone you love can follow. to optimize your own health. We cover everything from nutrition to mindset to metabolic health, sleep, community, longevity, and so much more. If you want to get on this email list, which is, by the way, free and get my weekly step-by-step protocols for whole-body health and optimization, click the link in the show notes that's called Try This or just go to Drew Perot.com.

That's D-H-R-U-P-U-R-H-I-T dot com and click on the tab that says, try this.