@rbrbrb2 How do you
feel when you are running? People's heart rate zones can be very different. Do you feel like you're getting more fit over time? Are you able to run faster or for longer without feeling worse?
This is the kind of thing you really have to do by feel. To do that, you will probably have to give up the idea that exercise = running and not walking. Maybe you are not at the point yet where you can run the whole time in your Zone 2. Maybe your whole workout needs to be walking for a while first. Maybe you should walk in a hilly area or with a weighted vest to increase the difficulty because walking on flat ground is too easy for you, but jogging is too hard. Maybe you need to combine running and walking for a while -- just run until it feels a little hard, switch to walking for a bit, then run again. Maybe the sweet spot for you is jogging even more slowly than you walk. This will require some experimenting and listening to your body.
Zone 2 is more about how hard you feel like you're working and less about the specific heart rate. I saw a chart once that specified how long you should be able to maintain your effort in each zone, which was really helpful for me to think about. It was something like this, but I don't remember exactly and I couldn't find a chart:
Zone 1: You feel like you can do it basically all day
Zone 2: You feel like you could maintain for an hour or maybe two
Zone 3: You can maintain it for half an hour to an hour
Zone 4 : You can only maintain it for a few minutes
Zone 5: Should make you feel like death walking -- less than a minute.
Another cue people use is whether they are able to carry on a conversation. You should be able to do that at Zone 2 but not Zone 3.
You got this
it was really tough for me to figure out where Zone 2 is because it didn't feel like I'm "exercising" -- but once you realize that that's what exercising is supposed to feel like, it makes more sense why people like to do it.