Why You Should Walk After Eating
Trust me, I know.
After sitting down to binge at the dinner table, it’s tempting to sit down and binge-watch the latest overhyped series on the latest overhyped streaming service.
As much as you may want to, DON’T!!!1Something else you definitely shouldn’t do is trust me on knowing anything about what it feels like to want to do what I just told you not to do, but that’s besides the point!
Rather than sitting down in continuance of a long day of sitting down and doing nothing, what you should do after you eat is go for a walk for at least 10 minutes.
Why?
Ummmm…because, most obviously, walking will help you burn calories. In fact, despite walking not burning as many overall calories as more intense forms of intentional exercise, most of the calories burned while doing it will be burned from fat stores rather than carbs because walking places the heart rate in a zone where fat is the main energy source.2Low-intensity exercise like walking burns mostly fat but by no means should it make up the bulk of your physical activity if you have considerable fat to lose. Instead, use walking to supplement your fat loss efforts while relying on higher intensity exercise. Though high-intensity exercises like running and strength training burn mostly carbs, they also result in greater calorie burn, which can have the effect of helping you lose fat in less time than it would take were you to depend on walking alone.
That’s the most obvious reason to take a walk after eating.
The not so obvious reason to walk after eating has to do with the glutes, quads, hamstrings, and calves. Many more muscles throughout the body contribute to walking but those are the primary ones and they require a lot of energy. As such, another benefit of walking after eating is that doing so can help draw glucose out of circulation so not as much of it is floating around in the bloodstream after food is eaten. That basically means that by walking upon completion of a meal, you can reduce the amount of food that’s stored as fat by way of the glucose from what was consumed immediately getting shuttled to the muscles for use.
So far there are two very clear reasons to walk following a meal. One is to burn calories. The other is to lower blood sugar levels, which would not only be of importance to someone conscious of their weight but to a diabetic as well. In addition to those benefits, a third is that walking also aids digestion by increasing the speed at which food travels from the stomach into the small intestines, which can help to increase the feeling of fullness so you’re not tempted to take in more calories by snacking.
So yeah, put on a pair of comfortable shoes and go for a walk within an hour of eating.
As for where to walk?
Fuck, walk around your block. To the park. Grocery store. The neighborhood of the person who thinks you’re stalking them but you’re not and are only just always in the vicinity of wherever they are by pure dumb luck. I’ll be damned if I know what places you should do your walking at!
JUST WALK!!!
Glossary: calories, exercise, fat, glutes, intensity, muscle
