Striding Through Thanksgiving: Walking to Keep Blood Sugar and More in Check
Welcome to the time of year we celebrate chilly weather and warm chili. It is a busy season spent with friends and family enjoying the simple things of life like fellowship and good food. However, with great flour (sweet treats) comes great spikes of insulin. Overeating, or eating a little too much sugar, is something we are all guilty of this time of year. Am I right, or am I right? I can at least speak for myself when I say that it is super easy to indulge in a spice filled pumpkin pie. While this is not inherently bad, and I will never be the food police, I think we need to do our best to manage our blood sugar this time of year. In this blog, I will briefly go over an easy method to help lower blood sugar after a high glycemic load.
I will take ‘Lower Blood Sugar’ for 400. The question is: This is an easy way to lower blood sugar after a meal? What is… Walking!
Walking can be a simple fix when it comes to managing a person’s blood sugar. The power of walking can’t be understated when it comes to managing someone’s blood sugar. A recent study by Engeroff et al. concluded that a 20 minute walk immediately following a meal can a beneficial impact on blood glucose levels (1). 20 minutes is all it takes! You don’t have to endure a turkey trot to make a difference. In my office I advocate for a consistent 20 minute walk everyday for its many health benefits. If you are already enjoying a nice walk everyday try and align it with a meal especially if you know there will be a good amount of sweets.
Now not to get too off track, but it would be a disservice to not discuss the benefits of walking for overall health and mental health. A study in 2013 made this statement on walking four times a week for as little as fifteen minutes each session, “Findings suggest an independent and protective effect of walking on mortality and supports the encouragement of physical activity in advanced age for increasing longevity.” (2). This study throws the age old problem of “I don’t have time for exercise” out the window. In most cases we are able to carve out fifteen minutes to go for a good walk. It has been proven to be beneficial to a health aging process and we all want to age well.
Walks are great for your emotional health too!! Hippocrates was known to say, “Walking is man’s best medicine”, and, “If you are in a bad mood, go for a walk. If you are still in a bad mood, go for another walk.”. Hippocrates knew the power of a good walk over 2ooo years ago! In recent years research has been able to back up his claims. This article by Zhu et al. from 2020 looked at the effects of walking on emotional health and found a positive relationship. They found those who participated in weekly consistent walks had better emotional health than those who did not. They also found that the amount of walks throughout the week made a difference, but not entirely the amount of time spent on the walks (3). Let me break it down for you. The more walks you go on throughout the week the happier you were. The time of the walks did not seem to matter as much so I say stick to a solid 15-20 minute walk at least 3-4 times a week and you will be sure to reap the mental health benefits.
To summarize, walking is uber beneficial to maintaining and lowering blood glucose levels post-meal, increasing longevity of life, and improving our emotional/mental health. Can’t argue with the facts, Jack. So my advice is to get out there and get a great walk after a big meal and just be consistent. As always, I believe in you and keep kicking butt.
Engeroff, T., Groneberg, D. A., & Wilke, J. (2023). After Dinner Rest a While, After Supper Walk a Mile? A Systematic Review with Meta-analysis on the Acute Postprandial Glycemic Response to Exercise Before and After Meal Ingestion in Healthy Subjects and Patients with Impaired Glucose Tolerance. Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), 53(4), 849–869. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-022-01808-7
Fortes, C., Mastroeni, S., Sperati, A., Pacifici, R., Zuccaro, P., Francesco, F., Agabiti, N., Piras, G., Amleto, D., & Ebrahim, S. (2013). Walking four times weekly for at least 15 min is associated with longevity in a cohort of very elderly people. Maturitas, 74(3), 246–251. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.maturitas.2012.12.001
Zhu, Z., Chen, H., Ma, J., He, Y., Chen, J., & Sun, J. (2020). Exploring the Relationship between Walking and Emotional Health in China. International journal of environmental research and public health, 17(23), 8804. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17238804
