The Effects of Walking on Your Health

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It's made by a trusted family-owned company that we all can feel good about. Third-party tested for purity and potency. And if you're interested, you too can try a sample for just $6. But even better, you can get 30% off forever with discount code FLIPPING50. That's FLIPPING50. Just go to flipping50.com/blueskycbd. We'll put that link in the show notes and you'll find it everywhere on Flipping 50 at My Favorites. What are you waiting for? Good night. The cool air, the quietness, and the stillness before the rest of the city is awake. The little rustle of leaves, the movement of dogs barking, couple chickens crowing, and Just the smell. I think it's hope in the air before the day actually blooms into full-fledged heat of summer. That is what it's like to walk in the morning. I've recently been getting up early to go for walks before 12 weeks— that's 60 sessions of live coaching calls 5 days a week with our Stronger participants. And to beat the 110-degree heat streak that we've had in Phoenix. So when I say the cool of the early morning, that was really wishful thinking. We haven't had a whole lot of that. It's, if I go now, I will only sweat a little as opposed to a lot. But many days I'm enjoying music in my ears But others, I hear the faint memories of walking beside my mother and imagine walking up the uneven sidewalks that were maple-lined toward the Methodist church as we walked away from my house and then made the loop back that summer of 1982. Had it not been for what started as the vanity of a young girl 41 years ago and the good company of my mother, I might not be here doing this podcast today. I'm Debra Atkinson. You're listening to Clipping 50, where I address your and mine top concerns and struggles. Mostly, we hope to inspire you, you and I, so that we demand and expect to age very differently than generations before us. And to do that, we're going to have to have very different behaviors when it comes to protein, when it comes to sleep and stress, and to resistance training to take care of muscle that is behind the longevity key that we all seek. So if you want to know how to move, what to eat, and how to change your mindset so you can have the energy and vitality that you want, need, and deserve, you are in the right place, my friend. I can hear my mother's footsteps and her breath, and I can see the way she would swing her arms and her posture. I mean, when I close my eyes, I can see her form. I can feel her beside me. And I was aware even then, even at 18, that walking and being comfortable not talking, not having to fill space, was the sign of a good walking partner. We worked our way up to a mile from that first half mile to the church and back, and then we were to a mile and a half regularly that summer. But by the time college rolled around that fall, I was a runner. There'd been enough days when my mom couldn't go, it didn't work for our schedules to go together, and when she wouldn't go, I would walk the distance, but sometimes I'd jog little pieces. And that's how it started, my friends. The effects of walking on your health are pretty incredible. This simple, economical, accessible way to move, or take it further and exercise, make fitness and health a reasonable goal for everyone. So what is walking? So let's define physical activity and exercise before we go on. Physical activity is movement at a leisurely pace for the enjoyment of sports or performance of daily activities of life. Let me say that again. Physical activity, we call it PA, is movement at a leisurely pace. Now you might be playing sports or you might just be performing daily activities of life. So it's just movement, right? Exercise is intentional movement for the purpose of improving fitness by use of planned intensity, duration, frequency, or resistance. Walking then could be either physical activity, like walking a dog to the mailbox, strolling in a museum or a mall, or exercise, going for a walk. Brisk walking, walking for a time or a distance, or hiking the Grand Canyon, right? So what you believe about these habits is more important than doing the habit. That is a funny statement to just drop in right there, but I think it, it really is important that you think about what it is that I'm about to say, because I'm gonna talk about the effects of walking, like the effects of walking 30 minutes a day, and then 25, and I'll talk about 11, and I'll talk about steps and all of the benefits that they can give you. And some of that, you're going to say, check that box, already doing that. And you are. But what you believe about the habits, even that you're already doing, can change and amplify the habit. There's power in your intention, and I'm going to really be tipping into my power of having attended Dr. Joe Dispenza's event. I did a short course with him last fall. I did a full-week retreat in April, and I would have done another full-week retreat again in September. It just didn't work out. The logistics were too challenging and difficult, so I'm missing the opportunity, but will— I know I will attend again because I'm a convert, it's, it's a game changer, and we all need to tap into it because it's way too easy to get caught in what we think is present moment and being too busy. One of the reasons I will challenge you and I, and I say me because I definitely— so we're so busy because we're not actually here in the moment, we're in the future. We're not even living here, but we're not in a future we want. We're dragging the past and the way we've done things into the future so that we will repeat it. And unfortunately, that means we'll, we'll either get the same results we've always gotten, or we'll get worse results than we've always gotten, because sometimes that happens, right? But I'm a huge believer that if you carry this placebo effect about something positive that you're doing, that you will amplify the results. There is also something called a fixed or a growth mindset. So depending on who you are, if you have a growth mindset, you may welcome these podcasts. If you have a fixed mindset, you may not like them or find yourself frequently saying, "But." but this is true for me and that is different for you, as if you don't have the same ability or the same ability to make choices to change whatever outcome you have now that you may not want. So growth mindset means what I'm getting right now as far as results, this what I have right now is a result of habits that I've had. And this doesn't mean this has to continue. It means if I change my habits, I can get different results. That's a growth mindset. A fixed mindset would say, well, this is just what I get. This is genetics, or these are my habits, so this is what I'm going to get and have, and it will always be the same. And there's a book called The Power of Your Intention. Dr. Joe Dispenza is someone I highly recommend, and learning about a fixed or a growth mindset by a book by Dr. Carol Dweck, D-W-E-C-K. And I'll put both of those mentions in the podcast show notes today in case you want to come and look at them, because if you're interested at all in not just pursuing your physical health and wellness and fitness, but helping yourself change that by amplifying your mental health and wellness, you wanna probably tune into those books if you're not already familiar. But let's dive into this. Are you ready? The effects of walking 30 minutes a day and less. So be ready for this. 30 minutes of walking a day reduces type 2 diabetes by 30%. Just a reminder for all of you who are not sure, type 1, type 2 tells me specifically, good for you. You don't have it. But type 2 is that developed later in life, mostly, and very frequently now by women in midlife going through menopausal changes because of the insulin resistance cause as a domino effect for some of those changes. 30 minutes a day reduces type 2 diabetes by 30%. It's pretty good odds. 30 minutes of walking daily reduces dementia risk by 62%. So I want to make sure you're clear on this. 30 minutes of walking, and nobody says 30 minutes of walking continuously. Nope, that wasn't even in there. So it's just 30 minutes of walking. You want to walk 10 now, 10 later, 10 tonight? Fine. You want to walk 15 now, you want to walk 15 later, you want to walk 10 now and 20 later? Okay, slice or dice it however you want to. 30 minutes of walking a day. Okay, 25 minutes of a brisk walk adds 7 years of life. Now, most likely also because you're walking, the quality of those 7 years is better. 11 minutes a day of walking adds 2 more years to your life. Moving for 2 to 5 minutes several times a day, breaking up sedentary activity, reduces your blood glucose levels after meals by 17%. That I've posted about several times in the last few months, and it's huge news, especially in light of what I mentioned earlier. Women in midlife are very prone to insulin resistance. One of the ways to avoid it is to control your blood sugar levels. We all will have an elevation of blood glucose after a meal. How high that spike is and how long that spike stays up is one of the determinants of what's your likelihood of insulin resistance. If we can get that back down, you're going to be better off and have far less inflammation. Walking for 15 minutes within 30 to 60 minutes after each meal has a more significant impact on blood sugar than 45 minutes continuous walking in the morning or afternoon. So those of you who are getting up to go for a walk 30 minutes or 45 minutes before work each day, or you're doing it after work, hopefully not too late in the evening, at least not vigorously that late. But if you're walking 45 minutes, then okay, is that a healthy habit? Yes, right? But is that as beneficial If your highest priority is to support yourself in reducing belly fat that came on from menopause, that then is most likely tied to insulin resistance, your priority potentially is to reduce your blood glucose levels post-meal. Breaking it up into 15 minutes after breakfast, after lunch, and after dinner potentially is more high priority for you than the long walk is. Just want to point that out based on research, and it's all here in the show notes, by the way, for you. Prove it to me, girls. I gotcha. Brisk walking after meals has a more significant positive effect on type 2 diabetic women than normal pace walking. So I do want to point out that throughout all of the rest of these, the 30 minutes of walking, 25, the 11, there is no indicator. There is no— it's self-directed. You choose your own pace. Right? We're at a, you get to choose, build your own workout kind of thing. There's no imposition, but there is some result saying that if you have type 2 diabetes, that brisk walking is going to have a more significant positive effect than of normal pace walking. But remember, brisk walking for 15 minutes. It doesn't have to be 45. In fact, 15 after each meal is more beneficial than 45 in the morning, afternoon, okay? So little bits matter and how you do it also matters. Think about what your priority is and think about things you may have to lose in order to change your thinking here. Like lose 30 or 40 years of conditioning that doing 30 to 60 minutes of cardio is what you need to do to lose weight. You need to lose that weight actually, that heavy thinking that you've been carrying around. See if you can drop that and watch the scale lighten up. You'll be surprised. Okay, so let's go into this. Let's say you're not able to log in miles walking, or even minutes like, you know, 25 or 11 or 45, but instead you're doing a lot of movement during the day. You're, uh, prime Amazon Prime delivery person in and out of that truck, or you are a FedEx delivery person, you're working at the post office and you're back and forth. And I mean, these are just active jobs. Maybe you're working retail, you know, in a shop at the mall, and you're back and forth and doing lots of things. You're accumulating still a lot of steps. You can still win with steps. And this is what we call low-level movement. It's called NEAT— non-exercise activity time. For non-exercise activity time, or it can be thermogenesis. The T is thermogenesis, this elevation that happens internally in core temperature, depending on the school that you attended, seriously. So it's NEAT, and I think Mayo Clinic has referred to it in both ways, non-exercise activity time or thermogenesis. It's both yes and, they're both correct. 8,000 steps per day. So if you are a step counter, good for you. 8,000 steps per day increases testosterone. Yes. Okay, so what does that mean to you? We're gonna do a podcast actually coming up on testosterone. I am, by the way, also doing a Q&A on walking because I did a roundup request for questions about walking on my Instagram account. And I was overwhelmed. I didn't get a couple to add to a YouTube video or to this podcast. I got two dozen. It's a podcast all on its own. So I'm gonna be answering some of those in a special just Q&A. I'm also gonna answer in a special Q&A on our YouTube video. So if you're following the channel there, you can get it there too, but you'll see demonstrations of form, of arm swing, gate, of speed, of posture, how to keep yourself upright and yet leaning and rolling forward, how to get more push through the glutes and the hamstrings. All that is coming. So talking about walking and the benefits of it would be incomplete. And that video, my plan is to insert within this show notes, so you'll only have to go to one place. Okay, and we'll make sure we get the link to the second video in here after that is done too. But the questions are still pouring in. I'm shocked that there are this many questions about walking, but there are. So let's just dive into it. We'll unpack it. So this low-level, you know, 10,000 steps is always the, okay, here's a goal, pie in the sky. Actually, 7,000 or 8,000, you're getting all pretty much the return on investment. You're not necessarily gaining a whole lot. The ROI starts to go down with more. So I wouldn't want to want you to remember is you do not want to be sacrificing that extra 2,000 or 3,000 steps if you have the opportunity and the time and energy to put some of that into strength training. Please don't sacrifice strength training in exchange for the walking. The strength training should be your highest priority if you hope to age well. Then walk. That foundation of walking regularly, yes, but you're only going to strength train twice weekly. Why? Because you need recovery, because otherwise you're breaking down muscle. We call that catabolism, right? As we get older, we have anabolic resistance, which means we have this resistance to gaining lean muscle, which means we need to, yes, make it count, make it intense when we do it. Then we need to rest and recover because muscles have broken down, and if they don't heal completely between, we're just breaking them down further every time we work out. If you're not eating enough protein, you're also going to suffer. Protein is the building block of muscle, so we've got to have the two in combination. Smartest thing that you can do to see if your habits are working is start measuring your body composition and lean muscle mass with a smart scale. They're very affordable. There's one for every budget, I promise you. You can go to flipping50.com Resources and see a link at the top of that page to my Amazon store where I've got 4 scales, 4 different budgets. And take a look at it and don't worry so much when you get on your scale, is this accurate? The point is, is it measuring with the same accuracy on Monday as it— or on as it did on Friday, I guess, doesn't really matter. But from one Monday to the next Monday, is it Is it calibrated the same? So you're seeing change. Don't get too hung up on whether the number is accurate or not because, I mean, you didn't know what the number was the day before yesterday. So just measure and measure on the same tool each time at the same time of day and under the same status. Ideally, just have rolled out of bed, voided your bladder, and then jump on the scale. Not, not literally jumping. But low-impact stepping. All right, so 8,000 steps per day increases testosterone. And by the way, I will be talking about this on the upcoming testosterone podcast. It's the most abundant hormone in females. We have less than males, but it's the most abundant hormone we have. So if you don't have some, that you're probably not feeling really good. We're gonna get some in you, even over though, 4,000 steps. For every 4,000, another 1,000 over. So when you hit the 5,000 mark and the 6,000 mark, significant increases in testosterone and increases in— you're going to like this word— lipolysis occur. And otherwise, strength training is the only greatest way in terms of exercise. Cardio, quote unquote chronic cardio, moderate cardio, does not increase lipolysis. Do you know what lipolysis is? You want to. Lipolysis is your best friend. Lipolysis is releasing fat cells so that you can burn them, right? All right, that happens from strength training, and that happens from walking at lower levels. It's why these two things in combination— kind of low level where you are also decreasing your cortisol levels, and high intensity where you're not increasing your cortisol levels by doing it with strength training— help you most to burn fat, not cardio. Cardio is not a girl's best friend, never really was. Now it's your nemesis. The dose-response curve is not linear, so the greatest reduction in mortality is seen at the beginning of the curve when we're talking about steps. So going from— if you're walking less or fewer than 2,000 steps a day when you move from 2,000 or from less than 2,000 to 4,000, for example, the, the change in your mortality rate is huge. That's where, like, from a beginner to just moderate, you get more benefits than anybody else. You've made the most biggest impact positively on your health that you will ever make. When you go from moderate to high fitness, you gain a little more but not nearly as much as you did from low to moderate. So keep that in mind. We have the most to gain if we have those inactive people around us and they just make small forward steps. And if you are one of them, come on, you can do this. There's diminishing returns between 8,000 and 10,000 steps per day depending on the age group. But I would suggest that if we're over 50, if we're wasting our time getting 8,000 to 10,000 instead of strength training, we are wasting muscle. Yeah. Okay. So certainly remember this: the value of walking goes up when it's combined with strength training that increases your lean muscle mass. What you're doing when you walk is moving the muscle, and the bigger the bank, the bigger the place to deposit blood glucose. That's why when you are walking after meals, the reduction in blood glucose levels goes down so much more so than just taking one morning walk for 45 minutes because a lot of us then we're feeling a little too virtuous and we're a little less active all day. Now, for some of us, If you're in your sweet spot and you were active in the morning, we feel more active and energetic all day. And if you get outside and do your exercise, that's probably even more true for us because we've got sunlight, we've exposed that, and we're gonna sleep better in the evening. We've got the alert thing going on by being exposed to sunlight. And when we're in the dark, our melatonin production will be increased. So we'll go to sleep a little bit better tonight because we did that exercise. And you also want to remember the walking is supportive. So make sure you're not walking just to attain or achieve X amount of steps or get a certain time. If you're toast the rest of the day, I would walk less. Find your sweet spot. Where is a place where walking gives you energy, doesn't steal it the rest of the day? We want it all day. Spending all your exercise time walking is not the optimal support for a woman's muscle, for bone and brain health. But it is the perfect complement. Anchor your exercise in walking and strength work. Supplement in smaller doses with agility, like quick movements, because walking tends to be step, step, step, step. It's linear, it's predictable, and that's okay. In a rhythm, it's actually great for our brains, but you want small doses of agility where you have quick, rapid steps going to the left, to the right, to the, to the left, then the right. And you want some HIIT that gets you breathless, and you want some mobility work. And you don't need a lot of it, but actually you want mobility work most days of the week. But how much? I mean, just minutes, you know, a stretch here and there, 10 minutes of a stretch if you have that time later or earlier in the day. Valuable, but find a place to put it in. It doesn't mean it has to take a lot of time, just that it's, a priority and that you've got it in every day. Okay, what's not to love about walking, right? It's pretty safe, no negative side effects, and it's free. Now, that's not true for everybody. So I know you may be listening, you may have no cartilage in your knees, you may, you know, have a back issue. And unfortunately for a lot of people, most people, walking is one of the first exercises recommended because it's pretty balanced. And yet there are those, and I I've worked with them. I've worked with quite a few people who have low back injuries, chronic pain, and, and I have to admit that sometimes, as frustrating as it was, I wasn't always successful getting them relief. And they were some of my favorite clients, in fact, and those people who deserved to be put out of pain. But it was just very difficult to— when, when certain things are going on and certain people can't walk without pain. However, you want to find something that is your equivalent. Ideally, if walking is not it, what could be? So not all can, you know, due to disability or conditions or climate or safety in the region you're in. But for the majority, it's a fantastic option. Oh, and this one that you're going to love— it releases fat burning. I'm going to say it again, in a process called lipolysis. That does not occur at higher intensity chronic cardio, but it does occur during strength training at a more significant level. So I don't mean— what I mean by that is when you strength train to muscular fatigue, when you use power, a little speed component in a lift, but yet are controlling the return, all of those things help you to enjoy, right? Can we say the benefit of lipolysis? Walking maintains muscle and burns visceral fat unlike running. Uh, really? Yeah, right? So a lot of you would think running is more athletic, like it is more— I don't know, we— I think people think, oh, I'm just a walker. We use that kind of language where somebody who's running, we, you know, think, oh, they're doing more, more exertion, more must be better. But listen, when you hit midlife, all rules are off. It's like what works for you works for you. If it's not working for you, let's change it. But in general, for most women, I will say this: walking will help you maintain muscle and burn visceral fat. That's your belly fat. Unlike running, which does not preserve lean muscle and it can actually tip cortisol scales to increase your visceral belly fat if your duration is beyond the tipping point. And it could be your duration and your frequency together in combination. So if you can't go for a walk outside, you can walk indoors. I mean, it could be dance. So I want you to look for answers, solutions. Don't look for problems. If you need a walking workout, I'm actually creating one So by the time this is published, I will link to that. It has been over 110 here in Phoenix for more than 35 days since July 1st. More than that, honestly. And I'm dramatic, I am, but I'm not being in this case. So needless to say, there are fewer and shorter walks happening outdoors right now, whether it's -20 or it's, uh, +120. You know, indoor walking doesn't have to require a treadmill. So some of us called it aerobics back in the day. And you're looking for— when you're doing this, we're not looking at high impact or high intensity. It's literally creating a walk indoors, and we're going to create some lateral movement and some step touches and do some things that are actually really good for your coordination, but that you can do right there in your living room. And I will play that, um, link. We'll put that link right here in the workout or in the podcast. A 20-minute indoor walking workout with no equipment will embed that right here for you. And I have two parting thoughts for you on when and how to walk and how not to. So what if you were— what if you were fasting and walking? So my recommendations would be don't walk fast necessarily or hard, but do movement. If you're inspired, say you're energized by a certain pace, then it's fine. But I think if you are only driven by calories and I have to go this pace, having to make it hard or to feel like punishment, then no, you know, that's really not what you're trying to do while you're fasting. You're trying to do yourself a favor, so don't punish yourself. To my entrepreneurs and lady bosses out there, taking a walk away from a problem inspires creativity. And I'm pretty sure you all know what I mean. Like sitting down with discipline, like I'm gonna get this done, and you really find that you're coming up with shh, you know, like a 4-letter word starts with shh and ends with a T. And it's just crap, you know, that is actually a great time to take a walk, get away. Not necessarily thinking, I'm gonna solve this problem, I'm gonna solve this problem. Not that. Just go for the walk or sleep on it, get up and go for the walk in the morning. Because I find that so often those things that are in your head, they're problems that you have to solve, but they're not necessarily problems that are like, oh, I have to solve that, I have to solve that, like you wrote it on your hand. But those ideas will come to you. And sometimes if you are leading the kind of life where you believe in this placebo effect, you believe that if you put thoughts out that you will solve this problem, everything's figureoutable, I believe that you will maybe stumble on music, you know, while you're on that walk, or a podcast that will inspire you with an idea to solve that problem. And not accidentally, but serendipitously. So really, creativity will not come from pounding at whatever it is you're working on. Wander, explore. Writers run, many of them, and runners often write. And a lot of people don't know which comes first, the chicken or the egg. But it's not a coincidence. So use that opportunity to get out, let things flow in your mind, let your eyes look around at your environment. And I would have to say that if you really are trying to problem solve, getting up and going for any kind of a walk is better than no walk, even if that's on your treadmill. However, walking outside may potentially be more inspiring for you. You do you and you decide what the answer is. So in a recap, whether you are able to get in 30 minutes of walking a day or you're only able to break up your sedentary time today in 2 to 5 minutes this morning and maybe a couple different times this afternoon, you can do a major health improvement just in those few minutes that you do have. Take advantage of all the things that are accessible to you right now. So show notes for today will be at Fitness Flipping 50— sorry about that, let's try that again. Show notes will be at flipping50.com/walking, and in show notes for today I will embed a video, a walking workout video and a second one that is actually talking about walking and form and swinging the arms, where your gaze should be, how your posture should be, how you can improve it. So if you want really good focus on what it is you're doing and how to get started or stay started with great posture, that'll be there for you. And as a follow-up to this, I I'm gonna do a special just Q&A session all about walking because those 2 dozen questions I got were gold and I wanna give each of them their due time. All right, what are you waiting for? Let's start Flipping 50 today and I will see you in a walk.