Jon Halty - Benefits of Walking After Eating, Get to work again at the table after lunch? Or even go straight to bed after dinner? If you do that often, you are a loser. You better use the remaining time for a short walk. Because it turns out, there are good benefits that can be obtained by walking after eating.
Reported by TIME, a small study found that walking can be beneficial for those at risk of diabetes. In the study, elderly people at risk for type 2 diabetes walked on a treadmill for 15 minutes after eating. As a result, they have a smaller blood sugar surge after walking. Why is that so?
Short walk and its benefits for diabetes
The human digestive system converts food into sugar glucose, which is one of the body's main energy sources. So after eating, this glucose will flood your bloodstream. The hormone insulin helps pull glucose into cells, both for immediate use or stored for later use.
But for people with diabetes, the glucose stack can remain in the blood, which can contribute to heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, and other health problems.
Well, the study explains that the muscles you use to walk will use glucose as energy, expel it from the circulation, while reducing glucose that is still "floating" in the body.
"When the muscles in the body use more sugar to be converted into energy, over time this process can lower blood sugar levels to the normal range. Insulin can also work better. "
But if you exercise excessively, it is not good for blood sugar levels. "If the exercise is excessive, blood sugar levels can increase rapidly. That's because the body produces more stress hormones,
Another benefit of walking
Still quoted from TIME, other studies have found that walking helps speed up the time it takes for food to move from the stomach to the small intestine. This can help increase satiety after eating. There is also evidence to find a link between a faster type of digestion and a lower rate of heartburn and other reflux symptoms.
However, walking is not the only post-eating physical activity that is beneficial. You can also do resistance training (resistance exercise) because the impact is the same as decreasing blood glucose levels.
Another small study found that for people with obesity and type 2 diabetes, carrying out weight training sessions (which focus on tightening the legs, calves, chest and back) for 45 minutes after dinner will reduce triglycerides and blood sugar in a short time.
However, as explained, exercising too fast after eating can actually interfere with digestion. As a result, digestion will slow down in the stomach. So, choose post-eating exercise with moderate intensity rather than heavy intensity.
Now you already know the benefits of walking after eating. Try to move the body within one hour after eating, but the faster the better. Because according to researchers, glucose tends to peak 72 minutes after intake of food intake. Even if you only walk 10 minutes, you can still feel the benefits.