Whatever You’re Doing – Make it Fun, Take a Stroll After Eating, Taste the Rainbow
Hi Folks! Connor and Nick here from Healthy Living With Nick and Connor. Thanks again for being on our email list, it means a lot, and we are excited to share our weekly email with you. We hope you enjoy it! Here is what we hope you take away from this one:
No matter what it is you’re doing, there will be ways you can make it more fun. The more fun, the more likely you are to keep doing it, and the easier it will become to make things fun.
Form the easy and healthy habit of walking after meals.
Try to consume many different vegetable types every day in a broad range of colors as an easy guide to help improve your gut health.
Starter Mindset Tip: Bring the Fun
If you can find a way to make whatever activity you are doing more fun you will be more likely to continue doing it. It probably goes without saying, but the things we enjoy doing feel easier, and seem to take less time and exertion to do. It becomes more important for those things that we typically find more strenuous or don’t naturally find as enjoyable. The question becomes how can we make these things more fun? Maybe it involves incorporating a friend into the mix, or listening to your favorite music, or setting fun or quirky challenges for yourself, or whatever you find to make it happen. Whatever it may be, the important thing is approaching the activity in a way where you are prioritizing having some fun while doing it!
Health Recipe: Go For a Walk After Eating
Timing: 10-15 minutes 3 times per day
Level of Difficulty: Easy
Serving Size: Small-medium
Spiciness: Mild
INGREDIENTS
You and your two legs
REASONING AND BENEFITS
Eliminate the habit of “resting and digesting”. Replace it with the habit of taking an after-meal walk. There are many benefits that come from this simple activity. Beyond the benefits that come from simply getting outside for some fresh air on our mood, sleep and cardiovascular fitness – the big benefit stems from what these walks do to your blood sugar and digestion. Taking a stroll shortly after eating reduces the spike in our body's blood sugar and encourages the body to use glucose more effectively, improving insulin sensitivity. The movement also helps with more efficient passage of food through your stomach which means sugars are absorbed more gradually, and sensations of bloating and indigestion are reduced. If you are in the habit of walking already, why not time it for when you get the biggest bang for your buck as a study published in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health found that a 15 minute walk after eating was equivalent to a 45 minute walk taken at other times.
INSTRUCTIONS
Let’s not make this more complicated than it needs to be. Step 1: Eat
Step Two: Walk
PRO TIP: It may take a little while to form this habit, but try to form the link between eating and going for a walk afterwards. Eventually it should become instinctual, and if you will feel weird not doing it.
* Replace the mindset “rest and digest” with “move and metabolize”.
** Notice that you will feel less postprandial fatigue if you get in the habit of walking after meals.
*** Walking after meals is also a good way to curb that lingering hunger that sometimes drives us to overeat towards the end of a meal.
Dessert Quote:
"When you start eating differently, your microbiome will start changing within two to three days. Getting five different vegetables into your diet every single day will accelerate the process of optimizing your microbiome. To enhance the benefits even further, try to make these vegetables as many different colors as you can. This means it’s much more likely that you will encourage the growth of more beneficial bacteria as well as getting maximum gut-bug diversity.” — Dr. Rangan Chatterjee – “How to Make Disease Disappear”
Sources:
Learn more about the benefits of walking after eating:
Dunstan, D. W., Kingwell, B. A., Larsen, R., Healy, G. N., Cerin, E., Hamilton, M. T., Shaw, J. E., Bertovic, D. A., Zimmet, P. Z., & Salmon, J. (2012). Breaking up prolonged sitting reduces postprandial glucose and insulin responses. Journal of Physical Activity and Health, 9(4), 486-493.
Learn more about the benefits of eating more vegetables:
Chatterjee, R. (2019). How to make disease disappear. HarperOne.
