Walking After Meals

Part of the Healthy Habits series

Walking After meals

Let’s talk about walking after meals…

Walking after meals, even for a short time, can have positive health impacts.

Physical activity in general has many benefits, but here we will focus on those directly linked with walking after meals. Walking is easy and free, but for blood sugar spikes, note that any form of exercise will provide benefits.

Health Benefits linked to Walking After Meals

  • Decreases post-meal blood sugar spikes: Walking helps lower blood sugar levels after eating.
  • Aids digestion: It helps with after-meal bloating and gastrointestinal symptoms.
  • Increases daily physical activity: Having a regular routine of walking after each meal can help with exercise consistency and adds up with little effort. Even a 10-minute walk after each meal will total 30 minutes of physical activity by the end of the day. This amount has been shown to reduce blood pressure.

Try This: If you aren’t currently walking after meals, choose one meal and add a 10 minute walk after it for a month. Once you are consistent, add another post-meal walk to your day.

Having a regular routine of walking after each meal can help with exercise consistency and adds up with little effort.

How Soon After Eating Should You Walk

Experts recommend walking anytime from immediately after the meal up to about an hour and a half later. Ideally, you should be exercising when your glucose levels peak, but any exercise within this time range seems to have benefits. Some people may experience an upset stomach if they exercise immediately after eating. If this is something you experience, try waiting 15-20 minutes before starting.

How Much Should I Walk After Meals

Any amount is better than nothing! Even as little as 2-5 min has been show to have an impact. But longer will give you even more benefits.

Try this:If you are short on time, try moving for 2-5 minutes after eating wherever you are: walking up and down the stairs a couple of times, walk around your table, etc.

Why Walking After Meals Works

Excess glucose from a meal is stored in the liver as glycogen for later use. When we exercise after eating, some of the glucose is used as energy for our muscles, meaning less of it is in our blood stream and less gets stored. Plus, walking after meals stimulates the stomach and intestines helping food digest more quickly. This should help reduce bloating and indigestion issues.

How I Incorporate Walking After Meals Into My Routine

  • Most weekdays, I walk for 10-15 minutes after every meal. I also walk or do some short 2-5 min physical activity after tea time if I’ve had food and not just tea.
  • Twice a week, I try to get in a longer (30 min-1 hour) walk after one meal.
  • Once a week, I take a long walk (45 minutes) to breakfast at a local restaurant, followed by another long walk (45 minutes to 1 hour) after breakfast. Note: Exercising in a fasted state has benefits too, particularly for insulin sensitivity over time.

Looking for a book that will help you decrease your blood sugar spikes?

Glucose Revolution Book

Read my review of Glucose Revolution in my “Books I Love Series.”

Sources

Engeroff T, Groneberg DA, Wilke J. 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 Med. 2023 Apr;53(4):849-869. doi: 10.1007/s40279-022-01808-7. Epub 2023 Jan 30. PMID: 36715875; PMCID: PMC10036272.

Hosseini-Asl MK, Taherifard E, Mousavi MR. The effect of a short-term physical activity after meals on gastrointestinal symptoms in individuals with functional abdominal bloating: a randomized clinical trial. Gastroenterol Hepatol Bed Bench. 2021 Winter;14(1):59-66. PMID: 33868611; PMCID: PMC8035544.

Inchauspé, J. (2023). Glucose revolution: The life-changing power of balancing your blood sugar. Simon Element. 

Bellini A, Nicolò A, Bazzucchi I, Sacchetti M. Effects of Different Exercise Strategies to Improve Postprandial Glycemia in Healthy Individuals. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2021 Jul 1;53(7):1334-1344. doi: 10.1249/MSS.0000000000002607. PMID: 33481486.c

Bellini A, Nicolò A, Bazzucchi I, Sacchetti M. The Effects of Postprandial Walking on the Glucose Response after Meals with Different Characteristics. Nutrients. 2022 Mar 4;14(5):1080. doi: 10.3390/nu14051080. PMID: 35268055; PMCID: PMC8912639.

Myette-Côté É, Durrer C, Neudorf H, Bammert TD, Botezelli JD, Johnson JD, DeSouza CA, Little JP. The effect of a short-term low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet with or without postmeal walks on glycemic control and inflammation in type 2 diabetes: a randomized trial. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol. 2018 Dec 1;315(6):R1210-R1219. doi: 10.1152/ajpregu.00240.2018. Epub 2018 Oct 10. PMID: 30303707; PMCID: PMC6734060.

Reynolds AN, Mann JI, Williams S, Venn BJ. Advice to walk after meals is more effective for lowering postprandial glycaemia in type 2 diabetes mellitus than advice that does not specify timing: a randomised crossover study. Diabetologia. 2016 Dec;59(12):2572-2578. doi: 10.1007/s00125-016-4085-2. Epub 2016 Oct 17. PMID: 27747394.

Saxena, Yogesh1,; Gupta, Rani1; Moinuddin, Arsalan2; Narwal, Ravinder3. Blood pressure reduction following accumulated physical activity in prehypertensive. Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care 5(2):p 349-356, Apr–Jun 2016. | DOI: 10.4103/2249-4863.192368

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