Dhru Purohit Show - Walking More Will Radically Improve Your Health, Here's How! with Dhru Purohit

Episode Date: April 13, 2022

This episode is brought to you by InsideTracker and Pendulum. Walking is absolutely the most underrated form of movement ever. People who walk more live longer and are generally healthier. Studies even show that people who walk more are just all-around happier about life! Everyone knows that walking is a good idea. But ask yourself, how many people do you know who are actually incorporating it into their daily or weekly routines? Today on The Dhru Purohit Podcast, Dhru talks about why walking is so underrated and why we need more of it in our lives. If you want to improve your mood, reduce your stress, get some mental space or clarity, or even improve your blood sugar, walking is absolutely your best friend! In this episode, we dive into:  -How walking can help you get “unstuck” in life -How to incorporate walking into your routine to improve your metabolic health -The least amount of time you need to walk to get the greatest results Also mentioned in this episode: Try This: Walk Your Way into Optimal Physical and Mental Health For more on Dhru Purohit, follow him on Instagram @dhrupurohit, Facebook @dhruxpurohit, Twitter @dhrupurohit, YouTube @dhrupurohit, and TikTok @dhru.purohit. Text Dhru at 302-200-5643 or click here.  Interested in joining Dhru’s Facebook community? Submit your request to join here. This episode is brought to you by InsideTracker and Pendulum. InsideTracker provides detailed nutrition and lifestyle guidance based on your individual needs. Right now, they’re offering my podcast community 20% off. Just go to insidetracker.com/DHRU to get your discount and try it out for yourself. Pendulum is the first company to figure out how to harness the amazing benefits of Akkermansia in a probiotic capsule. To receive 20% off your first purchase of Pendulum’s Akkermansia probiotic supplement, go to Pendulumlife.com and use code DHRU20. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I want Drew Brod here. Today we are talking about the power of one of the most underrated forms of movement, something that anybody can do that has vast benefits that we're going to get into today's podcast about. If you want to improve your blood sugar, if you want to feel better, if you want to lift your mood and spirit and get perspective on the problems that you're dealing with in life, this podcast is for you because we're talking about the most underrated form of movement that has so much science and research behind it.

and most people know just the little tippy top around it, and that form of movement is walking. Walking is absolutely the most underrated form of movement ever full stop. It's like I got 99 problems and walking solved like 97.5 of them. Today I'm going to get you excited about walking and integrating it back into your routine if you've dropped it off. And you know, here's the thing. There's plenty of people that listen to this podcast are very healthy. They watch what they eat.

They take supplements. They try to be informed about stuff. And when it comes to that area of movement and feeling in their body and not feeling sluggish and not feeling stale, I see that's an area that a lot of people struggle with. And if that's an area that you struggle with or that's an area that you want to improve, walking is absolutely something that can help you head in that pathway. First of all, let's talk big picture. people who walk more live longer.

That's from a paper. You can find all the references that we talk about today inside of the show notes to an article that we wrote about in our Try This newsletter called Walk Your Way into optimal physical and mental health. So there's a paper inside of there published in JAMA in 2020, Association of Daily Step Count and Step Intensity with Mortality Among U.S. adults, bottom line, people who walk more live longer. Boom. Second thing, people who walk more are generally healthier.

Great review article by the Mayo Clinic, included in the show notes, where they walk through exactly why people who walk more are generally healthier. And studies even show that people who walk more are just all around happier. Yes, happier. And we're going to go into a little bit of the science of why is that? Why is it that walking specifically seems to improve your mood and actually even potentially help you solve some of the problems and challenges that you're dealing with in your life?

There's some fascinating evolutionary history and research that is there, that's present in that area. By the way, that one, walking facilitates positive move even when expecting the opposite paper published in 2016, fascinating. Okay, so here's my goal today for today's podcast. My goal is to get you hyped up about walking to remind you that if you want to improve your mood, reduce your stress, get some mental space or clarity or even improve your blood sugar. We've done so many episodes on blood sugar and we've been including so many hacks recently

on our podcast about improving your blood sugar. Walking is absolutely your best friend on this journey. Anybody can do it. It's straightforward. and it has immediate benefits. You know, sometimes the best tools, sometimes the most effective tools in our toolbox are the things that often are overlooked

because they seem so obvious. And walking is definitely one of them. And that's why today I'm going to help you answer some questions that will reinvigorate your energy around it. So some of the questions that we're going to be answering today and looking at the research that's available to us are, how can you? Can walking help me get unstuck in life by giving me perspective?

This is one of my favorite reasons to walk. Anytime I feel stuck, I'm not sure what to do in a situation. Walking is one of my go-to tools. And again, there's a lot of research and science around this and why this is the case. When you understand it, you're more likely to do the thing and use that tool in your toolbox. Another question we're going to answer today. How can I incorporate walking into my routine to improve my metabolic health? It's an important question.

Third question, what is the least amount of time I need to walk to get the greatest results, a.k.a. minimum viable dose. What is the minimum viable dose that I need to get the greatest results? We're going to explore that. We're going to explore that. That's a complicated question, but we're going to explore it and at least tackle it. Okay, let's jump in. Walking gives us perspective.

Now, the thing is, like many of you that are listening, most of my work is done for my computer and phone these days. And that means that I'm sitting for long periods of time and my brain and body feel static from all that sitting. I'm sure you've seen those articles that float around the internet. Sitting is the new smoking. It's not exactly true. You know, we've covered that on this podcast before.

The biggest thing is we can take advantage of sitting. There's certain types of work that it's a lot easier to do when we sit. But if we don't have contrast and we don't walk and stand, and one of the best ways to stand is to walk, then we have all the detrimental impacts, including feeling static, that come with sitting for long periods of time. So whenever I need some inspiration,

a creative boost, or to recapture my focus, I'll go on a brisk five-minute walk around the block. On this block that I live in here in Los Angeles, there's a little loop that's right nearby my house, and to go from one side to the other, it takes actually a little bit about eight minutes, but a quick little loop around the block is a go-to tool in my toolbox. Now, I don't do it all the time, but when I do, I always come back feeling sharper and

ready to jump back into whatever I was doing. Fun note, by the way, if you are someone that thinks of yourself as a high achiever, or you want to be a high achiever in whatever field or area you're focused on, by the way, if you're retired, that could even be being a high achiever in your community, and your church group, planning for your family. You know, you just have a little pep in your step and you like to do stuff and make the world a better place. So if you are in that category,

there's an acquaintance of mine, a friend of Dr. Mark Hyman's. His name is Brendan Bouchard. He's a very well-known coach and other stuff. Anyways, he conducted the largest survey of high performers and found on average they take a quick break every 45 to 60 minutes. That was very interesting. So for a lot of you that are not taking breaks on a regular basis, even if it's five minutes, even if it's two minutes, know that high achievers are taking a quick break every 45 to 60 minutes. Okay, I digress a little bit. Now, besides helping us hit the refresh button, walking is powerful because it's a great opportunity to practice mindfulness. In this day and age that we live in, where screens are ubiquitous, screens are sort of set up to be very ADD. We have a very bunch of tabs open. We can have 30, 40, 50 tabs open on our web browser. We have a bunch of

windows open and our eye is constantly going back and forth trying to figure out where we are and what we're focused on. And walking is one of those things that can bring us back into the present moment. And that allows us to use that time and use that opportunity as a perfect break from whatever's weighing on us or a little bit of an opportunity to refresh the system. Now, before I go further into this, I want to just give a quick shout out to today's sponsor. I'm turning 40 years old, and I can honestly say that I've never felt better. So many people have this looming fear around getting older because they think it has to come with chronic disease, losing their mobility, maybe losing their agility and losing their

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Right now, InsideTracker is offering my podcast community 20% off. Just go to inside tracker.com slash drew. That's D-H-R-U to get your discount code and to try it for yourself. That's inside tracker.com slash D-H-R-U for 20% off. I'll tell you personally, when I'm feeling a little overwhelmed, walking provides me with a lot of clarity and equanimity. Equanimity is really the key word, a sense of contentment and knowing that everything is,

actually okay. And here's where we get really deep into the research and the science. There's actually a whole therapy inspired by walking called EMDR. Have you ever heard of it? EmDR stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, which has been proven to be an effective treatment for trauma and PTSD. So what exactly is EMDR? Let's break it down. So an American psychologist named Dr. Francine Shapiro. She's the one who discovered EMDR and coined it when one day she realized that walking helped her process, understand,

and better deal with the traumatic events that were going on in her life. I'm going to say that again. Walking, she noticed that when she walked, she was able to better process, understand, and better deal with the traumatic, events going on in her life. This inspired her to create a whole new methodology and conduct her own research on EMDR in veterans that had PTSD. She found that the bilateral eye movements,

that's when your eyes scan the horizon from left to right. So imagine you're walking down the street and your eyes are moving left to right as you walk. They're naturally scanning the horizon, looking ahead, seeing what's ahead. It's not something that we often consciously do, it's just something that our eyes naturally do. So she found out that the bilateral movements, when our eyes are scanning from left to right, associated with walking, helped desensitize traumatic events.

Our eyes moving left to right when we walk helped the brain desensitize traumatic events and memories. And the effect was noticeable after just one session. Now, EMDR is recognized as an effective adjunct therapy for treating PTSD by the American Psychiatric Association and World Health Organizations. But I just want to mention when Dr. Shapiro first started talking about this, people thought she was bat-shick crazy.

They thought there's no way that this could work. And it actually did. And she proved it with a ton of research that you can find. And now a lot of therapists that do EMDR, if anybody's interested in it, you know, they can recommend walking to patients. but they'll actually practice it in a clinical setting and they'll use different devices or potentially their hands and they'll move their hands back and forth

and plus talk therapy and other things. You can do it in a clinical setting with sitting down. It doesn't have to be done on walking. But it's so amazing to know that walking was the inspiration behind this technique that helped process traumatic memories. Now, there's been a little bit of exploration in terms of, well, why is that? Why do we think that that is the case

that if we're stressed, if we feel, you know, and you don't have to get, you don't have to have to have PTSD to get the benefits of walking. If you're stressed, if something's on your mind, if you can't get clarity on something, if you're, even if you don't feel good, but you're not sure why you don't feel good. Why is that walking is so powerful? Well, one of the theories that's out there of why EMDR worked through walking is that when we were on the plains and you know living in back in the day wherever we were hundreds of thousands of years ago in our evolutionary history as human beings and homo sapiens as we would walk anywhere if we had

forward movement and we were scanning the horizon that was a signaling system to our nervous system that look whatever's going on you don't have food you don't have water you're running or walking away for your safety at least you're making forward movement. And if you're making forward movement, we know that things are going to be okay. So I don't fully understand all the mechanisms. And I'm not sure if we understand in the research, all the mechanisms that are there. But that's one of the theories is that forward momentum relaxes the body because it feels like we're making progress in whatever's there. Now, today, generally, generally speaking, most of us listening to this podcast, we're not struggling to put the next meal on our plate,

although there is a lot of food insecurity that's out there in the world, but generally speaking, you know, we have enough food in our society for, you know, for most people, again. And we're not being chased by a tiger. We're not, you know, there is war and there is conflict, of course, but most people are in a living in a peaceful area. Again, there is war, there is conflict. All those things are there. But most people are in a good place.

So what are the things that are ailing us? What are the things that are in mind? It's the, you know, bad relationship that we're in. It's our job not working out. It's wanting to build up the courage to ask our boss for a raise, but we're not sure how to do it. It's sitting on this project, this creative project that we wanted to make progress on for such a long time, but we're just stuck and we're not taking the first step by just starting.

Those are the things that are on our mind. And so you don't have to have PTSD to take advantage of the benefits of walking and some of the things that EMDR has shown. Although if you do, you can go to their way. website EMDR organization and find a therapist in your area, you just have to have things that are weighing on you. And if things are weighing on you, walking seems to bring that perspective that a lot of people are looking for. And I just can't tell you how often, you know, I'm part of a men's group that meets most Thursdays in a year. And I've talked about on the podcast before.

And that men's group is called man morning. We call it man morning. And we meet on Thursday, so we call it man morning Thursday. On Thursday morning's group of my guys, we call it man morning. guy friends here in Los Angeles that I've been friends with for a long period of time. We get together at 7.30 a.m. and we go on a walk from 7.30 to 8.30 outside. I'm very blessed in Los Angeles. It's great weather. Pretty much year around. There's a lot of great hikes that are there. And the main thing is, is even though it's early, even though we all have busy lives and many of the guys have kids, we so look forward to that walk. We so look forward to that walk together. because when we all meet up together as a group and everybody's got to be on time,

somebody usually proposes a question of the day or it's an opportunity for all the guys in the group who are typically mentored a little bit more notorious for not always opening up about their feelings and what's going on in their mind and life, we start walking and whether it's a prompt question, you know, somebody has a question of the day they want to ask or whether it's just the group going around and sharing what they're celebrating and what they're navigating what's going well and what's kind of a little bit sticky in their life. Every time we leave, we feel so good. And you know, we've tried to have those conversations just sitting down in a cafe drinking coffee. It's not the same. Walking does something powerful. Walking,

especially with other people and getting a chance to talk about your problems or the things that are just weighing on you, even if there's not a direct answer. You know, actually in our men's group, One of the things that we're notorious about is like do not jump in and give an answer or try to fix somebody's problem, right? You know, it's funny because men often get stereotype as wanting to solve their partner's problem. Often in that case is, you know, it's a woman. And it's like, don't try to always solve your wife's problem. Just like, listen. You know, don't always try to solve your girlfriend's problem.

Just listen. And actually, I found that both men and women often will do this to each other because they want to be helpful. They want to be helpful. They want to say, hey, you should do this, you should do that. And a big part of our group that goes walking says, just listen to each other. Just listen because as you walk and you talk out what you're navigating, what you're celebrating, what's on your mind, what's weighing you. Just getting it out is the most important step. Honestly, what I do sometimes when I walk by myself during the week is I'll even just talk out loud.

Or I'll call a friend and I'll just say, hey, you know, here's what's going on with me. What's going on with you? You know, Steve Jobs was notorious. in both good and bad ways for whenever one of his designers or engineers was stuck on a problem in the early days of Apple, he would grab them and say, let's go on a walk. Let's go on a walk. And I want to help you think about and talk about the vision of what we're actually trying to build. And maybe we can get some perspective.

Think about that word. Walking gives you perspective. What is perspective? Perspective is actual perspective. It's seeing things in a different life. How do you see things in a different light? You see things in a different light. You start walking and you see a different scenery.

You see, if you have access to nature, you see other things besides your just computer screen. Nonetheless, for me, one of the biggest benefits, number one, that walking provides in my life is this sense of perspective, which translates into equanimity in my body. Okay, before we get into number two, a quick shout out to today's second sponsor, Pendulum. I want to talk to you about a groundbreaking flagship bacterial strain that's been linked in thousands of scientific publications from everything from weight loss and better blood sugar control to lowering overall levels of inflammation. So what's this strain called? It's called Acrimancy and it's made by the company Pendulum. So why the heck do we want Accomancy and what does it do for our overall gut? blood health and microbiome. So acrimansia feeds on our intestinal mucosal layer and modulates

its thickness. That's a good thing. In exchange for providing acrimancia with the house and food, it pays us back by producing short chain fatty acids like propionate and enabling other strains to produce puterate, which is super important for healing a leaky gut, supporting the immune system, and maintaining overall health. I first heard about acrimancia from my business partner, or Dr. Mark Hyman, when he got really sick a few years ago and his gut help took a turn for the worse. He said that building up his acrimancia was critical for helping him heal and support his overall gut restoration and getting his health back on track. Because acrimancia can only survive in an oxygen-free environment like your gut, it has been difficult for scientists to formulate

it into a probiotic until now. Pendulum is the first company to figure out how to harness the amazing benefits of acrimancia in a probiotic capsule, which is why I've been taking the probiotic daily ever since I got introduced to the company. Right now, if you're interested in Acrimancia, this flagship bacterial strain, Pendulum is offering my community 20% off your first purchase of their Pendulum Acrimancia probiotic supplement. All you have to do is go to their website pendulumlife.com. That's pendulum p-en-d-U-L-U-M-L-U-M-L-I-F-E dot com and use the code Drew 20 spelled D-H-R-U-20 for 20% off your first purchase. Number two, the next biggest thing that I get from walking. That is so key is walking

is walking improves metabolic health. Now, I could go on and on about the benefits of walking and well-being, but one of the main things that I want to talk about on the podcast today is walking after meals can be a game changer for your metabolic health, which is critical for living a long, happy, and healthy life, something that, by the way, we all deserve.

As I've shared in past newsletters that have written and podcasts, Sadly, 88% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy. Our Western diets and sedentary lifestyles, too much sitting, are largely to blame for this. Refined starch and sugar account for 42% of America's total energy intake, which mostly comes from refined grains, flowers, and sugars that we've been getting from processed and packaged foods. And these carbohydrates are quickly absorbed. sugar, refined flowers, even things like cassava, tapioca flour, all these things that a lot of wellness products are made out of, they're quickly absorbed and they turn into sugar inside the bloodstream,

which has a big impact on our blood sugar, which is why I'm such a big fan of CGMs and continuous glucose monitors, which is also why I invested in the company levels. If you don't know about levels, I'll put a link in the show notes so you can find out more about them. Now, our bodies can handle a blood sugar surge every now and then. That's why we have insulin to bring our levels back down. That's the role that insulin plays in our body. But eating them as a staple, refined carbs, a lot of sugar in our diet, eating dessert for breakfast, lunch, and dinner

because we have so much refined carbohydrates in our diet and so much sugar, eating that as a staple of our diets keeps our blood glucose and insulin too high too often, putting our metabolic health in serious danger. Almost every single major chronic disease that's out there today is rooted back in metabolic health. Before you develop cancer, in most cases, you know, less than 5% of cancers are purely genetic.

A bunch of TED talks on this, and Dr. William Lee has talked about this, but even things like cancer, they're rooted in metabolic health, not saying that it's completely or only linked to that, but it's a major portion of what's there. And other things as well, insulin resistance, which is a part of metabolic health,

comes from having out-of-wack blood sugar, can lead to chronic inflammation, accumulation of belly fat, and increased risk for chronic disease. So that's the bad news. The good news is walking after eating a carbohydrate-rich meal or drinking something sweet can significantly lower your blood,

glucose and insulin. Okay, you get it, but how does it work? So let's talk about the Coke experiment, Coca-Cola. My friends at levels that I mentioned before, levels the continuous glucose monitoring company, tested out the effects of a post-meal walk on the glucose response of a few of their employees. So here's how it went. Each participant, there was 11 total, drank an entire can of Coca-Cola, yes, Coca-Cola, 39 grams of sugar, no judgment, within an hour of waking up. So you wake up first thing in the morning and you drink a can of Coke, almost 40 grams of sugar. And then went for a walk immediately after. They walked anywhere between 30 minutes to two hours and measured their blood glucose response after using their

continuous glucose monitor for the second part of the experiment so that was the first part you wake up within an hour you drink a can of Coke and then you go on a walk the second part of the experiment the participants drank a can of Coke under the same conditions right fasting not having anything else on a different day but this time they didn't move they sat for two hours the result results were astonishing. Walking had a 20% less glucose impact than being sedentary. There's literally no drug that exists on the planet that would have had that same result on the body, by the way. So what's going on here for all this to take place? When you walk, your heart rate increases, your blood flow increases, and the delivery of glucose into

your muscle cells increases. your muscles act like a sponge, soaking up all the glucose in your bloodstream to power the movement that's happening and taking place while you walk. Plus, your insulin sensitivity increases, so you need less insulin to absorb all the glucose that's floating around in your body. And less insulin is almost always a good thing. Therefore, when you walk after eating or drinking something sweet or having a carbohydrate-rich meal, the potential blood glucose spike is significantly blunted, which is a good thing,

by the way. Just in case anybody was wondering, on top of that, increasing insulin sensitivity reduces the likelihood of becoming insulin resistant. It's important to mention that walking or doing any type of physical activity fasted doesn't provide the same blood glucose or insulin regulating benefits as going walking after you eat. Right? So just want to make sure everybody gets that. So walking is still always beneficial.

And you can do it any time of day that you want to. And you're still going to get benefits. But if we're talking specifically about impacting your blood glucose and keeping your blood sugar more stable on a regular basis, it's really about the power of walking after you eat, which is why my grandparents growing up, just like it was baked into their life. And that's how their parents did it and their grandparents did it. After dinner especially, they would go on a walk. And my grandmother, my dad's side, who was really into a lot of Aurevetic principles, she would go on to walk on a regular basis, like after lunch and dinner.

And it was always after meal. And I used to always feel like weird because my Indian grandparents are walking around the neighborhood and everybody's looking at us. Like we're some, you know, like, we're just like this big tribe, like walking around the neighborhood. Like, what is the whole family doing walking? Like, it's such a beautiful thing that I look back now, but it felt weird at the time because I'm like, why are we doing this? I just want to play video games or hang out with my friends. And I'm so glad that my grandparents did that for us back in the day.

And I really cherish those moments. And hats off to my dad, who's a grandfather now. I don't have kids, but my sisters have kids. And my dad will go on a walk around the neighborhood with my nephew and niece. And it's just such a beautiful activity to have. And rooted in a lot of the principles. in Ayurveda. You know, don't say stagnant after a meal, go on a short walk. Now, the question always becomes for a lot of people, how long do I have to wait to take my walk? So after we eat,

we enter the post-perennial period when our body is digesting, absorbing, and distributing nutrients to nourish and supply our tissues with fuel. How long the post-perennial period lasts depends on what we're eating, quickly absorbing or simple carbohydrates from refined flour, sugars, potatoes, fruit smoothies, for example, they raise our blood sugar pretty quickly and they have a shorter post-pronadial period where complex carbohydrates, fats, are absorbed more slowly and have a longer period. So why is this relevant? Why am I bringing this up in the podcast? Research shows that going for a walk can improve your blood, glucose, and insulin response any time during the post-pranidial period up to six hours after eating.

But the sweet spot seems to be around 30 to 45 minutes. I've linked to some of the research that we've pulled from, and you can find that in the show notes in the article that's referenced. Reference number 12 and reference number 13. Most of the research points towards 30 minutes when your blood sugar is rising, having the maximum blood glucose and insulin benefits. However, quickly absorbing carbs are going to be increasing your blood glucose almost instantaneously, so the sooner you can get moving, the better.

Honestly, when I go out to dinner with friends, and this was started by my buddy Mohit, Mohit Jane, who's a good buddy of ours and part of our men's group, he got a lot of our guys in the group who are friends and we'll meet up and spend time together. He got a lot of them used to the idea of like, we will all go out to a meal at like a nice restaurant here in L.A.,

and it'll be like right afterwards, especially if we've had dessert, we're just going to walk right away. And it's kind of like amazing, you know, to have a few couples all walking together walking around, you know, Brentwood or Santa Monica or Venice or whatever. It's like such a fun experience. So I'm not worried about the ideal time or when to do it.

I'll just go immediately walk right after the meal because I'm with other people. And it just is easier. It's easier to do it right after you do something else. If you wait and you spend another 30 minutes just sitting around and kind of doing something else, you're not going to end up walking. So the benefit is to just walk. So after you eat a meal, just getting in the half. of walking. Now, in terms of duration and intensity when it comes to the bigger picture of walking,

you don't have to be a marathon walker or a speedwalker to get the benefits of walking. Heck, you don't even have to get to like super high crazy step goals. Sometimes less is more. The study that came out of Duke University is a perfect example of this. Researchers measured oral glucose tolerance, which is how well your body responds to sugar. In pre-diabetics, following a weight loss protocol that consisted of either diet, exercise, or both for six months. The gold standard, so to speak, group followed a low-fat, yikes. That's what they were doing in the study, but obviously that's not what we really talk about on the podcast here. But they followed a low-fat, low-calorie diet and briskly walked 7.5 miles per week.

The other group did not follow a diet and either briskly walked 11.5 miles a week, 7.5 miles a week, or jogged 7.5 miles a week. The study found that people who walked 11.5 miles a week, that's just over 1.5 miles a day, had nearly the same blood sugar impact as the gold standard group that did walking and diet. The study findings suggest that moderate intensity exercise can have almost the same effect on blood sugar as dietary changes combined with exercise. And I'll just say that one more time because I know it's a lot of information. These studies suggest that moderate intensity exercise, when we're talking about walking specifically, right, I'm a huge fan of weight training, strength training. I'm definitely not the expert in those categories and I practice it in my life.

and I know how important it is for keeping muscle mass and improving longevity. And we've done different episodes on the podcast that we've had people talk about that. But specifically, we're talking about walking. So the study suggests that moderate intensity exercise when it comes to walking can have the same effect on blood sugar as dietary changes combined with exercising. What's even more interesting is that the 11.5 mile group had a better outcome than participants who jogged 7.5 miles per week. Now, this is one study, but it's interesting to follow along because, again, sometimes we think, I have to walk a ton. I have to walk miles and miles and miles and miles. And I think that that is great if we're going to do it.

But sometimes we set the standard so high instead of just practicing something normal into our schedule, which is what a lot of the blue zones do. They just walk as a part of their normal life, going uphill, downhill, grabbing food, going to the market, doing this, doing that. just something that's more regular that's manageable in our life seems to be a better fit because we're more likely to do it and we get that dose of that walking on a regular basis. So what's the takeaway? The takeaway is walking after a meal is a great habit to incorporate into your life and it's something that my wife and I try to do on a regular basis. We're not perfect about it. But after dinner, even just a short little walk after. after a meal can significantly improve our health.

Now, a lot of people ask, what if I don't have time for a 30-minute walk? Now, going for a 30-minute walk after you eat isn't always practical for everyone. If that's you, I have some good news. Short bouts of walking throughout the day offer the same or potentially even more benefits for your post-pranidial glucose and insulin levels.

Yes, you heard that correctly. A randomized control trial published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that regular activity breaks, which by the way, that's what the higher achievers do. Brisk walking, for example, for one minute and 40 seconds for a total of 30 minutes a day, resulted in significantly lower blood glucose and insulin

than prolonged sitting. And prolonged sitting, by the way, is people who sat for nine straight hours in the study. So think about that. So briskly walking for one minute and 40 seconds for a total of 30 minutes, day, if you don't have that 30 minutes after meal, still provided benefits to the folks and definitely was a better option than just sitting for a long period of time. So for one minute and 40

seconds, even if you can't get outside, just pacing in your room, pacing in your office, going back and forth. And you don't have to always do squats and things like that. But if you like to do squats, those are also helpful to engaging those big muscles. Just a quick, brisk walk. It's really about habit stacking. You know, we've had BJ Fogg on the podcast before, who's one of the world's experts from Stanford University talking about how to make a habit a regular thing. And his big thing is start with the habit you already have. So eating is typically a habit that people have. Stack a new habit on top of it walking. So even if you can't go for a 30 minute walk after a meal, right, that's not always possible. I definitely don't get that in on a regular basis.

I do work out. I do many other things, but I don't get that in on a regular basis. I don't get that in like five days out of the week. It might be more three after like a dinner, but it's definitely something that I try to incorporate. But just even quickly walking after your lunch meal, even quickly just pacing around the house briskly walking after a dinner meal, those still have those benefits. This shows that you can get the benefits of walking simply by breaking up long periods of sitting with a short, brisk walk. And by the way, sometimes I even do this when I take my meetings. I, you know, some of you ever us are on Zoom. I love the fact that so many of my Zoom meetings these days,

you don't have to have the video on. I think there's a video fatigue that's there. It takes a lot of energy. So I'll just listen. I'll just do a quick walk that's around there. And I encourage my team to do the same. So in summary, the goal is to incorporate movement throughout the day in whatever way works best for you.

And if you have time for a 30-minute walk, great. Especially after you eat. Awesome. If the meal you ate just contains quickly absorbing carbs, the sooner you can get moving, the better that you're going to be for your blood glucose. But the goal is not to go crazy walking after every single meal. The goal is to avoid being sedentary for long periods of time. That's what we're trying to avoid.

Sitting is okay, but we need to break it up by moving and standing on a regular basis. Carve out some time to go on a few postmeal walks throughout the week. If that's not possible, or if your schedule doesn't allow for that, just get up and walk around and a little short burst around your place or office or home. By the way, for people who feel like they've been sedentary for a really long period of time, and they're just super stationary, I want to share something very fascinating.

Even walking two hours a week of combined total time can significantly lower your risk of all-cause mortality compared to doing nothing at all. That doesn't mean you have to go for a two-hour walk. it means that just getting up to two hours total of walking in a week can reduce your risk of all cause mortality researchers led by Alpa Patel shot out to a fellow Indian over there strategic director of the cancer prevention study three for the american cancer society found that this was the case link in the show notes it's reference number 17 there's a really good

review paper that was published about the study on medical news today. And walkers had a lower risk of all cause mortality, which is huge, by the way. This is one of the reasons, again, that walking is one of the most underrated forms of movement. And when you honestly talk to people, especially as individuals get a little older, not that younger people don't have this problem too, but there's just less physical activity that's there. And walking is one way to just break. this up. Okay, I'm going to jump into now my four-step protocol this week where I talk about getting the most out of your walk. You don't need anything special for the protocol besides yourself and some comfortable walking shoes. So let's jive into the protocol. By the way, this has been taken from my

try-this newsletter, which is a weekly newsletter comes out on Friday. Every week I put together a step-by-step protocol to help you take your help to the next level. If you want to get these newsletters which come out every week. And I wrote about this one on walking a few weeks ago, like 10 weeks ago. If you want to get the latest one right away and see what I'm talking about what the latest research says, go to my website, drew proet.com and click on the tab that says try this newsletter and you can sign up for it. Step one of this week's protocol, break up prolonged sitting.

The best way to make a change is to start slow and to work your way up. Breaking up your day with the two minutes of brisk walking is something that anybody can do and make time for. I'm just happy that we live in a world where technology makes it easy for us to connect and work from about anywhere, but being sedentary for long periods of time, I'm guilty of that too, by the way.

I've got to push myself to get out of the chair definitely isn't doing our metabolic health or our mental health any favors. So we've got to work hard and kind of break up our routine. Our great-great-grandparents would be dumbfounded by how much we sit throughout the day and it's not our fault. That's the way that most of us work

and make a living these days, myself included, but our metabolic health doesn't have to take a back seat to the sedentary lifestyle. When you feel like you've been sitting for too long, get up and take a two-minute break and briskly walk wherever you can. Your home, your office. In total, if you took 15, two-minute breaks per day, that's 30 minutes of total walking, that would look like getting up every and moving,

that would look like getting up and moving every half hour, over an eight hour workday. If it makes it easier, set a timer on your phone to remind yourself because my meetings often occur in one hour chunks. I'll get up every 60 minutes or so and walk for about four to five minutes. Step number two in the protocol. As I mentioned before, take a walk around the block after dinner, whenever you can squeeze it in.

And even if it's a few nights a week that you and your partner, you if you live by yourself, call a friend up, make it a thing. I find it so much easier to walk when you are doing it with other people. And so I'll even have like a little bit of a walk and talk. I'll call a friend up. They'll go on a walk. I'll go on a walk and we'll make it a thing. So doing that after dinner is a powerful tool.

And some of the best conversations I've had with my wife and my friends and my family have been when we're walking outside. And you get all those benefits of getting, you know, the burdens that are on all of our shoulders from just living normal life, getting a little bit of perspective by walking outside. Step number three, the more advanced option. For those of you who are looking to take it to the next level, try incorporating a longer walk into your routine on a regular basis, at least once or twice a week. For me, a long walk is about 45 to 60 minutes. Sometimes I miss out on long walks because my schedule is too hectic,

but I do love going on these walks because there are a huge opportunity to get all the benefits of gratitude, practicing gratitude, mindfulness, nature bathing, and all those things that are there. Again, it's so much easy. if you do that with other individuals, which brings us to step four, put a walking group together.

My dad has one of these. My dad lives in San Diego, and he put a little walking group together in his neighborhood, a few other seniors that all wake up in the morning and they go on a walk together. It doesn't have to be crazy, and they walk for like 30, 40, 60 minutes.

It just depends on how much time availability people have these days. I have my man group. You can create your goddess group. You can create your man's group. You can create your, whatever group, and it makes a huge difference. And it's really an opportunity to get the benefits of walking and combine community together.

So those are the step-by-step protocol that I've put together to incorporate one of the most underrated areas into your schedule, which is walking. One of the most underrated areas of movement into your schedule, which is walking. and really for some of the simpler tools, like walking, like just simple things that make sleep a little bit better, hydration, which I've done a podcast before, an article. These things are so simple and they're so baked into who we are as human beings that they're easy to overlook because of our modern lifestyle. So they need a hype man.

So today I hope that I was the hype man. If you're not familiar what that is, it means the person to get you excited about somebody else or something else. I hope that I was walking's hype man. And I hope that even if you're somebody that is really fit and you work out on a regular basis and you've listened to this podcast, thank you, by the way,

you have incorporated and you understand the benefits of walking so that you can recommend it to your friends, your family. Maybe you have parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts who are not really moving on a regular basis. Maybe they could listen to this podcast and get excited about walking because I'm walking's hype man. So it's just good to know everything that's incorporating.

There's been a lot of attention post on steps and 10,000 steps and other stuff. And I'm grateful for that. I think sometimes it puts a lot of pressure to get those 10,000 steps in. And it limits the impact of just including walking on a regular basis. And it also doesn't highlight the fact that people don't know that walking kind of gives them perspective and reduces their stress levels. So I hope today you allowed me to be walking's hype man and that this podcast was useful. If you know somebody that can benefit from this, please share this podcast with them.

And I will see you back next week to talk about something new and interesting that you can do to take your health to the next level. Sign up for the try this newsletter, drewpro.com, and get our weekly protocol designed to take your health to the next level.