Is 10min walk after a meal (popularised by Stan Efferding) help with digestion of food and improve blood sugar levels?
Based on Stan’s other claims, scientific training, and lack of consequences for what he says…what do you think?
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To me there is no logic to it, but I’m confused why so many people (ordinary and athlete’s) believe him. So just want to hear if you have any opinion on that.
Well, logic has nothing to do with it as most things we “deduce” via logic are partly or wholly wrong.
That said, I’m not confused why people believe him. He is a charismatic, jacked, strong, popular dude who is saying something that seems to make sense.
On the one hand, I am in favor of more activity for most people, especially conditioning for those who do none currently. However, suggesting there is magic in 10 minute walks is silly. Kind of like a cooler in a cooler, right?
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Yeah. I have seen some research that has shown lowering in blood sugar levels after a short post-meal walk. But the real question is of what compositional benefit does that give in a calorie/macro equated environment? I just don’t think there is any compositional benefits, aside from the ~30 calories burned of course.
People want to listen to Stan because they really want to believe that there is some easy magic cure all. The fitness industry has been praying on that desire for decades, and this is just yet another example of that. He is selling a crap ton of $100 diet ebooks because of it. It’s worth mentioning that Stan is a genetic freak that is very open about taking all the drugs, the people he chums around with are genetic freaks that take all the drugs, and the typical clientele he works with are genetic freaks who take all the drugs. Steak, rice, and 10 minute walks are not the reason for that groups gainzzz.
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Eh, the 30 min burned is easily accounted for by a decrease in RMR once adapted to. The short post meal walk actually doesn’t do any better than standing up for the same period of time in diabetics.
I agree.
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N=1, but I have T1D and I’ve tested carefully how my blood sugars react to activity after a meal. I can cut down my meal insulin by around 30-50% if I am able to walk for 10-15 minutes after a meal. Standing or sitting does not help at all.
Yea, but that is not a useful outcome.
May I ask why not?
I don’t have the medical knowledge about what different amounts of external insulin do to you, so I’d be happy to hear that it doesn’t really matter, as long as BW, waist measurement and BS-control is fine.
On the other hand I find it to be very useful that after training I don’t need apply my night insulin, thanks to better carb absorption (or whatever is the mechanism).
Also, if I apply the amount of insulin that would be enough to lower my sugars to normal level if combined with a walk, but I don’t take the walk, then I can’t function properly, because high BS makes we drowsy.
So this also makes me want to ask, what do you mean by “useful”?
Using less insulin in a well-controlled type 1 diabetic doesn’t improve the condition or symptoms associated with the pathology.
What about in regard to the digestive process?
What do you mean?
Does walking aid digestion?
If you mean the process of taking whole foods that are consumed and turning them into usable chemical energy, no.
What about the part of the process where food is being broken down and sent to the small intestine?
I’m not trying to be a smart ass here, but I do want you to think about this critically.
What specific parameter are you concerned about improving here?
If food leaves your stomach through the pyloric sphincter opening 10 minutes faster- does it matter?
I think that people have taken walks post meal for hundreds of years because they think it will improve their digestion or ease their symptoms of/prevent indegestion. I’m trying to ask if this is just a myth or beyond placebo, but the problem is my medical and anatomical knowledge completely sucks, so I really can’t ask a very specific, very intelligent question.
I don’t know. Perhaps? Perhaps simply speeding up that part of the digestive process means that indigestion is experienced a whole 10 minutes less, in which case “if it matters” is subjective to the individual experiencing the indigestion. The imagination of the layman is a thing that can run wild.
Is this true? I don’t know how far it goes back to be honest.
I’m just trying to get you to think about it a bit more and refine the question. So, what is “digestion” and similarly what is “indigestion” and what symptom(s) are we saying that walking would help with? That makes the question answerable or unanswerable, you know?
Yeah apparently. I don’t really know how far back it goes either lol, but it is true it’s at least hundreds years. The only reason I know anything is because of a diary written by a butler who served the first viscount of longueville of England (Ireland). In one of his entries he describes the viscount as being adamant about taking a walk after dinner for “gut health and uplifted spirit” and recounts insisting his reluctant family go with him, even in winter. I’m guessing there were others that did it as well, but who knows. Somebody probably
I do totally get what you’re saying and like of course, how can you answer something so general. I guess I was expecting you to be like “oh yeah this one study showed that food was broken down with fewer symptoms of indigestion” or something.
Does walking for 10 minutes improve acid reflux as a symptom of indegestion?
So, indigestion is not really a diagnosis- but dyspepsia (with a few refining diagnostic clarifications based on the cause).
If reflux is the cause of the dyspepsia, a 10 min walk after eating might help because someone is standing up straight instead of lying down, thereby making it harder for the contents of the stomach to leak into the esophagus.