How long should you wait to walk after eating? (2023)

Is it OK to walk immediately after eating?

Research suggests that a short walk after eating helps manage a person's blood glucose, or blood sugar, levels. Moderate daily exercise can also reduce gas and bloating, improve sleep, and boost heart health. However, there are potential downsides to walking after eating. These include indigestion and stomach pain.

Let us clear it for once and for all that brisk walking after meal is a bad idea. It can lead to acid reflex, indigestion & stomach upset. The science is very simple – after a meal, our digestion process is all set to get to work. During digestion, our body releases digestive juices into our stomach and intestines.

For people who do not experience abdominal pain, fatigue, or other discomfort when walking just after a meal, walking at a brisk speed for 30 minutes as soon as possible just after lunch and dinner leads to more weight loss than does walking for 30 minutes beginning one hour after a meal has been consumed.

“Twenty minutes of self-paced walking done shortly after meal consumption can result in lower plasma glucose levels at the end of the exercise,” reads the study.

Experts believe that walking at least 100 steps after eating your dinner improves your overall wellbeing. This includes proper digestion, burning calories, better control of blood sugar levels and triglycerides in the body.

Physical activity also stimulates your metabolism, which burns energy and calories. According to a 2006 study published in Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism, people who walked prior to putting any food in their stomachs and walked hard enough to perspire burned more fat than those who walked after eating.

Her research has found that a post-meal walk is much more effective than a pre-meal walk for controlling blood sugar. More research has found that walking helps speed up the time it takes food to move from the stomach into the small intestines. This could help improve satiety after eating.

A. Early mornings are best for walking. 5 AM to 7 AM is the best time for any exercise, including walking.

One of the most effective ways to reduce belly fat is to regularly take part in aerobic exercise, such as walking ( 19 , 20 ). In one small study, women with obesity who walked for 50–70 minutes three times per week for 12 weeks, on average, reduced their waist circumference and their body fat.

Does walking after dinner reduce belly fat?

Walking boosts your metabolism, which means that you burn more calories, stay in great shape, and even burn calories while resting. This means it gets easier to burn that stubborn belly fat, and you can get rid of that unwanted body fat as well. So yes, walking after dinner for weight loss works.

Turns out, walking shortly after a meal can speed up your metabolism, aid digestion, and help you lose weight.

Your post-meal walking intensity should be low to moderate to avoid getting an upset stomach. A brisk walk at a speed of 3 miles (5 km) per hour is appropriate.

Good news: Two new studies found that exercising 30 minutes a day reduces your risk of diabetes by 25 percent, and walking for 10 minutes after meals lowers your blood sugar by 22 percent.

Each increase of 1,000 steps a day was associated with a 28 percent decrease in death. The health benefits, which plateaued around 4,500 daily steps, were similar among people who walked in short bursts and those who took longer, uninterrupted walks.

This type of walk will cover at least one mile and add 2000 to 3000 steps to your daily step count. It will burn 70 to 100 calories, depending on your weight. A large study showed that a brisk 20-minute walk each day could reduce the risk of early death by as much as 30%.

Even taking a quick walk may help you perk up and refocus. One preliminary paper from 2018 found that your body naturally burns about 10% more calories in the late afternoon, compared to the early morning and late night.

An average person has a stride length of approximately 2.1 to 2.5 feet. That means that it takes over 2,000 steps to walk one mile and 10,000 steps would be almost 5 miles.

Researchers studying older adults with pre-diabetes found that 15 minutes of easy-to-moderate exercise after every meal curbed risky blood sugar spikes all day.

During this time, overstuffed guests might engage in conversation, watch TV and fall into a food coma, or perhaps the more intrepid might venture outdoors—maybe for a "post-meal walk," or a "postprandial walk." (Prandial is an adjective meaning "of or relating to a meal.")

What should you not do immediately after eating?

Walking is a much advised option too. A brisk walk after a meal can massively aid digestion and reduce the symptoms of heartburn or acid reflux from presenting later in the evening.

Turns out, walking shortly after a meal can speed up your metabolism, aid digestion, and help you lose weight.

Light exercise after you eat a meal—like a short walk, between two and five minutes—can help lower blood sugar, a new study found. Frequent spikes in blood sugar after you eat a meal can cause the body to produce more insulin, which over time may increase your risk of developing prediabetes or type 2 diabetes.

Drinking water after your meal should be avoided at all costs. Water diminishes the digestive fire as it acts as a coolant that can interrupt the digestive process. It also dilutes the digestive juices. Once you are done with your meal, wait for at least 30 minutes before sipping on some water.