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Hello and welcome to The Own Your Health podcast, I'm Cyndi Lynne, and I can't wait to help you step into your health power. Today we're going to talk about going for a walk the Italian way. It's called la passacciata. Passacciata - my Italian's not great, but that is the Italian word for a short, leisurely stroll that's typically taken after the evening meal.
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Now, what does this slow stroll have to do with owning your health? A lot, as it turns out. I'm going to share the three top benefits and then give you some ideas on how you can use this very old practice to improve your health. Now, we all know that walking is a good calorie burner, and it can help protect you from illnesses such as high blood pressure or heart disease.
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It's also an excellent way to relieve symptoms of anxiety, stress, depression, and it can help you sleep better at night. But what's so special about this walking after a meal? Well, first of all, walking aids in digestion.
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And this is because walking stimulates the muscles in your intestines and it helps speed up something called peristalsis, and that's the movement of food through your digestive tract. Now, a 2008 study showed that walking after a meal accelerated gastric emptying of the meal.
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Speeding up this movement of food can ease digestive complaints such as bloating, indigestion, GERD and acid reflux. In other words, this Italian after dinner walk can help you feel much more comfortable than you would just sitting on the couch after dinner.
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Now, number two, walking helps regulate blood sugar levels. So walking after lunch or dinner has another significant benefit. And that is it can help you avoid these big blood sugar spikes. Now, when we eat, our blood sugar naturally rises.
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These are our, blood glucose levels is another name for it. This blood sugar can remain in the bloodstream for hours. Over time, having a consistently high blood sugar can cause long term damage to many systems of the body.
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So reducing that blood sugar level is crucial for good health. And this is for everybody, not just folks who have diabetes, although it's great for them as well. So this lowering the blood sugar is where walking after dinner comes into play. By walking soon after a meal, that sugar in our blood moves into our muscles to be used as immediate fuel.
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Now, number three, this walk after dinner may help you maintain a healthy weight. Now, this is a great one if you're trying to lose weight or simply maintain your current weight. And it's not just because the walking burns calories.
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It's because walking after a meal can stimulate digestion and it can contribute to the feeling of greater satisfaction with your meals. This means that you can potentially eat a slightly smaller meal than usual. Go out for a walk soon after, and you should feel satisfied with less food.
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And that's a real easy boost for weight loss or weight maintenance. So how to do it like an Italian? First of all, walk slowly. Stroll. I'll say it again, walk slowly.
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Stroll. Here's the warning. If you walk like an American out for exercise, you'll likely end up with indigestion. So what's the difference to our body between a stroll and exercising?
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Basically, it's the amount of circulation blood allocated to the gut versus the periphery, our, arms and legs. In other words, when we eat, the body increases circulation to our whole digestive tract to process the food food it needs to digest.
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When we exercise, even at a brisk walk, the circulation shifts to our arms, our legs, our trunk. It goes out to the muscles away from our internal organs and our digestive tract. And then digestion slows or it stops.
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Ultimately, that's the exact opposite of what we want to happen with this after dinner walking practice. So I have two pieces of advice here, hopefully to make it a little bit easier. Firstly, start your walk around 10 to 15 minutes after finishing your meal.
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This might coincide with the amount of time it takes to actually clean up after dinner. Secondly, walk slowly. Think of strolling or meandering as you would if you were window shopping someplace new or browsing a gallery.
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This might take some practice, especially for those of us used to the hurry up pace of daily life. We can't look at this as something to just check off the list of our after dinner tasks. This is actually enjoyment for the process of it, the actual strolling.
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Now, by following these two guidelines, you should be able to enjoy the benefits of walking after a meal without any of the drawbacks. And finally, as a bonus, the Italians use this precious after dinner time to socialize. Now, if you can walk where you'll see others, pause to say hello or chat and then keep strolling.
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Research also shows that social interaction is critical to good health and long life. And your Italian after dinner walk certainly will help with that. So until next week, go take a walk and let's go out and own it.
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Now, if you like this episode, please share it with someone that you'd like to walk with. And as always, reach out with questions. I'm at [email protected] and there's a link in the show notes.
