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Is Walking An Underrated Form of Exercise? (www.healthline.com)

submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

Yes

[–] BananaTrifleViolin 5 points 4 days ago (3 children)

I started doing 10,000 steps a day religiously about 6-7 months ago and I wish I'd done it sooner. It's been hugely beneficial to me personally.

I've found it something achievable I can do every day, regardless of how I'm feeling. Being consistent in exercise is a hugely beneciL and this is an achievable level of exercise that research shows has clear health benefits.

From a personal point of view, having a target to hit every day, and a reason to get out of the house ever say and walk has been very beneficial to me. Having a step counter and a clear goal every day has been satisfying and I feel a small sense of achievement each day when I hit the target. In addition I have found my mental health genuinely improved. On bad days, just getting out of the house and walking completely turns my mood round.

I personally would strongly recommend walking 10k steps a day. Even if you do vigorous exercise a few days a week, on your "off days" do 10k a day.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Do you use any of those apps that reward you for steps?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

I just let a phone pedometer run and have phone in pocket. not perfect and i think it records too many steps but it gives "good enough for me" ballpark estimate

But I guess it's not as much like that as I just try to add walking in to things like if I am thinking or I might pace around and read instead of sitting and reading like on a phone. If you can walk and do it, then I try to sometimes.

People could also get walking desks if they have a desk job and ability to make that work, so they could walk while working

[–] EncryptKeeper 1 points 3 days ago

Yeah 10,000 steps a day sounds like a whole lot of nothing… until you get a desk job.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

yeah it's been an interesting experiment here too

the consistency is underrated to me; sometimes if I'm stressed and try something with high intensity, I end up crashing (it does not simply relieve stress but adds to it and that ends in an overload) whereas walking is a kind of "active recovery" so it can be good whether stressed or not, consistently every day

[–] MrJameGumb 4 points 4 days ago

I love walking! I try to go on long walks (3-6 miles) 4 or 5 times a week! I started doing it seriously about 3 years ago when I was told my blood pressure was so high I might have a stroke... My doctor says my blood pressure is excellent, and I've lost about 70lbs since then! Aside from physical health it's also drastically improved my mental health, and now I start to get kind of cranky if I don't get to walk enough lol

[–] Zachariah 3 points 4 days ago

It’s not underrated by me.

[+] BenPranklin 0 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

[deleted]

[–] BananaTrifleViolin 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Let's say you go to the gym 3 days a week, as an example, what do you do on the other 4 days?

Many people think because they are active some of the time, they are therefore healthy. However the evidence with walking and 10k steps a day is that it's important to be active every day and it confers big health benefits. Consistently hitting a level of exercise every day is important.

So walking is not "instead of nothing". It's also part of a whole package of fitness. For less active people, it's achievable way to exercise every day. And for active people, it's something that can be done on the less intense days of exercise rather than being inactive and doing nothing.

[–] BenPranklin 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Let's say you go to the gym 3 days a week, as an example, what do you do on the other 4 days?

I walk 3-5 miles the same as I do on the days I go to the gym. I also sometimes run, and sometimes cycle on top of that. I worded it pretty poorly in my op. When i say walking should be considered bare minimum exercise I mean it's the baseline everyone should be doing no matter what. If you can do more, you definitely should. And not in lieu of walking, in addition to. If you're under the age of ~60 and don't have some kind of physical disability I just dont accept that walking 5 miles over the course of a day should be your only fitness goal. Its if course much better then nothing, but it should be considered foundational not aspirational.

[–] MrJameGumb 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Wow, that was an very long-winded way of saying you don't think walking is legitimate exercise because it doesn't require paying for a gym membership

[–] BenPranklin 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I already deleted it because i read it back and the way I worded it felt kind of douchey, but thats not what I meant. The problem I have is it often feels like the conversation around walking as an exercise only ever compares it to no exercise at all and neglects to mention that if you can do more strenuous exercise as well you really should. It could be swimming, running, biking, dancing, anything to elevate your heart rate. I know fairly healthy, relatively young people who think walking a couple of miles a day alone is everything you need to do for fitness when really its the bare minimum.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

I thought your comment was fine, I kinda shared your opinion a bit for a while... lately walking has seemed "more useful than I thought" though. I guess you could also add cardio / strength with adding weight to carry (rucking) or going faster and up hills (military has "marches" carrying some weight over distances).

I think personally I'm sifting some extremes at the present of in the past having tried to do intense exercise and then be sedentary a lot of the day, to trying to walk more throughout the day currently but with less intense exercise (or also without being sedentary), and this will probably resolve to trying to do both the walking as a foundation as I think you correctly identified it as being, and then with some higher intensity stuff on top of it