Myth Buster - Should We Brisk Walk Before Or After Eating A Meal

While growing up, we all once in our life have become victims of commonly followed myths. One of the most common misconception is that of brisk walking immediately after meal helps burn calories. If you try to apply logic without really understanding how our body actually works it does make sense.

We believe if we do brisk walking after eating, it will help burn calories that we just accumulated. Unfortunately, our digestion process is a bit more complicated than that. For starters, the process for your food to get converted into calories is a really long process, and the process is called digestion. So ask yourself, will you be able to burn calories if you don’t let the food get digested completely. I bet all of you agree that the answer is NO.

Let us clear it for once and for all that do brisk walking after eating 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. During this time, our stomach and intestines require the maximum amount of blood supply to carry the digestion process smoothly. So, the concentration of blood supply needs to be solely directed towards your stomach and intestines. Between this processes, if we take part in any other vigorous activity as simple as walking, the blood circulation gets diverted and it compromises the blood flow to your core area. This hampers the digestive process, thus leading to variety of health complications.

One more thing to completely avoid is working out or brisk walk after dinner. It not only affects our digestion but also postpone our sleep time. Workouts are an effective way of busting stress. Working out leads to release of endorphins in our body which gets us highly elated and active which tends to delay our sleep cycle.

So the best advice is to go for a brisk walk or indulge in any form of workout half an hour prior to your meal. It takes a lot of energy from our body and leaves it with ample room for the energy to be restored after a sumptuous meal. This drastically reduces the chances of your food getting converted into fat as the food we consume is used by the body for energy. In simple terms, working out before meal amplifies your body’s metabolism which leads to better burn up of calories once we consume and digest our food.

Hence it is proved that in order to reap maximum benefits out of brisk walking, we need to plan it before our meal. However, you can indulge in some leisurely walk post meal just to get rid of the bloating feeling. You need to make sure that you go for a walk after a gap of 45 minutes.

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Whether you are trying to lose weight or making a shift towards a healthy life, understanding your BMI (Body Mass Index) is one of the first necessary steps you can make. The BMI calculator can indicate your body’s fat content based on your weight and height. Once you have a clear view of this, you can go through different health insurance plans on the PNB website and secure your future financially against the growing healthcare costs. 

Disclaimer: 
The aforesaid article presents the view of an independent writer who is an expert on financial and insurance matters. PNB MetLife India Insurance Co. Ltd. doesn’t influence or support views of the writer of the article in any way. The article is informative in nature and PNB MetLife and/ or the writer of the article shall not be responsible for any direct/ indirect loss or liability or medical complications incurred by the reader for taking any decisions based on the contents and information given in article. Please consult your financial advisor/ insurance advisor/ health advisor before making any decision.

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