Walking every day makes you super fit, according to research. Journalist Lydia (50) therefore decided to walk for at least one hour a day for a month. This is what happened.
You read it more and more often:walking seems to be very healthy and very good for your mood. And I still like it. My boyfriend and I do a lot of walking on vacation. At temperatures where a normal person lies lazily on the beach, we drive ourselves up a mountain. It makes me feel great in a flow and my condition is improving. It always amazes me how fast that goes. And I don't gain an ounce, although I pay less attention to my food. So bring on the experiment of walking for at least an hour every day for a month. I'm curious if it helps me to maintain my weight, and if it does anything else for me.
The first week I put on my walking shoes exactly once. I live on the outskirts of Amsterdam, with a view of the polder. Very nice, but I don't have time to go outside until evening. And then it's dark and deserted and I don't really feel safe. So I better go during the day, I decide, but my work week is so busy that I can't do it anymore. I do slam the door of my workplace a few times at lunchtime to go for a walk in the center of Amsterdam, but I never manage to walk for a whole hour. Some extra motivation would be nice, so I contact Jurjen Kuijs of Health Improvement, the personal trainer with whom I have worked up a sweat to lose weight in recent months. As a sports fan, he will find my walking resolution dull and dusty, because walking is not a sport, is it?
“It is,” he corrects me immediately. He tells me about the exercise guideline of the Dutch Health Council:“The better you adhere to it, the greater the chance that you will grow old in a healthy way and live longer. It is recommended to exercise 150 minutes of moderate intensity per week. And that includes walking. Because that is super good for you:walking lowers the risk of chronic diseases, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. And just like other sports, it ensures lower blood pressure, better lung function, a fitter feeling and it is also good for your bone mass, cartilage and muscles. You even have a lower risk of breast and colorectal cancer if you exercise enough moderately.”
150 minutes of walking per week; that's two and a half hours. According to my pedometer, I have more than achieved that. “But it's about really walking, not about taking steps,” says Jurjen. “The indicator is that your heart rate is going up. You don't have to run very hard for this, but you do have to adopt a steady pace and maintain it. So no, that distance to the toilet does not count and neither does shopping. Moreover, you are still not quite there with walking:the aforementioned guideline recommends that you also do muscle-strengthening exercises, such as push-ups, twice a week.”
Even though I don't do the latter, Jurjen thinks I'm already on the right track with my hiking plans. Also because walking has not only physical, but also mental benefits. By walking you make more of the happiness hormone serotonin. It is not for nothing that it is recommended for stress, depression and burnout:it makes you more positive and energetic and you sleep even better. “By the way, this is not purely related to walking, but especially to the power of greenery,” says Jurjen. “A lot of research has been done on this:nature around you is good for you.” ah. So running on the treadmill has fewer benefits? “That's right,” confirms Jurjen, “and walking in the city too.”
Okay, so if I really want to get the most out of hiking, I have to go out into nature. My friend would like to come along, so I download a promising walk from Natuurmonumenten on Saturday morning. I found out that there are many hiking tips on the internet:at the ANWB for example, but also at the NS, where you don't have to think about transport anymore. And this is just a selection of the huge range; just google it. Our walk along the Ankeveense Plassen – more than eleven kilometers – is incredibly beautiful. And we are already at two and a half hours. I get a taste of it:at the end of the week the counter is at ten hours of walking. Instead of in the evening I now walk through nature behind my house during the day and enjoy the silence, the peace, the meadows and the birds. They are real zen moments. Now I was lucky that it was a bit quiet with work this week and I also had few appointments. Because all that walking turns out to be a big waste of my time. In week three I therefore decide to do it differently. I am going to use walking as a means of transport. Going from A to B and making kilometers:two birds with one stone. But that soon turns out to be less practical than I thought. Grocery shopping on foot is fun, but lugging heavy shopping bags around isn't ideal. And by walking back and forth to a friend, I have a lot less time to spend with her. On the way to my workplace I get on the tram halfway through, because I'm tired of all those stupid residential areas. Still, I have a blue circle on my pedometer almost every day—a sign that I've hit 10,000 steps, and I'm pretty proud of that. But to be honest:I actually only like the route to my nail technician, because I then walk through a great park. And the NS walk through the Kennermerduinen makes me so happy again with my friend. Walking in nature is a lot more fun than in the city.
Text Santé, Image Getty Images
What about those 10,000 steps? Why should you get that number? Is that based on scientific research? Not at all, Jurjen tells me:“It is a figment of a Japanese technology company, from 1965. It has since become established everywhere and it is of course a nice round number. But don't let it discourage you. Just keep an eye on the recommended 150 minutes per week. For many people, 10,000 steps are simply not realistic, they have no time for that at all.” In the meantime, I have maintained a good weight with all that walking. While I once went wild in a sushi restaurant and succumbed to a large piece of apple pie on a birthday. Jurjen:“A 70-kilo woman who walks five kilometers a day burns about 300 to 350 extra calories per day. If you do not also pay attention to your diet, you will not easily lose weight. I would therefore refrain from rewarding yourself with a bag of chips, but if you keep a little size, walking can certainly be supportive to maintain your weight. You can therefore still eat about 2,000 calories a week, and that is not nothing.” Walking gives me a powerful, positive mindset, I notice. So chips or other junk does not come in, I rather make a tasty salad to keep the healthy feeling that exercising in the open air gives me. But it's nice to know that I can be a little less strict on special occasions, without that eternal feeling of guilt or the thought 'that everything is lost after all.'
I am organizing week four of my walking challenge differently. What if I integrate walking into my daily activities? If I turn an appointment with a friend into a walking date, make that phone call while I'm taking a walk and don't reward myself with another Netflix series after a hard day at work, but go outside with a nice podcast on my headphones? I grab my diary and plan every walk neatly. The trip across the heath with a friend from Hilversum is so nice and cozy that we decide to do this more often. The carefully selected podcasts are so addictive that I actually go over my scheduled time. And then I also discovered Storytel, with thousands of audiobooks. But just when I think that nothing can disturb my walking pleasure, the rain comes pouring down from the sky for days and Netflix turns out to be very tempting again. Even the weekend walk with my boyfriend falls into the water because of this. And that's how my sporting challenge ends up lazily on the couch. But I learned a lot from it. I have discovered many health benefits of walking, in addition to the fact that the sport is free, you are not tied to fixed times and you can choose whether you do it together or alone. I can really only think of two drawbacks:it takes time and the weather doesn't always cooperate. On the other hand, half an hour a day is already healthy. And hey:there are raincoats and umbrellas. After this month I feel more energetic and fitter. My condition is better and I have maintained my weight. Finally, I have felt again how wonderful it is to be in nature – my boyfriend and I have to manage that long trip at the weekend, also a great way to discover the Netherlands – but I also know how to use my walks can be fun. So every reason to continue with it!
Read also:Exactly how many calories do you burn walking?
Photo:Getty ImagesSource:Santé March 2020
