There Are 4 Magical Things That Will Happen When You Start Walking One Hour A Day
by The Candidly Team
A wellness site telling you to “walk more” is the most boring cliché that has ever existed.
We know.
However.
Many of us behind the scenes were legitimately shamed into daily walking from THIS article. And we wrote it! The stats, both negative and positive, were astonishing, so we decided to put our money where our mouth is, and actually do it.
Yes. We are all walkers now.
Have we lost weight? Yes. Do we feel healthier? Yes. Are we in a better mood overall? Yes. Do we already feel our joint pain decreasing? Yes. But those aren’t even the 4 effects we’re referencing in the title of this article.
These are:
1. You won’t believe how well you will sleep
We break up our walks—45 minutes in the am, 45 minutes at night. It jumpstarts our day and wears us out in the evening. But when you walk—briskly—for at least an hour each day, you will be tired when your head hits the pillow. And, of course, we are always tired (aren’t we all always tired now?) but we also have a hard time falling (and staying) asleep. Once we started walking? We are out like a light within minutes of turning out the light. It truly feels like magic. For this side-effect alone, we are sticking to our daily walks. Forever.
Image from The Perfect Couple | Netflix
2. You can watch an hour more TV every day with zero guilt
If you have space for a treadmill? Get one. If you don’t, get THIS. You legitimately won’t believe how good it feels to watch Nicole Kidman’s extremely taut face in her latest half-trash murder mystery show, knowing you just:
reduced your risk of stroke
burned 400 calories
reduced your belly fat
improved your immune system
reduced stress
reduced your risk of heart disease (the number one killer of women by FAR)
It’s the most miraculous combination of guilt and productivity smashed into one hour, and it feels utterly sublime.
3. We know this sounds stupid, but please please trust us: Walking GIVES you energy
Ready for the most unrelatable thing you’ll read on the internet today? We gave up coffee. Please don’t X out of this article in a huff! We did it as sort of an experiment just to see how reliant we actually were on caffeine. And after 4 days of truly excruciating headaches, our hour-a-day walking commitment was literally all we needed to feel energized in the morning. Exercise means we create more mitochondria, and they create fuel from the glucose we eat. Ergo, more of them increase our energy supply. It’s science, guys!
Now we drink the errant coffee or tea or matcha when we want to. Not because we need to. We didn’t like tiny beans having power over us. Try it. You’ll be astounded.
4. We are brimming with self-worth because witnessing this newfound discipline gives us so much confidence that other areas of our lives are improving
When you realize you are someone who can decide to do something and actually do it, you realize that skill can be applied to any part of your life. Not only do we walk, we walk at 7 am. Yes it was born out of necessity because there was a frightening heat wave in California (where most of us live ), and it forced us to get up early before the sun became too aggressive. But now it’s balmy and mild and we’re still up at 6:30. Why? It feels powerful to do something that every cell in our bodies says we can’t do. And then we apply that discipline elsewhere. Like at restaurants with tiramisu. Like at parties with vats of dip. Like at stores when our closets are already full. Like with books we have “always wanted” to read. We realized that we will never be motivated to be the kind of people who rise at the crack of dawn to walk briskly for an hour.
We became those kind of people because we decided to.
So can you.
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