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Hey everyone, it's Mikki here. You're listening to Mini Mikkipedia on a Monday. And today I want to chat about one of my favorite topics, walking. So first up, I want to discuss walking in a couple of different contexts because I think that it's important to look more broadly at exercise, not just from a fat loss perspective, not just from a health perspective, but just looking at sort of variations of how you might recommend someone.

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go about their plan around walking. I guess that's a good way to sort of put it. You guys know I'm a huge fan of activity in general and it was interesting actually, a few weeks ago, it blew up on the internet that Dr. Gabrielle Lyon suggested that walking in itself was an exercise. And as per usual, it came out of a clip of a podcast she did with I think Jocko and.

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As per usual, I think it was taken out of context because a lot of the criticism around her saying that was this idea that of course walking counts as exercise and don't go be dismissive of people who use exercise as their walking activity if it's all they can do. It is amazing and basically don't throw shade on that group of people. However, I went and I listened to the interview actually and as per...

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expected because I did expect this was the case. What Dr. Lyon actually said was walking in itself isn't exercise, the way that resistance training is exercise. And whilst her and Jocko, I think it was Jocko, agreed that walking was a great place for someone to start, it shouldn't really be the place that they finish in that it's not the place that they stay.

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increase your non-exercise activity. So the amount of activity you do in everyday life outside of structured exercise. Walking is great for blood flow, it is great for increasing energy expenditure. It certainly has a place in a fat loss plan outside of structured exercise. And I say this because so often people who embark on fat loss or not

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but just do their usual activity. They're up in the morning, they're at F45, they are doing their swim. But then outside of that active session, even if they do a couple of doubles, which I know plenty of endurance athletes do this, they aren't really active for the rest of the day. And that in itself has been associated with poor health outcomes, the prolonged sedentary behavior. And if you think about our

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lives right for example today I went out for a run was about 15k I did about 15,000 steps that in itself would be plenty on a day that I didn't run like that is me absolutely over achieving on my steps it would have meant that I had been completely deliberate about going for walks around the block making sure I was active most hours and I didn't spend too much time sitting down however if I just do that

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15K in an hour and a half run, then it does mean that for the rest of the day, I'm most likely sitting down for a large number of those hours. So I came back from my run this morning, had a couple of client calls, then I had breakfast, then I did some podcast work, answered some emails, and that was about four or five hours while I was really just sitting down. And that's the kind of prolonged sedentary behavior that walking protects you against.

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It also has implications for your overall energy expenditure. So if you are someone who is interested in improving body composition, you're in a calorie deficit, you're trying to lose body fat, you absolutely need to increase the amount of energy that you expend in a day to help with that calorie deficit. And when you are dieting,

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you naturally want to be a little bit lazier because your body does go into a little bit of a conservation mode where it'll try and save as much energy as possible. And it doesn't, this is not even something you're necessarily cognizant of, but you just feel a bit lazier. You can end up doing less because there are less calories going in. And so this conservation mode that your body is trying to fight against or is trying to hold on to is the thing that's preventing you from

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being motivated to be more active. And that's another reason why walking and making a deliberate decision to get up and be active during the day is super important. I often recommend that clients, and these are people who are otherwise active or, and I'll get to the more century people in a minute actually, but with those people, I would say that outside of your activity, try to aim for about 7,000 steps. Now look, if you're out,

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on the weekend doing like a long training run, you know, three, four, five hours in the mountains, or you're on your bike for six hours or whatever. Sure, do not worry about the number of steps you take on that day. But that is a minority of the population. So that's not really who I'm talking to for those specific people on those specific days. And absolutely, if we look at someone who commutes using their bike as opposed to walking,

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then that commute time is definitely going to transfer and have the same benefit as that low level sort of walking will. So I'm not suggesting that your commute to work isn't nearly as beneficial as going for a walk is, but just have a think about how active you actually are in everyday life. You could even do a little audit or a little tally to figure out whether or not most of your steps come in your activity or whether you're getting adequate steps across the day.

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So outside of your activity, I do suggest around 7,000. I don't think you have to go balls to the wall and aim for like 20,000 steps a day or anything like that. But I also know there are people who absolutely get that no problems at all given the nature of their jobs. So it's by no means a bad thing, but if you're struggling to get your steps in, even starting at that sort of 7,000 is probably a good place to aim. Now,

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If I think about walking for cardiovascular disease perspective, I think this is super interesting actually. So I was looking at a study that was recently published and reported on. And it was a study looking at the impact of physical activity and the number of steps it takes to be protective from a cardiovascular disease risk factor. And what I will also state from a cardiovascular or a disease risk perspective is that,

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Leading a sedentary lifestyle, which is actually defined as taking fewer than 5,000 steps per day, is significantly associated with an increased risk of mortality from various causes, including CVD, cancer, plus also a higher risk of type 2 diabetes. And some people actually call sedentary behaviour a disease itself.

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of the population in the Western world and is more pronounced among women compared to men and also in high income countries compared to low income countries, which isn't surprising given the lifestyles that we lead. There have been studies looking at step counts and overall mortality and morbidity and there are recommendations, for example, from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC.

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of about 10,000 steps per day. In fact, though, even before the pandemic, which really amplified the problem with sedentary behavior, step counts in countries like the States, the UK and China were well below the recommendation of 10,000 steps. There is research showing that the number of daily steps actually can matter more than the intensity of exercise when it comes to all-cause mortality. And a higher step count is associated with a lower all-cause mortality,

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death from all causes. But the intensity of the steps didn't really impact that relationship. So when they look at studies that measure steps and look at all cause mortality and those diseases which I was talking about, there's this one that I'm looking at now, this meta-analysis, which actually looked at 17 cohort studies, which equates to almost or over

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220,000 individuals, which were followed up for around seven years. With 10 of these studies reported all-cause mortality and 4 focused on cardiovascular disease mortality. And so they looked at the number of steps equated to a lower all-cause mortality and a lower cardiovascular disease mortality. What they found was that a 1,000-step increment correlated with 15% reduction in all-cause

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in a 500 step increment was linked to a 7% reduction in the risk of cardiovascular mortality, which might not really sound like a lot, but actually on a population level these are pretty significant numbers and indeed this was found to be significant in this model. And what the researchers were able to do across these studies was look at defined targets for step count.

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what the relationship was between them. And they found that even from going from very sedentary to just 3,867 steps a day, so pretty inactive, you did get this incremental decrease in your overall disease risk state. This subsequently increased as they went up by either 1,000 or 500 steps. So their cutoffs they used was 3,867 steps,

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5,537 steps, 7,370 steps, and 7,000 is often the sort of minimum step threshold given for fat loss and as I was talking about earlier. And then there was also even more risk reduction when you were able to hit 11,529 steps. So across these four different steps, if you like,

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there was a strong risk reduction in both all-cause mortality and cardiovascular disease mortality. And they actually had, in this meta-analysis, and I'll include it in the show notes, there was, they included studies that looked at people who did over 20,000 steps a day. So they certainly looked sort of across the board. So I guess the major take home from a study like this really is that even slightly increasing your steps.

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can have quite a profound impact on your cardiovascular disease risk and your risk from death from all causes. So do take heart in that. Like if there's no way that your work and lifestyle at the moment can allow you to jump from about three and a half thousand steps a day to 11,000 steps a day, know that even trying to bump that up by 1500 or even 2000,

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will actually give you significant benefits in the long term with regards to your cardiovascular disease and all cause mortality risk. And of course, if you were already at 5,000, then even going up to that sort of 7,370 is their cutoff, but you know, over 7,000 steps, you'll continue to see a benefit with regards to those health outcomes.

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an increased benefit with regards to the outcomes they were looking at, which was that all-cause mortality and reduced cardiovascular disease mortality. One other thing I will add to the overall sort of walking, benefits of walking is, well walking is great actually and it's great for so many reasons. It's great for the benefits on energy expenditure. It's a great thing for your central nervous system. Just even leisure walking is fantastic to help.

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with anyone who struggles with anxiety or has a lot of stress and they need to alleviate stress walking is fantastic, particularly walking in nature. This isn't just my opinion by the way, research shows us this, but it's also a great way to reduce your risk of all cause mortality and cardiovascular disease mortality and it doesn't really cost anything. So if you are lucky enough to be able to walk, then I would try to make time for that if you are currently not doing so.

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someone did ask whether was it the day-to-day step count that mattered or is it a little bit like you have a step budget per week and as long as you hit those steps that's what really matters. And what I do think is that from a weight loss perspective I think the overall budget matters. So you can still see significant benefit if you are able to get in longer walks in the weekend but you have to cut it a little bit short throughout the week. I think that's okay.

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And I think that's what the research shows us in fact. However, from the benefit of not being physically inactive, I think trying to maintain some sort of baseline step count, even if it is that 5,000 steps throughout the week, I think that would also be beneficial. And even if you did it, so you were getting up multiple times per day to get your steps in, I mean, that's a great way to try and fit them in, right? I would be remiss of me not to mention, however, that a few weeks ago, a study came out

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that showed that doing 10 squats every 45 minutes was as effective as going for a 10 minute walk on that post-prandial blood sugar, which is blood sugar levels after a meal. And we know how intricately tied to overall health blood sugar is. So if you can't get out and walk, you probably can get up and do 10 squats, right? That's not necessarily the hardest thing for someone to do. And look.

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You know I'm being general here. There will be someone listening to this who, where it literally is impossible to do that, but I'm not talking to that person. I'm talking to the majority of us who just have to have it in their head that they wanna do it and just have to prioritize that activity. So that's who I'm really speaking to here. So in summary, if fat loss is your goal, aim for 7,000 steps outside of that activity that you're already doing. Regardless of your goal, even...

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shifting from three and a half thousand steps to five and a half thousand steps to seven and a half thousand steps and even up to eleven and a half thousand steps, you're going to see an incremental benefit with regards to your overall all-cause mortality and cardiovascular disease mortality. Every little bit counts. And finally, if literally you do not have time to be able to go for a walk during the day.

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Do you have time to do 10 squats every 45 minutes? Because there are also significant health benefits from doing that. Anyway, food for thought, I hope that you at least got something from this that you can take heart in, or you can work towards, because that's also a really good thing as well. And I'll include the studies that I used that informed my opinion in the show notes, just in case you're interested. However, I'd love to chat to you about this, so why don't you head on?

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over to Instagram, threads or Twitter @mikkiwilliden, Facebook @mikkiwillidenNutrition, or head to my website, mikkiwilliden.com and send me an inquiry through there. All right, team, have the best week. See you later.