A doctor says millions of people are failing to maximise the benefit of their daily exercise by ‘doing their 10,000 steps incorrectly’. Dr Elroy Aguiar last year published the results of a study in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports explaining what you should be doing to reduce your waist size, blood sugar, blood pressure and bad cholesterol.
Dr Aguiar told The Independent : “It’s the combination of quantity and quality that gives you the best benefit.” Dr Aguiar says that as well as increasing how much exercise you do, you need to increase the intensity.
So a slightly faster walking pace will have much more benefit.
Dr Aguiar suggests ‘accumulating a high volume of walking throughout the day, then focussing on doing at least 30 minutes of faster walking or jogging’.
And if you can’t manage 30 minutes, there is no need to worry. Dr Aguiar said: “Even something as little as one minute of high-intensity activity could be beneficial.”
Dr Aguiar said reducing fat stored around your waist and around your internal organs will significantly improve your health. He said: “By accumulating a higher volume and intensity of activity, you can reduce your weight and abdominal fat.”
And he said high-quality exercise will reduce your blood pressure within 15 to 20 minutes – with the result lasting up to 24 hours. And it can lower your blood sugar levels for 48 hours.
Dr Aguiar says those who struggle to find time to exercise can use ‘incidental movement’ – such as walking a little faster to get to your car, bus or train.
He said: “If you can focus on walking a little bit faster than you normally do, that’s going to be beneficial for a lot of these risk factors, especially the blood glucose and blood pressure side of things.”