We Tried This Trendy Health Thing As Highly Skeptical Over-40 Women And It Was … Life-Altering
Hint: 10,000
by The Candidly Team
Every week, TikTok serves us a new viral health trend that feels like it’s going to save our literal lives. Some of them are good. Some of them are bad. And some of them are deeply, deeply weird.
But we tried one recently that has absolutely blown us away. It’s maybe the biggest hack we’ve had for our health in years. And it really, truly almost feels like we’re doing nothing.
Have we built it up enough? Alright then.
It’s a walking pad.
Before you laugh or yawn yourself into an odd-houred nap, allow us to make 3 rapid-fire pleas for your attention:
1. Sitting still is slowly killing us.
We don’t have time to sugarcoat it. Sitting contributes to almost every hazardous and potentially fatal aspect of health, which if you want to get really bummed out, you can learn more about HERE. Brisk walking does exactly the opposite. For a full list of life-lengthening health benefits, go HERE.
The basic point here is that when you use a walking pad at any point in your day when you would have been sitting, you are swapping out one of the absolute worst things for you for one of the literal best.
Some key highlights include:
Walking for 5 minutes every half hour could help offset some of the harm of sitting, according to research.
As little as 11 minutes a day of activity like brisk walking was enough to reduce risk of early death.
“An increase of 1,000 extra steps a day was associated with a 15% reduction in the risk of dying from any cause,” according to a 2023 study.
Walking at a brisk pace could shave 16 years off your biological age by the time you reach mid-life.
People who walked around 10k steps a day were 51% less likely to develop dementia.
People over 70 who walked about 4,500 steps a day lowered their risk of cardiovascular disease by 77%, and taking 500 more steps day lowered their cardiovascular disease by 14%.
Women who walked seven or more hours a week had a 14% lower risk of breast cancer
There’s a “statistically significant decrease in body fat percentage due to moderate intensity walking exercises” in post-menopausal women.
Short walks (even just a couple minutes) after eating can be help lower blood sugar levels.
2. You can use it while doing other things, yes, including work.
Ok, now for the big question, “will I even realistically use it or will I end up selling it for $27 to some college student on FB Marketplace who shows up in a Mini Cooper?” We were very hesitant to buy a walking pad for this exact reason, but as the days dragged on and we couldn’t seem to drag ourselves from our desks to take a single walk, much less reach 10k steps, we were still tempted by the notion that something had to be better than nothing.
So we sprung for THIS quite affordable version, and the very first day, we walked for a full hour at a moderate-to-brisk pace while typing out emails (at THIS also very cheap standing desk) and DID. NOT. EVEN. NOTICE. When we looked down at the time, we could scarcely believe an hour had passed.
This pattern made it very easy for us to aim for two hours of walking a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, though the way our energy comes and goes since we turned 40, we pretty much take advantage whenever we feel a blast of adrenaline hit, watching TV in the eve, getting an inexplicable spell of zoomies before bed. We just hop on, tap the clicker, start a show, playlist, or podcast, and let the steps roll in. And we feel flushed with pride and endorphins after each little stint.
And if you can’t imagine seriously working while being on the walking pad, we’re here to tell you that work is the perfect distraction from the fact that you’re exercising and fatiguing your body. As for stability, we typed this entire article while walking on ours.
Author’s work station just begging to be walked on.
3. It’s a small investment compared to other exercise accoutrements.
You can go with the gold standard, foldable model. She is quite desirable we must say. Or you can buy THIS affordable version that we have that’s easy to move around and gets the job done. The cost can range from $100 to $1000, but you’ll probably be spending less than what you would on a single night away for a life and health-changing thing you’ll likely use every day.
So now that we’ve so clearly convinced you, let’s talk about the options:
For the best of the best: The way you can just fold THIS one under your desk and roll up your desk chair. Bliss!
For affordability: THIS one is nice and quiet and lightweight and so easy to roll from TV to desk to under the bed.
For incline: THIS one lets you adjust the incline level with the click of a button to burn 3 times more calories.
For running: THIS one actually has an automated speed mode that will adjust as you pick up your pace or slow down.
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