3 Simple Walking Hacks That Help Me Sustain 12% Body Fat.

Remember that sustenance is harder than achievement

Walking

***Non-members***

Do you want to know how simple walking hacks can help you get the 10% body fat? These science-backed methods aren’t just hype. They actually worked for me. I’m going to show you the exact 3 walking hacks I used, the science behind each one of them, and how you can easily apply them for faster fat loss.

But first, let’s talk about why walking is so important for getting lean. And no, it’s not just about burning more calories. Think back to our hunter-gatherer ancestors. One of the main ways that people died was from starvation. If someone was really inactive and underweight, they were at serious risk. So our bodies evolved a survival mechanism: When you stop moving and you don’t move enough, your hunger ramps up, pushing you to get food. It increases your food drive so that you eat and store extra fat for emergencies because after all, you can’t die from starvation if you’ve got extra body fat. But fast forward to today, food is absolutely everywhere, but our bodies haven’t yet caught up. If you’re not moving enough, your hunger signals get all out of whack. You end up feeling hungrier than you should even after eating.

There’s research to back this up. If you’re not getting 7,000–8,000 steps per day on average, you’ll find it much harder to stick to a reasonable amount of food compared to someone who’s just that little bit more active. But that’s not all. When you gain extra body fat, it messes with your hunger hormones, insulin and leptin, which are supposed to keep you full. Instead, they get all out of balance, making you feel even hungrier. Walking less creates this triple threat effect:

1. You Burn Fewer Calories.
2. You Stay Hungrier After Eating.
3. Your Satiety Signals Get Even Weaker As Your Body Fat Increases.

Let’s Understand This With An Example.

Let’s take two guys, Tom and Bill, both at 190 lbs and 30% body fat with absolutely identical genetics.

1. Tom decides that he wants to create a calorie deficit through diet alone and barely gets 4,000 - 5,000 steps a day.
2. Bill has been reading my articles and he decides that he wants to do 10,000 steps per day and create a calorie deficit through diet and exercise, not just diet alone.

Already, compared to Bill, Tom is going to be experiencing more hunger throughout the day because he’s getting less steps and based on those mechanisms I already explained, meaning he’s going to feel more like he’s on a diet, even though on paper, the calorie deficit is very similar.

Tom also has less room to be social with his food and limited with his food choices since his overall calorie intake is lower and he still needs to keep room to make sure he has enough protein so that he maintains muscle mass. So that means that he’s noticing that he has to be a lot more strict with his food choices and he feels like he’s being constantly reminded. After meals, Tom feels like he’s a little bit sluggish and crashes because he doesn’t implement hack number one.

Walking Hack #1: Postprandial Walk.

Research shows that even 15 minutes of walking after you eat a meal can have major benefits on allowing your blood sugar levels in that post-fed state. In fact, getting in 15 minutes after you eat has a greater effect on your post-meal blood sugar levels than getting in 45 minutes when done either in the morning or the evening.

Now, this controlling on blood sugar can potentially lead to more stable energy, better mental clarity, and less cravings, having a secondary effect on your ability to stick to the diet. Imagine you are tired, less focused, and craving sugary foods. It’s going to make sticking to that calorie deficit all that more difficult.

When losing fat, you want to stack the odds in your favour, not creating effort barriers and hoping that your willpower is somehow going to carry you through. Postprandial walks is something that I implemented when getting the 10% body fat. It’s really simple because you just stack the habits. When I eat, instead of checking emails or scrolling through the phone, I just step outside, even if it’s just for 15 minutes to get a walk in.

The cue to do the behavior is really clear. There’s zero ambiguity. Let’s say you have 15 minutes to eat; you still have 15 minutes to go and get some steps on a half-an-hour lunch break. And if you do this after breakfast and dinner, too, you now have racked up a couple of thousand of steps throughout the day. Which brings me to my next hack.

Walking Hack #2: Morning Walks.

Now, there are loads of videos online talking about how fasted walking burns more fat because you have no food in your system. And well, that is true. It doesn’t lead to better body fat loss. Walking fasted might make you feel like you’re burning more fat. And in the moment, technically you are, but your body balances fuel consumption and use across the whole day.

But the real magic in morning walks is the sunlight. Take Tom, for example. And remember, Tom is just focusing on creating the calorie deficit through eating less. He decides that in the morning he’s going to catch up on news and relax on the couch before he starts his working day. But Bill, whose goal is to get 10,000 steps, gets up, has his coffee, and heads out the front door. Walking outside in the morning exposes Bill to high levels of natural blue light, which helps regulate melatonin in the body. This is a hormone that influences your circadian rhythm. Do you know the way that we’re told not to look at screens late at night because it impacts your sleep. Some people even use those weird-looking orange glasses, myself included. Well, this is the exact reason we want to get light into our eyes in the morning.

Often when guys struggle to lose fat, their sleep routine absolutely sucks. They’re going to bed at random times, sleeping in at the weekend, waking up tired, and their body clock is all over the place. This can create something called social jet lag. That’s when your body clock and your alarm clock are completely out of sync.

The result is like flying back and forth across time zones every single week. And social jet lag is linked with metabolic issues, increased consumption of junk food, and higher levels of emotional eating. Tom really notices this, and he really struggles with the late night snacking more so than he used to, some days even eating his way out of that calorie deficit.

But there’s another reason to win the morning. Once the workday starts, life gets busy. Meetings, emails, family. And before you know it, it’s 07:00 PM and you still haven’t hit your steps. It’s easy to let your goals slip. That’s why a quick walk in the morning is so powerful. You get sunlight to set your body clock, you rack up your steps before the chaos hits, and you start your day with a win. It’s a small habit, but it makes everything so much easier.

So not only does Bill have more steps boxed off, but he now sleeps better, he feels more energetic overall, and by lunchtime, he feels like he’s in a good place with his goals with almost 6,000 steps knocked off while Tom has barely moved from his desk.

I found that waking up just 30 minutes earlier and getting straight to the door or onto the walking pad sets me up great for a day. No distractions, no emails, no lingering for breakfast, just a quick black coffee, and then I go out the door.

Sure, those extra 30 minutes that Tom gets under the covers feel amazing in the moment, and Bill is often envious. But if you want a healthy and lean physique, you have to master the art of delayed gratification. Bill sees this as another opportunity to build that skill. Waking up early to walk will never feel like it’s better in the moment than having a cozy lie-in. But here’s the truth: Living your life by chasing comfort from moment to moment is a fast track to a poor quality of life. It’s like investing. Putting in a little bit of effort now pays off big time later.

The real reward isn’t in the calories burned, but it’s starting your day with a win and building the discipline that leads to lasting results.

So the next time that you’re tempted to hit snooze, remember, comfort now means frustration later, but a little discomfort now, that is what sets you up for success in the long run. But here’s the problem. Even if you nail your post-meal walks and get outside in the morning, most of us still spend hours and hours sitting per day.

And research shows that long stretches sitting can mess with your blood sugar and hunger regulation. That is where the third hack comes in.

Walking Hack #3: Exercise Snacking.

It might sound like a gimmick, but just one to 2 minutes of brisk walking every hour or so can make a real difference, lowering your blood sugar and over the course of the day, adding 2,000 or even 3,000 extra steps without having to block out that extra time.

• It could be a lap around the office after a meeting,
• A brisk walk while grabbing a coffee,
• Or my all favourite, using the bathroom at the far end of the building.

These micro walks might seem so insignificant to matter, but they’re like compound interest for fat loss. 2 minutes here, 3 minutes there. By the end of the week, you’ll have banked thousands upon thousands of extra steps.

Each little exercise snack is like a little win that adds up. It keeps your energy up. It helps you break up the monotony of the day. And the best part, you don’t even have to overhaul your overall schedule. You just sprinkle in a little bit of movement wherever you can.

By the end of a 6-month period, just one week before their 47th birthday, both Tom and Bill felt like they put in a decent effort with their fat loss.

Tom’s Diet Only Achievement.

• With diet alone, Tom had to keep lowering his calories, lower and lower because he constantly overate during weekends.
• He found it really difficult to stick to his diet when he had client dinners or simply wanted to just enjoy a meal with his family.
• He wanted balance, but he found it really hard and was constantly thinking about food and always felt hungry.
• He lost a few pounds, but he will likely put that back on once he goes back to his normal way of eating.

Bill’s Diet + Exercise Achievement.

• Bill, on the other hand, who decided to create his calorie deficit through diet and exercise, still found it difficult at times, but he noticed it was much easier to stick to than his in his previous attempts of dieting.
• He had very few cravings, and he was able to fit a little bit of the foods that he enjoyed into his diet, and he was able to eat out as well from time to time without feeling like he was failing his diet and hit his calorie goal.
• He did eventually have to eat a little bit less and move a little bit more once the fat loss had plateaued, but he was motivated by consistent progress.
• By the end of the 6 months, he had lost 28lbs. He was significantly fitter and he had improved his sleep quality massively.

Final Thoughts.

Now, these are just fictional characters, of course, but these are scenarios that I see play out every single day. I can’t reiterate how important it is to have a higher activity level if you truly want to get lean. It’s not because it’s impossible just to get lean through diet alone, but because of those various biological processes that I talked about, it makes it so much more difficult.

I honestly don’t know any individual who is at a lean healthy body fat and is also considered sedentary. And that is why activity is so crucial and plays a massive part in terms of long term weight maintenance studies.

Now, if you’re reading this and you think, “I know all this already, but I just can’t seem to do it,” then read this article ***here*** where I cover the 3 core pillars required to improve longevity.

Thanks for reading my work. You can also support me by buying me a coffee so that I can keep providing you with scientific evidence-based Health & Nutrition related stories.