15. ADHD, Walking, and Weight Loss

I think we all know that walking is good for you, but this week, I talk about walking in the context of weight loss and how weight loss,  ADHD, and the interconnection between all of them.

This week, I talk about 11 ways that walking can be beneficial for you: 

1. Increases your energy
2. Stress reduction
3. Amazing for your overall health
4. Better sleep 
5. Lower your blood sugar
6. Improves your mood
7. Burns calories
8. Beneficial for your nervous system
9. Better brain function
10. Helps with digestion
11. A good way to set and meet your goals for yourself 

• I recognize that walking is not for everyone due disabilities, chronic pain, or mental health attributes. 
• I acknowledge that walking is not necessarily for everybody and that there are other things you can do that would give you benefits like walking that might be more accessible to you. 

I'd love to hear from you! You can connect with me in the following ways:

Instagram: @jennwatts.adhd
Email: jennifer@jenniferwatts.ca

I'd love to know if there's something you want to hear more about or if you want to let me know about your own experiences with ADHD and weight loss.

Transcript

Hey everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm so glad that you're here. Today I'm gonna talk about walking and I think we all know that walking is good for you, but I, I wanna talk about it in the context of weight loss and how,  weight loss as well as ADHD and the sort of interconnection between all of them.

I've been,  I just love walking. Obviously if you follow me on Instagram, I'm in my stories. I'm always, I'm always out walking 'cause I really love it. And that's why I kinda wanna talk about it today.  But I do wanna say before I start talking about it, that one thing that kind of, maybe it bugs me, maybe bugs me is not the right word, but. 

So often people will say, well, just walk, walking is for everybody. And I just wanna specify that I am fully aware that walking is actually not for everybody.  I. If you're, you know, an able-bodied person, it might be totally fine to just say, yes, go walk. But there are people that walking is not accessible for maybe you are disabled, maybe you experience chronic pain.

You experience mental health attributes that might prevent. For you, like agoraphobia even other things like if you were in a larger body. And this, I I just wanna point this out too because I was talking to somebody in my DMs about this the other day, and I think it's so easily people in much larger bodies, it's, it just isn't recognized as much that like these movements that are ne people think are just so simple. 

Are not as simple for everybody. So I just wanna specify that because  it's easy to say walking is for everybody and it's not necessarily for everybody. So anybody who walking is not for ICU and I acknowledge you. And there are other things that you can do that would give benefits like walking that might be more accessible to you.

Like chair yoga always comes to mind because chair yoga is, even for able-bodied people is amazing. But,  I just wanted to say that  I, I, I see everybody else and when I talk about walking, I'm not saying walking is for everybody 'cause I fully acknowledge that it's not so, but for those of us who are fortunate enough to be able-bodied, it is such an excellent thing to take advantage of.

But it's not the only thing. It's not like the be-all end-all, but it is amazing. So let's get into it. I have a list of 11 things. 11 is such an awkward number. I wanted it to make it 10, but I didn't wanna leave anything out, but.  I have 11 ways that walking can be really beneficial for you, just your overall health, if you are somebody with ADHD and if you are somebody who is pursuing weight loss.

So let's get into it. Okay. Number one, it. Helps to increase your energy. So it kind of sounds like, it might feel like counterintuitive a little bit, but walking will increase like the oxygen flow in your body and that ends up increasing your energy. So it also increases epinephrine, which is like a neurotransmitter, I believe, but that's like, also like, I think it's.

Adrenaline. Right. And that increases your energy. So I know for me, like this just happened to me last week. I wasn't feeling great. I wasn't sure if I like caught.  There's so many colds going through our house right now. Like it's that time of year where it's like one cold starts and just when you think it's over, somebody else starts and then it's another cold and it's like perpetually in the house.

And going through each kid, never at the same time, but I was feeling like really low energy and just not great, and I hadn't been sleeping great. And.  I had also like kind of committed to myself that I wanted to get back to walking every day. 'cause I had missed several days and I really feel the difference when I don't do it.

So anyhow, when I was feeling this way, I was like, I feel so tired. I could just fall asleep, which is not as common for me, but I, rather than like having a coffee or something like that, I decided I'll just go and even if I can just do 10 minutes or something like that,  sure enough, I ended up going for like half an hour and I felt.

So much better afterwards. So it does sound counterintuitive, but when you're tired or you're feeling run down or whatever, going out for a walk can actually really help with your energy level. So anyhow, it is very, it's very good for your energy. Number two is stress reduction. It really helps with this and.

I did see, I saw a 2018 study that showed that just 10 minutes of walking lowers anxiety, lowers depression, and increases focus and creativity.  But I think that's something that we've probably.  Experienced before is just the stress reduction from and really any kind of exercise. But I feel like walking is really good for this because it's sort of low impact.

You can kind of start it from so many different places. You don't need like a piece of equipment for it or anything like that.  And it is because it is a form of exercise. It, it does release endorphins, and endorphins really help you to deal with pain and stress. So it does definitely help with that.

And stress reduction is so important. Well, for the, for with ADHD, we all know this, that we deal with overwhelm. We can get bogged down and stressed out so easily, and. That affects your cortisol levels as well, which we've touched on before. I don't wanna go down that rabbit hole again, but this can really impact you mentally and physically in terms of wanting to lose weight. 

And so any little thing that you could do. To turn the, the, the dial, I don't know, the direction of the graph, whatever, to, to get your level of stress going in the right direction is super, super helpful. So walking is great for this which hits on so many levels of, of like dealing with your ADHD symptoms, dealing with trying to reduce or to work towards weight loss and just your overall health.

It's amazing.  Okay. Number three is speaking of overall health.  Maybe that's why I said it 'cause I saw it on my list. That's the next one, is that walking is amazing for your overall physical health. So I think we know a lot of these things already, like it's great for your heart health which especially if you're getting, if you are in a lot, like if you have. 

Been overweight. You know, that like, these are things, I mean, we have to, everybody has to consider all of these things, but especially as we're getting older like paying attention to your heart health.  It's really important. And so walking is amazing for your heart health. It reduces the risk of chronic diseases.

It helps protect your bones and keep them strong, especially like your hips, your legs, your like your lower spine, which are, you know, really obviously. I mean, all your bones are important, but those ones are like really important. And it also helps to improve your immune response and. There is that, like, I didn't find a ton of research on this, but there has been some sort of indication that people with ADHD  have reduced immune system function.

Like when you're a kid, you're more prone to get colds. There's like some, some studies that show there's a higher incidence of asthma in kids with a DH ADHD. I don't know. But anyways, Irregardless, or, no, I can't say Irregardless. My sister's gonna get mad at me, she says. That's not a real word. I don't know. 

Anyways. Regardless,  not Irregardless anyways  it does improve your immune response, like your immune system function and your immune response and all that kind of things from from walking. So it's really great for that. But yes, so many areas of your overall physical health  can be like, greatly improved by walking. 

Number four is that you, you're gonna sleep better. And we know that sleep plays an important factor in how we feel on a day-to-day basis. How our, you know, how we, like, I find my ADHD symptoms.  When I am like not sleeping well, especially over a few days at least, my symptoms are so much stronger. And, and if you're not sleeping well, that affects your hunger hormones, which then affects your ability to work towards your weight loss goals.

So sleeping better. Anything you can do to sleep better is amazing. And another disclosure with this, as somebody with kids, I know that it can be like, almost like triggering to hear people talk about sleep when you have young kids. So this is just, I'm just talking about in terms of like getting to sleep and staying asleep where you can, obviously if you have young kids, you don't really have a lot of control over this, but walking does help the quality of your sleep. I'm not saying it's necessarily gonna affect the quantity, but it does affect the quality of your sleep. And Yeah, and that even got, kind of goes into what we talked about with stress reduction too, because like, it, it all, it's all kind of interconnected, right?

Because the stress contributes to poor sleep. And if you're reducing your stress because you're walking, you're also getting better sleep. Because of that aspect of it. So it does really all work together, but walking does help your sleep. Number five is that it helps to lower your blood sugar.  And I just also wanna say that like, the goal here is not like a flatlined, like you're not gonna have ups and downs with your blood sugar.

That's a normal part of life. But what it does do is that it helps to bring, you know, like lower your blood sugar overall, which is. A good thing. Walking after meals especially is really helpful for this, and I can attest to this especially because I had gestational diabetes in two of my three pregnancies and that was one of the things that they said could be really helpful was going for walks after meals which I did for as long as I could.

And especially if you experience insulin resistance. And for my girls out there with PCOS, which. It seems to me like there,  I've talked to a lot of people lately with PCOS  as well as ADHD, so I don't know, I don't know if there's a link there, but I do know that I, the people that I talk to  quite a few of them have PCOS.

So anyways you know, PCOS, people with PCOS tend to have the insulin resistance as well, and so.  Again, this is another area where it's all kind of connected, but anyways, walking does lower your blood sugar uh, which can just help you to, with yeah, your overall health obviously. So that's, yeah, that's a good point there. 

Number six is that it improves your mood. I. And I don't know,  we can really all benefit from this. Studies show that it reduces anxiety and depression. It boosts your self-esteem and it reduces symptoms of social withdrawal, which I found really interesting. But what, what it, it also like increases your serotonin, which is directly related to your mood.

And.  I like, I hesitate to say this part of it because  um, if somebody told me to do this, I'd be, I'd probably be mad. But  sometimes if you are in that point where you are  feeling stressed, you're frustrated, overwhelmed, any of those feelings where you might tend to go for food like go zone out in the pantry or something like that. 

Finding a way to maybe go for a quick walk instead can have the same benefits. But I don't wanna say that. I'm trying to tell you to switch out. Like when you feel that drive to go eat, just go for a walk. 'cause that's like super annoying. I know  if I was, you know, at that point where I was feeling that way and looking for relief in the pantry, if somebody said, just go for a walk, I'd be like really mad.

So.  I, to be clear, I am not telling you to do that instead, but it is something to consider. Like maybe you could preemptively decide that maybe like one time this week when I feel that way, I'm gonna try going for the walk instead. Because it does have those benefits of improving your mood and helping to alleviate some of those more,  you know, undesirable feelings.

I don't wanna say negative feelings, but.  Yeah, it does really help with this. And so especially if you're doing it on a consistent basis it sort of moves that baseline up when it comes to your mood, so very beneficial.  Okay. Number seven is burning calories. Of course, like not everybody is counting calories, but we do know physiologically we are all the same in that with, with few, with very few exceptions that you know.

Losing weight really does come down to energy, balance, calories in, calories out. You want to be burning more calories than you are taking in, and walking is a great way to burn extra calories. And the one reason why I think walking is so great for this as opposed to other forms of cardio, such as maybe like, you know more intense things is that I don't find, like walking is almost more. 

I feel like it's more towards the category of like neat, like non-exercise activity thermogenesis, like it is technically exercise, but what I mean by that is.  Unlike, something like intense exercise. I find when I am doing more intense exercise, I'm so hungry  and like that drives me to eat a lot more food.

And then I'm like, Ooh, is this like if I'm only doing this intense exercise for the purpose of like burning calories or like losing weight?  And it's instead like increasing my hunger. And then I feel like this constant desire, like this constant need to resist that hunger, it's not like super helpful overall.

Right? And so walking, like, because it's so low impact and not, you know, your heart rate is not crazy elevated. And it's, it's just more steady state, low level kind of, I find for me. It just doesn't spike my hunger like other activities might. And so you can do a lot of it and reap all of these benefits without having that excess hunger.

So,  you know, it is such a, just, just such a great method to do that, to help to increase the amount of energy that you're expending.  Okay. Number eight is that it is walking is really beneficial for your nervous system.  Which is I found super interesting. I found this quote from, her name is Dr. Melina Jamboulis.

She's a internist and a nutrition expert,  and she was saying that research shows that regular walking actually modifies your nervous system so much that you'll experience a decrease in anger and hostility.  I don't know about you. But I'll take it.  I,  I like, we have the, we have the emotional dysregulation, we get the mood swings, we get all of that stuff, right?

And so if something is gonna help your nervous system in such a way that it's gonna decrease your anger and hostility, yes, please sign me up. I want it.  So anyways, that, that just to me is, is so interesting. And like your nervous system. I mean, it affects so many things and, and our, it's, I mean, it's all tied together.

The brain, the nervous system, the all, all whatever.  Not a scientist, not a doctor. But I just found that really interesting especially when there's so much, I don't know, you find so much info these days with somatic work and like nervous system work and talking about fight, flight, freeze, fawn, all of that stuff.

So that's, you know, that all part of the nervous system. So.  If we could help to regulate that, that is great. Okay. Number nine is brain function. And this for all of our US as ADHDers is like incredible benefit. So I mean. One of the things that it does is that walking enhances your creativity. Like I know I get some of my best ideas when I'm out walking, even when I'm listening to a podcast or something like that, which often I'm often, I'm like listening to a podcast and not, no knock on the podcast, but I'll start thinking about something else and then I'll have great ideas and then I'll, all of a sudden I like kind of come back to earth and realize like.

I've listened to like 15 minutes of this podcast and I have no idea what they said. So the times like that, I might be better off listening to music or some people say like, just don't listen to anything at all. But  either way, like walking will really enhance your creativity.  And I have found that to be true for sure.

One of the reasons why it's really great for your brain function is that it increases the blood flow to the brain, and then your brain can develop and create new neurons from that. So it ends up improving your cognitive function, which we all can really benefit from, and that's things like memory, problem-solving skills, reasoning, and attention.

Our favorite.  And of course, like it increases dopamine, which we've gone over dopamine so much in previous episodes especially as it relates to movement. So I'm not gonna dive into that, but just walking is great for our brain function which we can always, you know, reap the benefits of as people with a DHD. 

And number 10 is that it helps with your digestion, which you might think like, what does that have to do with anything? But when you have ADHD, you actually have an increased risk of like gastrointestinal issues, things like IBS,  that type of stuff. And so anything that you can do to help. Your digestion is great and this can, I don't know, like there's so much talk these days about gut health and a lot of it is really just new research.

There's so much that's not known about it. And you, you will see some stuff out there.  I don't wanna dive into about you know, whether that has anything to do with people carrying excess weight on their bodies, or if improving your gut health indeed improves your ability to lose weight. There's just too much out there for me to like comfortably, you know, rely on that information, but.

I don't think there's anything like negative to say about finding ways to help your digestion which can help everybody. And so walking does do that for us, which is, which is a great thing.  And then number 11, the last thing I wanna say  is that it is a really good way to set and meet goals for yourself. 

And this, I mean, this does kind of tie it all together, and this is not specifically the walking itself, but I,  walking is such a great way to, or a great tool, I guess you could say, to start out with making small commitments to yourself and following through on them.  So. I know for myself when, even when I've gone through periods where I am struggling and I don't really want to focus on nutrition, I don't wanna care about any of the other things that go into, you know, trying to lose weight. 

If I can say, you know what, I'm just gonna make sure that I walk three times this week, and it doesn't have to be for a long time, but.  When you haven't done these kind of things for yourself in a long time and you've just been sort of living reactively, if you can say, you know, make these small commitments to yourself and follow through with them. 

It has such a ripple effect. It's like this, the beginning sort of snowball rolling down the hill because that follow through really generates the kind of, you know, energy and like sort of motivation, which we talked about last week about, you know, getting, like following through on yourself and starting to develop this self-trust.

And knowing that, you know, Hey, I actually can't do this stuff. Like, I can do it. And so what I don't know, I just find that walking is such a like entry-level, easy sort of starting point for that kind of stuff as opposed to saying, I am going to, you know, eat, you know, I don't know. Like it is just an easy spot to start with that and really start to reward yourself with like, following through on these commitments and, and proving to yourself that you can totally do it. 

Because I know you can. Of course. Yeah, so that's the 11 points that I had with regards to walking. But I just really wanna stress that all of these pieces are kind of connected to one another in terms of, you know, driving your success towards weight loss. And it's such a great tool for that i, you know, when I think back on my life, 

I know after I had my son, my first born I used to take, he was a really cranky baby, and he had like, didn't even know, like the, I did not know babies were like this, but he cried all the time. He was very colicky. Didn't even know what that word meant until I had my son. And one of the only ways I could calm him down was to walk and he had to be forward facing so that he could see what was going on and he would just like look around and absorb everything.

And he was, he liked it. And as long as he was in motion and could see different things, he was calm. And I used to walk and walk and walk and walk with him.  And it was, those are some of the best times. And I can now, I can see in retrospect how much that helped me.  You know, I was undiagnosed at the time.

But it really helped me to kind of calm down and, and it was a good outlet for stress relief and I really looked forward to all those times, well,  for a number of reasons, but because he wasn't screaming, but also because like, just getting that physical movement and all of the things that we just talked about,  

it was really great. And so I, I truly believe that walking is, is, is incredible for so many reasons, but especially for managing our ADHD and. Working towards our weight loss goals. So if you wanna start doing this, you really can start small. And even for my ladies in much larger bodies, like I talked about at the beginning, it can be as simple as like walking down the street if that's accessible for you to just walk down to the end of the block and back.

That's where I started. I remember when I first when I was at my heaviest  I just walked down. To the end of my street and back, and I was exhausted.  And yeah, it just kept, you know, adding on a little bit of distance each time. But that's what I mean. You can, you really can start small and there are a vast array of ways that you can improve on that.

You can go for longer distances. Eventually you can start to slowly increase your speed. When you get really like into it, you can start adding weight. Like a lot of people have those weight weighted vests. And something else I've learned about recently, which I think is super cool, is called Rucking, which is, you know, walking with weighted back weights in a backpack, which is very cool and apparently amazing for women.

I. For women's health. Yeah, or you can start going onto different terrains, you know, like, I guess that would be more technically hiking. But anyhow, just to say that there are lots of ways to improve it. So  get out there, give it a go if you're able to. Walking is amazing. Even better when you're out in nature. 

I love it so much and I hope you will give it a go as well and it will help you towards your goals. So that's what I've got for today. I look forward to talking with you all next week. Bye.