Any movement that gets your heart rate up has some beneficial effects not only on cholesterol but also on blood pressure.
Walking at a steady pace will satisfy both requirements. And it’s an easy exercise to do throughout the day. Research shows that regular, moderate-intensity walking can reduce the risk of high cholesterol to the same extent as running at a brisk pace.
You should aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise each week to help lower low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, or “bad” cholesterol, and reduce high blood pressure. If you can increase that to 200 minutes a week, your health benefits will increase.
If that sounds like a lot, remember that it only breaks down to half an hour five days a week, or a little over 20 minutes a day, and you don’t have to do it all at once. It all adds up quickly.
How to Walk Better to Lower Cholesterol?
1. Make Walking a Habit
Getting at least 150 minutes of exercise a week is essential, but if you’ve been pretty inactive up until now, any extra activity is a step in the right direction. For sedentary people, even 10 or 15 minutes a day can provide some significant benefits. Research has found that just 15 minutes of vigorous exercise a day can reduce your risk of death by 17% compared to people who don’t exercise at all. So don’t feel bad about starting from zero and just try to add more steps wherever you can.
Start with a little walking every day. Plan how many minutes you can fit in each day. For example, if weekends work better for you, try taking longer walks on Saturday and Sunday, then shorter walks on weekdays, such as a five-minute walk every morning and another 10 minutes at lunchtime.
To help you stick to your plan, write down a few ways you can stay motivated. Here are some ways that might help:
- Schedule a walk with a friend every Monday and Wednesday evening (or whatever day works for you) to keep each other accountable.
- Instead of walking around your neighborhood, try a new part of town. Curiosity can increase motivation and new places will help the time pass faster.
- Listen to new music, music you love, and it will make you feel good, then you will associate walking with it and it will help change your mindset for exercising.
- Consider buying a new pair of sneakers that you only wear when you walk to make daily exercise a habit.
2. Gradually increase your steps
To consistently improve your cholesterol levels and overall health, it’s important to make walking a habit you’ll do regularly. Research has found that one bout of aerobic exercise (running in this study) had no effect on cholesterol, but 160 minutes of aerobic exercise over 18 weeks led to a significant increase in HDL cholesterol.
You may not be able to hit 150 minutes a week, but if you can get close to that over two to three months, it will have significant benefits for your blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol.
Use the four-week plan to make walking a must-do activity. You’ll move a little each day at a moderate pace (around a five or six on the RPE scale of one to 10) and gradually build up to 30 minutes of walking a day.
Break your walks into manageable chunks and help build a sense of accomplishment as you tick off each day. That way, you can achieve success with each walk and not get discouraged.
- Week 1: Walk a total of 10 minutes a day at a moderate pace. If you prefer, split it into two sessions of five minutes each. Remember that these short periods are intentional to help build momentum. The focus here is on pushing at a consistent moderate pace to keep each burst of activity purposeful, rather than simply taking more steps.
- Week 2: Walk a total of 15 minutes a day at a moderate pace. Walk for five minutes in the morning to start your day and another 10 minutes at the end of the day (or vice versa).
- Week 3: Walk a total of 20 minutes a day at a moderate pace. Walk for 10 minutes in the morning and another 10 minutes at the end of the day, or do the full 20 minutes whenever it’s easiest for you.
- Week 4: Walk for a total of 30 minutes each day. Either break it up throughout the day as you normally do, or do the full 30 minutes. The bonus is that you’ll be hitting over 200 minutes each week, which is when you’ll see even greater cholesterol-lowering benefits.
After four weeks, when walking has hopefully become a habit, start mixing up your intensities. Walk faster for a few minutes, then slow down. In other words, walk in intervals.
3. Speed Up Your Walking
To get the added heart-health benefits, you don’t necessarily have to start running or even walking at super-fast, hike-like speeds. However, increasing your walking speed even slightly will boost your heart-health benefits.
Research has shown that higher-intensity aerobic exercise is effective in lowering LDL cholesterol and triglycerides. Walking at a very comfortable pace will have less of an effect, so aim for at least three miles per hour (mph) and challenge yourself to increase that speed to four miles per hour on some of your walks (or short periods of walking).
In this approach, gradually increase your walking speed each week to a brisk, slightly more vigorous pace than a moderate pace. Aim for an RPE of seven or higher, a speed at which you can speak in broken sentences rather than full sentences.
- Week 1: Walk a total of 30 minutes at a moderate to fast pace: After four minutes, walk briskly for one minute, then repeat.
- Week 2: Walk a total of 30 minutes at a moderate to fast pace: After three minutes, walk briskly for two minutes, then repeat.
- Week 3: Walk a total of 30 minutes at a moderate to fast pace: After two minutes, walk briskly for three minutes, then repeat.
- Week 4: Walk a total of 30 minutes at a fast pace: After one minute, walk briskly for four minutes, then repeat.
Once your month of brisk walking is over, challenge yourself to continue and improve by maintaining a brisk walking pace for the entire walk a few times a week
