Why you want to walk in the morning

Between seven and eight o'clock, put on the Timberlands, pull a sweater over my head, and off I go into the woods. That's what my mornings look like now. I walk for just over an hour, then I dash through the shower to go to work without makeup.

By the way, I catch myself waking up five minutes earlier every morning because the moment the sun rises but it's still quiet is something I wish could last all day. If you're thinking: what the hell is she talking about? Walking in the evening is also fine.

Experts say all sorts of things about walking, but what is true and what is not?

Walking burns calories, that's a fact. But there are people who claim that you lose weight faster by walking than by, for example, running a lap. There is some truth to that because when walking, you burn fat calories while with running (much more) you burn carbohydrate calories. But how much you burn has of course to do with much more, think of your fitness, your weight, and how intensely you move. You can roughly assume that this is between 60 and 80 calories per kilometer when walking, but you have to walk briskly.

Next question, at what time is it best to walk? I swear by the morning, but our Lotte prefers a walk after dinner. Research shows that if you exercise (or move) in the morning, your fat burning is higher and you feel less hungry. That's beneficial, of course, provided you're a morning person, because it could be that evening people are not fully awake yet, and then you better not skip the warm-up. Good news for poor sleepers, because exercising or moving when you wake up could lead to a better night's sleep. By moving immediately, your brain signals when you need to be awake and when you should go back to sleep.

And Hippocrates already said: walking is the best medicine, so keep that in mind when you're trudging through the rain these days.

Sources: General practitioner.l and Runner's World