Two simple things you can do after eating — a seated soleus push-up and a short walk — that may help your body handle the glucose from your meal.
What if helping your blood sugar after a meal didn’t require a gym, special equipment, or a full workout?
What if it simply meant moving your muscles for a few minutes?
When we eat, glucose enters our bloodstream as our food is digested. One of the places that glucose can go is into our muscles, where it can be used for energy.
So let’s put those muscles to work.
Here are two simple post-meal movements worth knowing about.
🦵 Move #1: The Seated Soleus Push-Up
This one is particularly interesting because you can do it while sitting.
The soleus is one of the muscles in your calf. Researchers have been studying what happens when this muscle is repeatedly contracted while you’re seated.
How to do it:
- Sit comfortably with your feet on the floor.
- Keep your toes and the balls of your feet down.
- Raise your heels.
- Lower your heels.
- Repeat at a steady, comfortable pace.
That’s it.
You’re essentially doing a seated calf raise, repeatedly working the soleus muscle without having to stand up.
Research suggests that repeated soleus contractions can increase glucose use by the muscle and may help reduce the rise in blood glucose after eating.
Pretty interesting for something you can do from a chair.
🚶 Move #2: Take a Short Walk
This one doesn’t need much explaining.
After you eat, go for a walk.
It doesn’t have to be a power walk or a five-kilometre trek.
Walk around the block. Walk around the house. Walk through the office. Whatever works for you.
Walking gets some of your body’s larger muscles working, and active muscles can take up glucose from the bloodstream to use for energy.
That’s one reason a short walk after a meal can be a useful habit for people managing their blood glucose.
And there’s a bonus:
You’re also breaking up all that sitting.
Why Move After Eating?
After a meal, blood glucose generally rises as food is digested and absorbed.
Getting your muscles working during this period gives them an opportunity to use some of that available glucose.
Think of it as:
Eat → muscles work → glucose gets used for energy.
It isn’t magic.
It’s just your body doing what muscles are designed to do.
Which One Should You Do?
The one you’ll actually do.
If you’re able to walk comfortably, a short post-meal walk is a great option.
If you’re sitting at your desk or watching television, try some seated soleus push-ups.
And there’s nothing stopping you from doing both.
Soleus push-ups while sitting + a short walk when you can.
Small movements can add up over the course of a day.
The Measured Fork Caveat 🍴
Let’s keep this measured.
Soleus push-ups are an interesting area of research, but they aren’t a miracle exercise or a treatment for diabetes. Research suggests they can affect glucose metabolism, but everyone’s response can be different.
Post-meal walking has more established evidence behind it as a useful way of adding physical activity around meals, but it still isn’t a guarantee that your blood glucose will drop by a specific amount.
And neither movement is a way to “cancel out” a meal.
Your blood glucose is influenced by many things, including what and how much you eat, medications, sleep, stress, illness and your overall activity.
Think of these movements as another tool in your toolbox, not a replacement for your diabetes treatment or advice from your healthcare team.
If you have limitations that make exercise difficult or you’re unsure what activity is appropriate for you, check with your healthcare professional.
The Measured Moment
We sometimes make healthy living sound like it requires huge changes.
It doesn’t always.
You finish a meal.
You raise your heels for a few minutes.
Or you take a short walk.
No gym.
No fancy equipment.
No complicated routine.
Just move your muscles.
Because they don’t care whether you’re wearing running shoes or slippers.
They just know they’re working.
Two little moves.
One big goal.
Give your glucose somewhere to go.
