Your Appetite Is Affected By Exercise – Here’s How

Is it true that being active makes us hungry and makes us eat more than we should? Or does it suppress our appetites, making it easier to pass up that final, enticing piece of pie?

New research offers important, albeit warning, information. People who exercised did not overeat later at an attractive buffet meal, according to the research, which included overweight, inactive men and women and numerous forms of moderate exercise. They did not, though, forgo dessert or cut down on servings. The findings serve as a lesson that, while exercising has several health advantages, one of them might not have been aiding us to eat less or reduce weight.

Exercise has a surprising and sometimes paradoxical effect on our weight and hunger for the majority of us. Several scientific studies have found that few people who begin to exercise lose as much weight as the number of calories they consume while exercising would suggest.

According to a new study, this happens because our bodies persistently strive to hold on to their fat reserves, an evolutionary strategy that shields us against (improbable) future mass starvation. As a result, if we burn calories while exercising, our bodies may encourage us to sit more or reassign energy from one body system to another, lowering our entire daily energy consumption. As a result, our bodies instinctively substitute for many of the calories we lose when exercising, lowering our chances of losing weight via exercise.

The new research was released in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise in October. Participants in Colorado ready to exercise and eat for the benefit of study were sought by researchers at the University of Utah and other organizations.

After sifting through hundreds of responses, they came up with a list of 24 men and women, varying in ages from 18 to 55, who’ve been obese or overweight and sedentary overall. They asked everyone to come early in the morning in the laboratory, offered them food, and then made them sit silently, exercise swiftly on a treadmill, or lift dumbbells for 45 minutes on consecutive days.