Just 45 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous exercise in the morning actually reduces a person’s motivation for food, according to a new study published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. The findings seem to refute the assumption that a person can “work up an appetite" with a vigorous workout.
Researchers at Brigham Young University measured the food motivation of 18 normal-weight women and 17 clinically obese women over two separate days. On the first day, each woman briskly walked on a treadmill for 45 minutes and then, within the hour, had their brain waves measured.
Electrodes were attached to each participant’s scalp and an EEG machine then measured their neural activity while they looked at 240 images—120 of plated food meals and 120 of control images of flowers.
The same experiment was conducted one week later on the same day of the week and at the same time of the morning, but omitted the exercise. Individuals also recorded their food consumption and physical activity on the experiment days.
The 45-minute exercise routine not only produced lower brain responses to the food images, but also resulted in an increase in total physical activity that day, regardless of body mass index. Interestingly, the women in the experiment did not eat more food on the exercise day to “make up" for the extra calories they burned in exercise. In fact, they ate approximately the same amount of food on the non-exercise day.
“We wanted to see if obesity influenced food motivation, but it didn’t," the researchers said. “However, it was clear that the exercise bout was playing a role in their neural responses to the pictures of food."
Researchers at Brigham Young University measured the food motivation of 18 normal-weight women and 17 clinically obese women over two separate days. On the first day, each woman briskly walked on a treadmill for 45 minutes and then, within the hour, had their brain waves measured.
Electrodes were attached to each participant’s scalp and an EEG machine then measured their neural activity while they looked at 240 images—120 of plated food meals and 120 of control images of flowers.
The same experiment was conducted one week later on the same day of the week and at the same time of the morning, but omitted the exercise. Individuals also recorded their food consumption and physical activity on the experiment days.
The 45-minute exercise routine not only produced lower brain responses to the food images, but also resulted in an increase in total physical activity that day, regardless of body mass index. Interestingly, the women in the experiment did not eat more food on the exercise day to “make up" for the extra calories they burned in exercise. In fact, they ate approximately the same amount of food on the non-exercise day.
“We wanted to see if obesity influenced food motivation, but it didn’t," the researchers said. “However, it was clear that the exercise bout was playing a role in their neural responses to the pictures of food."
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