If there’s one thing all dieters hate, it’s this: Insatiable food cravings.
Now there could be a surprising new way to stop these cravings for good, according to new research published in the journal Appetite.
According to researchers, practicing resistance exercise stopped people from having cravings–especially for high-fat foods such as French fries and pizza.
However, those who practiced aerobics or didn’t exercise at all didn’t reap these same benefits.
“Exercise, independent of modality, led to decreases in the relative preference for high fat relative to low fat foods,” say researchers in the online version of Appetite. “Additionally, decreases in the hedonic “liking” of high fat foods following resistance, but not aerobic, exercise may imply that modality does influence acute food hedonic responses. Changes in food reward were not related to changes in energy intake between sessions.”
The Study
For every dieter, it’s a dream come true: No more food cravings.
Now according to new research published in the journal Appetite, this is finally a reality–and it’s as simple as lifting a few weights.
For the study, researchers recruited 16 men and women in their early 20s to do two separate workout routines: A resistance workout and an aerobics-style workout. Resistance workouts, unlike other types of workouts, exercise the body using resistance in the forms of bands or weights, which not only burns calories but helps maintain or build muscle in the process.
For both routines, researchers asked them to continue doing the workouts until they burned an equal amount of calories. Those doing aerobics took only 24 minutes to get through their routine, whereas those practicing resistance exercise spent over an hour.
After each exercise, researchers examined if they had any food cravings, especially for high-fat foods. As it turned out, those who had completed the resistance workouts had no food cravings whatsoever–something due to the fact that they felt they worked out harder during the workout. In turn, they also reported feeling more worn out after the workout ceased.
“A validated computer task assessed the wanting and liking for visual food cues following exercise, and following an ad libitum lunch,” write researchers. “Furthermore, the explicit liking for high vs. low fat foods was lower following resistance exercise compared to the control session. However, these changes in food reward were not correlated with changes in energy intake (EI) between sessions. However, these decreases in food hedonics were not related to lower EI, thus suggesting that a dissociation may exist between food hedonics and actual EI.”
Bottom line? If you’re struggling with food cravings, don’t give in–just try doing resistance workouts instead. An easy way to incorporate it into your routine is to simply add 2 or 3 weightlifting session to your weekly exercise routine.
Readers: Is resistance exercise a part of your exercise routine? Why or why not?
Sources:
The Type of Exercise That Could Help Quell Unhealthy Food Cravings (Study) – Yahoo.com
The Effects of a Single Bout of Aerobic or Resistance Exercise on Food Reward – ScienceDirect.com
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