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GREENandSAVE is pleased to introduce Kelly Strogen as a new contributing writer. Kelly is a Registered Dietitian, and staying healthy is key to overall sustainability in a world that is increasingly loaded with processed foods that are distant cousins of their source. A Green Diet can mean everything from organic food to the simple proper balance of vegetables in daily consumption. As America looks to reduce rising health care costs, a Green Diet can help individuals as well as the collective by reducing the cost of treating heart related disease.
Kelly Strogen writes:
For years, researchers have known that hard exercise suppresses appetite, known as “exercise-induced anorexia” (anorexia= lack of appetite). You may recall this after running sprints or after a killer plyometric training session. Many runners know that they are not very hungry for hours after a race if they ran it at maximal intensity. A recent study showed that those who did aerobic training for 12 weeks had a higher perceived fullness after both fasting and eating compared to those that did resistance training for the same time duration. So, in addition to torching calories during an intense aerobic exercise, your body triggers changes in the hunger hormones which can potentially cause you to eat less afterwards. Just weight lifting and other forms of resistance training didn’t seem to have the same benefit in this study, although resistance training is VERY important for boosting your metabolism (by adding muscle), preventing osteoporosis, and keeping you strong as you age. Another study out of BYU showed that women who walked vigorously on the treadmill for 45 minutes in the morning had less interest in food than on days they didn’t.
My recommendation: In addition to burning lots of calories, aerobic exercise such as spinning and running have the added benefit of decreasing your appetite afterwards. The problem lies in the fact that you may be less hungry than you are normally, but you still probably eat (which is important to replenish glycogen stores in the muscles). Most people overcompensate how much they eat after a workout, so stick to a 200 calorie carb and protein rich snack like yogurt & a banana.
References: BYU Study: Beneficial effects of 12 weeks of aerobic compared with resistance exercise training on perceived appetite in previously sedentary overweight and obese men. Kym J. Guelfi, Cheyne E. Donges, Rob Duffield
MORE from Kelly on a Green Diet and other topics: http://kellyspantry.blogspot.com/
