By Chris Collins on Monday, 19 April 2021
Category: Fitness

The Effect of Exercise on Nutritional Choices


After you train what is your plan for nutrition? For some, they don't want to think about eating anything for a while. Their heart is still pumping. Their temperature is up a bit. And there may be a bead of sweat on their brow.




All of these may result in the individual not having a huge appetite post-training.




A recent study looked to see how exercise influences our nutritional choices. The timing of this study is interesting as with COVID more gyms are closed and therefore more of us are more sedentary and consequently have put on a few pounds as a result.




For this study researchers had 41 individuals made up of 23 women and 18 men divided into one of two groups. The subjects ranged from 18-29 years and had an average BMI of 23.7. A BMI of 25 is considered overweight.




One group would perform 45 minutes of exercise and the other group would rest. For the following visit the two groups would switch and do the other condition i.e. rest or exercise.




Before the visit the participants would fill out questionnaires asking them how hungry or full they were, the preferred amount of food they would want to eat and how long they would wait until they ate.




What they found is that exercise resulted in a greater amount of food to be eaten post-exercise, both immediately and 30 minutes post exercise. As well, after exercise there was an increased preference for immediate consumption of food.




Takeaways from this study:







Koehler, K., Beckford, S. E., Thayer, E., Martin, A. R., Boron, J. B., & Stevens, J. R. (2021). Exercise Shifts Hypothetical Food Choices toward Greater Amounts and More Immediate Consumption. Nutrients13(2), 347.

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