2009 Studies & Research Blog

Well all know that exercise will help to increase your calorie burn, so theoretically you would at first think it would serve to increase the appetite as well.  This is not the case for many people, however.

Many find that moderate intensity exercise will actually decrease the appetite, making you less likely to overeat during the rest of the day.

High intensity exercise tends to have the opposite effect though, it will decrease appetite initially after it’s completed, however your appetite, you may find, will come back with a vengeance later on during the day.

Recently, researchers out of the School of Exercise and Nutritional Sciences in San Diego looked at the effect the timing of exercise in relation to meal consumption was on the hormonal factors that control the appetite.

The study was designed so that twelve men performed three trials. In the first it was just a meal alone, in the second, it was a exercise that was completed two hours after the meal, and in the third scenario, it was exercise that took place one hour before exercise.

The meal that was being tested provided 16.5kcalkg and was made up of 70% fat, 26% carbohydrates, and 4% protein.

The exercise that took place as part of the study was performed at a work rate of 60% of VO2max for 50 minutes.

After the procedure had taken place, it was demonstrated that the exercise that was performed 2 hours after the meal helped to further suppress the appetite, while exercise prior to food intake decreased appetite and increased the plasma ghrelin concentrations.

It should be noted also that there was no impact on meal timing with respect to the leptin concentration levels in the body.

Therefore, from this study we can conclude that the timing of your meal does have some impact on appetite levels and in particularly the ghrelin concentrations in the body, however, it appears as though exercise in itself will also have an appetite suppressive effect regardless of whether it is performed before or after the workout.

Reference:
Cannon, DT. et al. (2008) Appetite regulation via exercise prior or subsequent to high-fat meal composition. Appetite 2008, Sept 25