Take Workout Breaks for Better Weight Loss

Many thinks that exercising continuously will make their weight loss endeavor more successful. It’s as if breaking a sweat should never stop just to earn that head-turning figure. Now that notion is about to be dumped…

A Japanese research about two sets of people exercising - one having a continuous exercise with a rest period of 1 hour and one having two exercise bouts with a 20-minute rest between each bout, showed results that fat breakdown is greater for those who participated in the exercise with a break.

Seven healthy men with an average age of 25 exercised on a cycling machine in one of the two methods.

Blood samples, respiration and heart rates were monitored throughout the trial.

Men taking part in the repeated exercises with a break had a greater amount of fat breakdown (lipolysis) than those exercising continually.

The repeated trial also had a marked increase in free fatty acids and glycerol (chemical compounds that are released when stored fat is used) in the final 15 minutes of exercise.

These concentrations increased progressively throughout the single exercise bout trial.

Lead researcher Dr Kazushige Goto said the findings could help to inform future exercise regimes.

“Many people believe prolonged exercise will be optimal in order to reduce body fat, but our study has shown that repetitions of shorter exercise may cause enhancements of fat mobilisation and utilisation during and after the exercise,” he added. Source

Whoah! This means that to achieve optimal weight loss, you have to treat workout like eating - eat frequently but in small portions with breaks in-between. What wonder does our metabolism have.

[image from mikebaird]

Tags: weight loss, research, exercise, workout, fat