Brisk Walking May Help Curb Food Cravings
Brisk Walking May Help Curb Food Cravings – Overweight people can use brisk walking to temporarily stave off their need for high-calorie, sugary snacks.
The study on the impact of a 15-minute treadmill walk on sugar cravings was conducted by Larissa Ledochowski and her team at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. Researchers asked the 48 overweight participants aged 28, to abstain from eating sweet snacks three days prior to the study. Two hours before the test, they were asked to fast and drink only water, and were also told to abstain from any physical exercise.
Some of the participants were then told to do some warm-up exercises for 2 minutes, and then walk on the treadmill for 15 minutes at a brisk pace. The other participants were asked to sit passively for 15 minutes. After the test, all the participants were asked to sit quietly for 5 minutes, after which they were administered a computerized test to increase their physiological and mental stress levels. The last step involved unwrapping a candy but not eating it.
At different times in the test, participants were asked about their cravings, and those who walked on the treadmill reported fewer cravings midway and at the end of the test than those who didn’t.
Researchers point out that since the study looked at only the short-term impact of brisk walking, the results cannot be applied to eating behaviors longer-term. According to them, it’s well-known that exercise can lift your mood; it can also triggers metabolic processes that make more blood sugar available to the brain, and thus reduce the craving for sugary foods.
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