One of the stereotypes that often keep individuals from exercising is the myth: “Exercise just makes you hungry, which makes you want to eat more.”
According to ScienceDaily, nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, exercise has been found to suppress appetite. So not only do exercise burn calories, but exercising will also kill your hunger pains.
Why is this?
The releasing of two hormones, ghrelin and peptide, are changed during exercise. Ghrelin plays the largest role in stimulating hunger by increasing the rewards received by eating food. Peptide is the chemical that creates sensations of satiety.
Both weight training and exercise affect the production of ghrelin, but only aerobic exercise affects the role of peptide. As a result, aerobic exercise generally has a stronger effect on decreasing hunger.
Anaerobic vs. aerobic
Let’s start with a definition of aerobic and anaerobic exercises. Aerobic exercises are exercises that are vigorous and require a lot of air. Anaerobic exercises require less cardiovascular effort and more intramuscular effort.
So basically, aerobic exercises include activities like running, walking, bicycling and swimming. Anaerobic exercises mostly involve weight training, sit-ups and pushups.
Generally, aerobic exercise is the type of exercise turned to in order to lose weight. But the obese will lose the most weight if they combine both anaerobic and aerobic exercises.
This is because muscles must pull calories away from the body in order to continue to grow and repair themselves.
Unless you’re eating several hamburgers a day, your muscles will eventually need to start pulling calories out of the fat in your body.
Not only are anaerobic and aerobic exercises both beneficial for your total health, but fitness specialists recommend both. Aerobic exercise not only burns fat but also improves cardiovascular function.
But strict aerobic exercise will decrease your muscle mass, strength, power and speed by pulling calories away from your muscles.
If you do not care about any of these things, then go ahead and hit the treadmill. But if you want to maximize your weight loss, you might want to work weight training into your exercise program.
So how much do I need for both?
The very minimum amount of aerobic exercise recommended is 20 minutes for three days a week. That’s one hour a week. Sure, that doesn’t seem like its very long, but you have to throw yourself very hard at the exercise floor. You should be sweating immensely and your heartbeat and breathing should be much higher.
If vigorous exercise isn’t for you, you can try exercising for 30 minutes a day, five days a week. This type of exercise is a lot easier to maintain, though you’ll be exercising for two and a half hours.
As for strength training, you can get on two days of strength training per week. Of course, this is the minimum. If you’re an athlete or a bodybuilder, you will probably be working out five to six days a week for 30 minutes a day.
Just be aware of how much exercise you can do per day. Overdoing your exercise program will only make you sick.
