If you’ve ever tried making a healthy change to your eating habits, whether it was eating a few more vegetables, a little less dessert or trying to cut back on the late-night snacking, there’s a good chance you faced a few cravings. This hankering for certain foods—typically of the sweet, salty or fatty variety—can range from a passing thought to a constant, extreme desire. Cravings can have a powerful hold over your body and brain, and they can easily set you back on your health and fitness goals. That’s why a new study on the effects of exercise on food cravings is worth paying attention to. Here’s everything you need to know about it.
The Research On Exercise and Food Cravings
Published in the May issue of the journal Obesity, this study tested the effects of intense exercise on cravings in a population of 28 rats. First, the Washington State University researchers taught the animals how to press a lever. When pressed, the lever would release high-fat food pellets and a specific series of lights and sounds. This essentially conditioned the animals to the behavior of pressing the lever, and the reward of getting to munch on delicious, fatty foods. Next, the researchers got rid of the food, lights, sounds and the lever. They divided the animals into two groups—the first group was put on a high-intensity exercise plan that involved running on a treadmill, and the second group maintained their typical physical activity of just milling about their environment. After 30 days of their respective exercise routines, the lever was put back but this time when the rats pressed them, the light and sounds were the same but there was no food. This was a way of testing how many times they would push the lever before giving up—in other words, they were testing how strong their desire was for the fatty food, and what they were willing to do to get it.
Exercise As a ‘Magic Pill’
After a lot of observation and data analysis, the results showed that the animals without the exercise routine pressed the levers significantly more than the rats that had exercised. The researchers concluded that this is a strong signal that intense exercise can help lessen the hold cravings had on the animals, making it easier for them to walk away from the fatty foods. It stands to reason that the same might be true for humans, too. Exercise is already a powerful tool for improving health, and this study shows us that it may work directly against cravings. As one of the authors of the study, Travis Brown—a physiology and neuroscience researcher — pointed out to ScienceDaily: “We’re always looking for this magical pill in some ways, and exercise is right in front of us with all these benefits.” In the future, the researchers plan to test other types of exercise and figure out how exercise is changing the brain to lessen cravings. It’s already established that cravings involve our brain’s reward system and chemicals like serotonin, which is in charge of things like pleasure and memory, so they’re likely to find the answer there. For now, we can invest our time and energy in exercise, which has a ton of proven benefits for overall health. Luckily, exercise is something we can do right here right now—for free!
4 Intense Workouts to Get Started With
According to Alex Shmyhun, a personal trainer at Crunch Fitness in San Francisco, there are a bunch of great ways to incorporate intense exercise into your life. If you’re looking to do an intense workout, “the goal is to increase your heart rate and your oxygen consumption,” says Shmyhun. This means getting into a zone that is anywhere from 85 to 95 percent of your max heart rate. He suggests buying a heart rate monitor to learn what that is, but another easy way to estimate is to try to talk during your workout. “If you can talk easily while you’re doing it, it’s not ‘intense’.” However, he adds that “if you’re gasping for air, lightheaded, or dizzy, that’s a sign that you’re pushing things too far and you need to slow down.” Here are four tips from Shmyhun to get started with intense workouts:
1. A treadmill workout
One of the easiest ways to guarantee a high-intensity workout is on the treadmill. “Most treadmills actually have settings for high-intensity workouts," says Shmyhun—which means you can get on the machine, press some buttons, and select a high-intensity workout that will have you mixing different speeds and inclines. Shmyhun recommends starting with 30 minutes.
2. Boxing
Boxing gyms have always been a go-to workout for the fitness-obsessed, and for good reason! “Boxing is a perfect high-intensity workout because you’re always on your feet and toes,” says Shmyhun.
3. Strength training
Strength training, or lifting weights, is another way to get a high-intensity workout in. Although, according to Shmyhun, “high-intensity strength training looks very different than high-intensity cardio.” Your goal isn’t to be huffing and puffing; instead, you’re aiming for muscle fatigue, otherwise known as “hitting the wall.” This means doing as many reps as you can until you feel like you can’t do anymore.
4. Competitive sports
“Any competitive sport is going to be extremely heavy on the cardio and muscle fatigue side,” says Shmyhun. If you’re really into it, you’ll be playing your heart out before you notice that your blood is pumping and your muscles are burning. This could be anything—tennis, soccer, volleyball—as long as it gets you in the high-intensity zone. Finally, Shmyhun reminds us to not compare ourselves to others when it comes to these workouts. “Everyone is different,” he says. What’s high intensity for you might not be high intensity for someone else. Next up: New Research Finds That This Is the Amount of Exercise You Need for Longevity
Sources:
Georgia E. Kirkpatrick, Paige M. Dingess, Jake A. Aadland, Travis E. Brown. Acute high‐intensity interval exercise attenuates incubation of craving for foods high in fat. Obesity, 2022Washington State University. “Intense exercise while dieting may reduce cravings for fatty food.” ScienceDaily.Alex Shmyhun, trainer at Crunch Fitness in San Francisco NASM-CPT, NASM-CES, NASM-CNC
