Cardio and fat loss and cardio on an empty stomach: studies.

One thing I make sure I do in this industry is follow influential characters to leverage my learning. If you take 5 leaders in the field and take the best bits of what they tell you then you are essentially capitalising on hours and hours worth of studying. It is like finding out the key points in a book rather than reading the waffling in between.

One very keen learner is Mike Demeter, a fellow PICP coach. I am friends with him on Facebook because he shares more fitness information on there than almost anyone I know. I am copying this directly from his Facebook entry and giving him credit rather than editing it and pretending the research was mine. All notes are from him as well.

----

(from an e-mail from Alwyn Cosgrove . .nice to have printed to show clients)



A few fat loss related studies I've been reviewing recently:



Friedenreich et al.



Adiposity changes after a 1-year aerobic exercise intervention among postmenopausal women: a randomized controlled trial



Int J Obes (Lond). 2011 Mar;35(3):427-35


This study put 320 women on a one year program.



There were two groups - an exercise group and a control group.

The exercise group was instructed to perform 45 mins of moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise five times per week (and over the course of the year, they averaged 3.6 training sessions per week or 178 mins per week).



Both groups were asked to keep their diets the same.



Results: The aerobic group lost 3.9lbs more fat than the control group over the year. (AFTER 45 min CARDIO, 5x/week for the year !! ~Coach Mike)


My interpretation/comments: no surprises to regular readers of my blog, I don't think aerobic exercise is a very useful fat loss tool.


Zakrzewski et al.


Comparison of fat oxidation over a range of intensities during treadmill and cycling exercise in children.



Eur J Appl Physiol. 2011 Apr 21.



Results: This study showed that fat oxidation was higher in treadmill exercise than cycling exercise over a range of absolute and relative exercise intensities. Which means that treadmill exercise, even at the same intensity as cycling, results in higher fat burning and could result in faster fat loss in programming.



My interpretation/comments: We've seen in calorie matched studies that weight training outperforms aerobic exercise in terms of fat loss. This is one of a few studies to compare treadmill and cycling in terms of fat oxidation (A 2003 study in Metabolism, and a 2010 study in the International journal of sport nutrition and exercise metabolism) - although it's the first one to look at children..



My interpretation is that the difference is a result of running being more weight bearing than cycling, so "weight bearing" or "ground based" activities at the same intensity will be more effective in fat loss training.



Effect of Diet and Exercise, Alone or Combined, on Weight and Body Composition in Overweight-to-Obese Postmenopausal Women.



Obesity (Silver Spring). 2011 Apr 14. [Epub ahead of print]



439 obese women were split into four groups -

diet only,

aerobic exercise only,

diet plus aerobic exercise

and a control group.


The diet group lost 8.5% of their starting weight over the course of a year. The aerobic exercise group lost only 2.4% and the diet plus exercise group lost 10.8%.


My interpretation: Diet is obviously the key factor in fat loss, and this study confirms that, and shows once again that aerobic exercise doesn't seem to provide much direct benefit in fat loss, in the absence of diet.

Adding aerobic exercise to the diet only resulted in an increase in 2.3% of weight loss over the course of a year.(REREAD THAT LAST SENTENCE .~Coach Mike)


Exercising fasting or fed to enhance fat loss? Influence of food intake on respiratory ratio and excess postexercise oxygen consumption after a bout of endurance training.


Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab. 2011 Feb;21(1):48-54.


Two groups in a crossover study (meaning all participants did both protocols).

Food intake was the same overall, the only difference was performing endurance cardio either fasted or after breakfast.



Fat oxidation was higher after the fed training session, both 12 and 24 hours after the training session when compared to the fasted state.



"The authors conclude that when moderate endurance exercise is done to lose body fat, fasting before exercise does not enhance lipid utilization; rather, physical activity after a light meal is advisable."

(NOW REREAD THAT FOR THOSE OF YOU STUCK ON FASTED CARDIO . .)


And in the "no-s**t department":


Direct hits to the head during amateur boxing is associated with a rise in serum biomarkers for brain injury.

Int J Immunopathol Pharmacol. 2011 Jan-Mar;24(1):119-25.



My interpretation: We didn't know this? Really? Ok - Getting punched in the head isn't good for you.