Normally, when a person works out, their appetite increases in an attempt to compensate for lost calories.
This makes weight loss difficult for people who are not strictly monitoring their food intake.
A study published in ‘Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise’ has found the “inflection point” where weight loss is possible.
The study, conducted by Kyle Flack, an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky, involved 44 sedentary, overweight men and women.
Half of the participants were asked to exercise twice a week for at least 90 minutes.
Their goal was to burn about 1,500 total calories a week.
The other half was instructed to exercise six times a week for about 40 to 60 minutes, or around 300 minutes a week.
Their weekly goal was to burn at least 3,000 total calories.
After 12 weeks, Flack found that only those in the second group lost weight.
He also found changes in the second group’s levels of leptin, a hormone that reduces appetite.
Flack hypothesized that the alteration enabled them to better regulate their desire to eat and therefore maintain a weight-shedding calorie deficit.