Many readers of FLEX may find this hard to believe, but some of the top-ranked bodybuilders in the world have a hard time eating. Eating six to eight meals a day can be tough if you don’t have the appetite. Some top experts like Neil Hill recommend cardio to stimulate the appetite. Researchers wanted to investigate whether carbohydrate or fat oxidation during exercise had an effect on acute compensatory post-exercise eating. The researchers tested the subjects in two conditions: an exercise condition and a non-exercise control condition following an overnight fast. The exercise condition involved 400kcal of cycling at around 70% of maximum heart rate, and the non-exercise condition involved a time-matched period of rest. There was a variable response to eating afer cardio with some of the subjects not feeling hungry while others increased post-exercise caloric consumption. When the researchers examined what made the subjects eat afer exercise, it was the amount of burned carbs that stimulated appetite. The researchers reported that carbohydrate oxidation and the rate of carbohydrate oxidation during the exercise phase of the exercise condition were positively associated with energy intake post-exercise, even afer controlling for fat-free mass or fat mass or body mass.
They also concluded that a greater proportion of carb oxidation rather than fat oxidation during exercise was associated with greater post-exercise energy intake. For bodybuilders looking to increase their appetite, it seems like cardio exercise at a moderate to high intensity (70% or greater) led to an increase in post-exercise feeding.
IT’S NOT JUST WHAT YOU EAT, BUT WHEN YOU EAT IT
According to a new study, when researchers disrupted the normal eating patterns of mice, they became fat without eating additional calories. Mice normally sleep during the day and feed at night, but researchers disrupted the master gene clock for sleep and caused the reverse—mice would eat during the day and sleep at night, similar to nighttime bingeing in humans. Basically, they disrupted the brain to favor food consumption at the time of inappropriate intake. Interestingly, the mice became obese without increased calorie intake. When the researchers examined blood markers of fatty acids, levels of EPA and DHA (fish oils) were low in both plasma and in the hypothalamus at the time of inappropriate feeding. So how do you fix a “broken” fat clock?” The researchers found that eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) were able to restore the hypothalamus to normal feeding patterns. The key finding is that EPA and DHA commonly found in fish can lead to long-term weight regulation and fat loss. – FLEX
