When overweight adults do 3,000 kcal worth of aerobic exercise per week for 12 weeks, they lose fat but do not eat more to compensate. This suggests that eating more in response to exercise is not...
Mechanism
Synthesis from 1 study
Even though the body sent out hunger signals after intense exercise, people didn’t eat more. This means their brains didn’t respond to those signals by increasing food intake, so the fat loss wasn’t blocked by overeating. Something else—maybe how rewarding food feels or how much people think about...
Most probable mechanism
When people exercise a lot, their stomach makes more of a hormone that makes them feel hungry, and their gut makes less of a hormone that makes them feel full. Normally, this would make them eat more, but in this case, they didn’t eat more even though these hormones changed. So the body tried to signal for more food, but the brain didn’t respond by increasing eating.
Aerobic exercise creates an energy deficit by increasing total energy expenditure.
The energy deficit stimulates gastric cells to increase secretion of acylated ghrelin, a hormone that promotes hunger.
The energy deficit reduces secretion of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) from intestinal cells, which diminishes satiety signals.
Elevated acylated ghrelin and reduced GLP-1 act on hypothalamic appetite centers to increase hunger and reduce satiety perception.
Despite these hormonal changes signaling increased hunger, energy intake remains unchanged, indicating no behavioral compensation via increased eating.
Less supported by current evidence, but not ruled out
Even though the body burned a lot of energy, the brain found food less rewarding afterward, which may have kept people from eating more even when they were hungry.
Aerobic exercise creates an energy deficit, which typically increases the brain's reward response to food.
Neurobehavioral pathways involving dopamine and reward centers are activated by energy deficit, increasing food-seeking motivation.
Contrary to expectation, food reinforcement decreased after training, suggesting reduced motivational drive to obtain food.
Evidence from Studies
Supporting (1)
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Energy compensation in response to aerobic exercise training in overweight adults.
Contradicting (0)
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