Bad News for Fat Burners

by Michele Cheplic | More from this Blogger

07 Jun 2009 11:49 PM

I was a believer. One of the reasons I started running marathons and lifting weights was because I wanted to lose weight. I bought into the notion that exercise helped improve the body's ability to burn fat for as long as 24 hours after a workout. So I ate whatever I wanted and then ran 7 miles a day and figured all was right with my fitness regime.

Apparently not.

According to new research, exercise does not give one a license to eat with reckless abandon. Researchers at the University of Colorado in Denver say their new study shows you can easily undo what you set out to do by gorging on your favorite foods post workout.

The new study discusses the issue of burning fat during and after exercise. The authors conclude that while people do burn more fat when they are exercising than when they are sedentary, they have no greater ability to burn fat over the next 24 hours than on days that they don't workout.

"If you exercise and replace the calories you burn, you're no better - with regard to how much fat you burn off - than if you didn't exercise," noted the study's author.

The study included moderately active people who, on separate days, performed low-intensity or high-intensity cycling, or no structured exercise at all. In addition, researchers repeated their experiment with endurance athletes (competitive runners and triathletes). Both groups had their diets closely controlled, and in the end, researchers found that people did not burn substantially more fat in the 24 hours after they exercised than on days when they didn't exercise.

According to researchers, the bottom line is that whereas they once thought that exercise would burn calories, especially fat calories, for a long period after a bout of exercise, that doesn't appear to be true.

So what does that me for you (and me)? I guess I won't be treating myself to a post workout jelly donut anymore. What about you?

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Learn more about Michele Cheplic

Michele Cheplic was born and raised in Hilo, Hawaii, but now lives in Wisconsin. Michele graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a degree in Journalism.

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