To Lose Body Fat, Try Endurance Exercise!
Heavy-duty endurance exercise can cause body fat levels to drop without any accompanying weight loss, a new small-scale study indicates. A group of eleven middle-aged men who cycled 710 miles in seven days lost only about 1% of their total weight, because they ate and drank enough to offset the calorie burn.
But they lost over 9% of their overall body fat, including a nearly 15% reduction in levels of dangerous visceral fat crowding their vital organs. The cyclists also experienced a more than 20% reduction in total cholesterol and a nearly 40% reduction in triglyceride levels, as well as a substantial reductions in blood pressure.
The results “support the importance of promoting a physically active lifestyle rather than caloric restriction in obesity prevention,” concluded the research team led by co-senior author Jean-Pierre Despres, a professor of kinesiology with University Laval in France.
Excerpted from Health Day
