Burn More Calories? Eat an Egg Before Exercise

Eat an egg.  Chew a cheese stick.  Swallow a hunk of steak.  Then, go exercise.

Experts are now promising that some women who do this will lose more weight, or lose it faster.  

According to newswise.com, "A high-protein meal followed by 30 minutes of moderate exercise is an effective way of burning calories, especially when compared to exercising on an empty stomach."

I was actually told this several years ago when I had a trainer for three months.  He suggested I eat something, anything, before I went for my jog.  I usually picked fruit and I can't say it helped me lose much weight (maybe I chose the wrong thing).  The idea? You will exercise longer and tire less, if you have food in your stomach.  But this new study found something else.

“We looked at the effects of protein consumption alone on total energy expenditure, and protein consumption combined with exercise,” newswise quotes Ashley Binns, a doctoral student in kinesiology and exercise science at the University of Arkansas who led the study. “We found that with exercise, there is a trend for a continued increase in caloric expenditure with higher protein consumption. Additionally, the consumption of the high- or low-protein meals resulted in greater energy expenditure than the fasted state. That means that eating prior to exercise does provide fuel to burn, making us more like an energy-burning machine.”

Ten "recreationally active" college-age women of normal body weight participated in the study. For their testing sessions, they were given a high-protein meal, low-protein meal, or no food at all, before walking on a treadmill.

Exercise was key to the study, Binns said, because high-protein diets without exercise can lead to muscle loss.

“With just a high-protein diet and no exercise, the body heats up to break down the protein but what also happens is it breaks down muscle,” she said. “You have individuals who are losing weight on a high-protein diet because their metabolism is increasing. The body first burns fat but then it also starts to burn muscle as fuel. We want to see individuals keep their muscle mass with a high-protein diet so that they are more energy efficient.”

I'll buy it.





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