Does Resistance Training Reduce Appetite?

Photo by John Arano on Unsplash

From muscle building to calorie burning to keep your heart strong, resistance training and exercise affect your body in several ways. Exercise — mostly the long and intense forms can change your body’s response to hunger cues.

Here’s what you need to know about resistance training and appetite.

How resistance training impacts hunger and appetite

When you exercise, your body becomes hot, and a flush feeling comes up. But that’s not all: your appetite decreases after workouts. Several studies have been carried out to discover how this happens.

You see, part of why you do not feel hungry during resistance training is that blood is diverted from your stomach to fuel your muscles. This explains why food doesn’t digest as easily when working out.

But incidentally, slow digestion is the primary culprit for nausea and vomiting during workouts. And you don’t quickly feel hungry when your gut is nauseated or churning.

Exercise affects hunger regulating hormones

For instance, a study in the American Journal of Physiology shows that running for 60 minutes can cause a drop in ghrelin levels (ghrelin is an appetite-stimulating hormone). However, the 60-minute run also…