{"id":7605,"date":"2021-12-14T10:52:46","date_gmt":"2021-12-14T02:52:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/?p=7605"},"modified":"2021-12-14T10:52:47","modified_gmt":"2021-12-14T02:52:47","slug":"study-exercising-at-the-start-of-fast-can-help-people-reach-ketosis-3-5-hours-faster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/study-exercising-at-the-start-of-fast-can-help-people-reach-ketosis-3-5-hours-faster\/","title":{"rendered":"Study: Exercising at the start of fast can help people reach ketosis 3.5 hours faster"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A new Brigham Young University\u00a0<\/strong>study published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>finds that exercising intensely at the start of a fast may help maximize health benefits of temporarily foregoing food.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe really wanted to see if we could change the metabolism during the fast through exercise, especially how quickly the body enters ketosis and makes ketones,\u201d said BYU Ph.D. student Landon Deru, who helped design the study for his thesis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ketosis occurs when the body runs out of glucose \u2014 its first, preferred fuel \u2014 and begins breaking down stored fat for energy, producing chemicals called ketones as a byproduct. In addition to being a healthy energy source for the brain and heart, ketones combat diseases like diabetes, cancer, Parkinson\u2019s and Alzheimer\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the study, the researchers asked 20 healthy adults to complete two 36-hour fasts while staying hydrated. Each fast began after a standardized meal, the first fast starting without exercise and the other with a challenging treadmill workout. Every two hours while awake, the subjects completed hunger and mood assessments and recorded their levels of B-hydroxybutyrate (BHB), a ketone-like chemical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exercise made a big difference: when participants exercised, they reached ketosis on average three and a half hours earlier in the fast and produced 43% more BHB. The theory is that the initial exercise burns through a substantial amount of the body\u2019s glucose, prompting a quicker transition to ketosis. Without exercise, the participants hit ketosis about 20 to 24 hours into the fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor me, the toughest time for fasting is that period between 20 and 24 hours, so if I can do something to stop fasting before 24 hours and get the same health outcomes, that\u2019s beneficial,\u201d said study coauthor Bruce Bailey, a BYU exercise science professor. \u201cOr if I do fast for my usual 24 hours but start with exercise, I\u2019ll get even more benefits.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are a few caveats to the proposed strategy, however.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you carb load or eat a huge meal before you fast, you may not reach ketosis for days, even if you do exercise, so you should eat moderately before fasting,\u201d Bailey said. \u201cWe also don\u2019t know the ideal frequency for fasting. There are definitely certain people who shouldn\u2019t fast, such as those with Type 1 diabetes, and obviously it\u2019s detrimental to fast 24\/7. But for most people it\u2019s perfectly safe and healthy to fast once or even twice a week for 24 or more hours.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study, which required participants to run on a treadmill for an average of 45 to 50 minutes, also didn\u2019t establish an ideal amount or type of exercise for every person. Overall, though, the researchers believe the more energy a person can burn, the better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can get a pretty good estimation of how many calories you\u2019re burning in most exercises, and the more carbohydrates you burn off (without overdoing it or injuring yourself), the better you set the stage for starting ketosis early in your fast,\u201d Deru said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also important to note is that, according to the participants\u2019 reports, exercise didn\u2019t seem to aggravate hunger or affect moods during the fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEveryone\u2019s going to be a little grumpier when they fast, but we found that you aren\u2019t going to feel worse with the intervention of exercise \u2014 with exercise, you can get these extra benefits and be the exact same amount of grumpy as you would be if you didn\u2019t exercise,\u201d said Deru.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exercise made a big difference: when participants exercised, they reached ketosis on average three and a half hours earlier in the fast and produced 43% more BHB. The theory is that the initial exercise burns through a substantial amount of the body\u2019s glucose, prompting a quicker transition to ketosis. Without exercise, the participants hit ketosis about 20 to 24 hours into the fast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7302,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,36,35],"tags":[801,802,772],"class_list":["post-7605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fitness","category-health-wellness-2","category-wellness-2","tag-diet","tag-exercise","tag-foodie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7605"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7606,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7605\/revisions\/7606"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zestmag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}