Watch the video above: How to make that Christmas excess guilt-free. Minna Rhee reports.
TORONTO – While cramming in bites of cookies, turkey and gingerbread, try to fit in a 45-minute exercise daily if you want to stand a chance against holiday weight gain, scientists say in a new study.
A daily 45-minute workout helps to lessen the effects of what University of Bath researchers in the U.K. call “short-term overeating and inactivity,” conventionally known as an annual stuffing our faces over Christmas then sitting around the tree all day.
Nutritionists suggest that over the holidays, diners can gain up to five pounds. On Christmas Day alone, we can eat up to 6,000 calories – that’s about three times the amount consumers eat on an average day.
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During the holiday season each year, scientists release their findings on how the food overload tampers with our health. This time around, the British researchers say the 45 minutes of exercise does a lot more than wipe out some of the excess calories we take in.
“This new research shows that the picture is more sophisticated than ‘energy’ alone: exercise has positive effects even when we are actively storing energy and gaining weight,” lead author Dr. James Betts said.
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Twenty-six healthy young men were asked to be generally inactive in their daily activities, but half of the group then exercised on a treadmill for 45 minutes. The group that was on the treadmill had to eat 75 per cent more calories than they normally do while the lazier group had to eat 50 per cent more.
After just one week of overeating – say, between Christmas and New Year’s – study participants had poor blood sugar level control, their fat cells were expressing genes that led to unhealthy metabolic changes and their nutritional balance was thrown off.
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But these negative effects weren’t as distinct in people who took time out of their feasting to exercise daily.
Just a week was enough for the scientists to note that the exercising group had stable blood sugar levels and a well-functioning metabolism.
They say they don’t fully understand the underlying causes at play here. Their full findings were published Monday in the Journal of Physiology.
carmen.chai@globalnews.ca
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