It may seem like a cruel irony but it's perfectly natural to feel hungry after exercise. As your body tallies up the calories in versus calories out and realises there is a deficit it releases a hunger signal. The trick is not to avoid working out, but to control those post-exercise hunger cravings. After all, the more you work out, the more calories you’ll burn and burning calories is the bottom line where weight-loss is concerned.
The Biggest Loser Club dietitian, Dr Clare Collins, said that there's no rule for how you should feel after exercise – everyone is different.
"For some people, exercise inhibits appetite and being hot and sweaty kills hunger or at least acts as a distraction from eating. Others can be tempted to eat more because they believe they have burned off the excess food calories or perhaps because they feel that they deserve a reward for all the hard work they have done,” she said.
This 'compensation problem' formed the basis of a contentious article by John Cloud published in US magazine Time last year. Entitled "Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin", the article claims that self control is like a muscle; if you use it on the treadmill, it will get tired and falter when you get to the fridge.
In one of the studies he cited, weight-reducers were placed into four different groups. Three of the groups did some kind of exercise and one group did none. Results showed that the exercisers didn’t lose more weight than the non-exercisers. One reason, suggested Cloud, was that the exercisers felt hungry and/or used food treats as a reward for exercising in the first place.
However, there is a way to avoid this compensation cycle, according to Dr Collins. “Monitoring your calories is the essential way to avoid this trap. Make sure that calories out are greater than calories in and in this way there’s no doubt that you will lose weight. Use your online diary because it’s a really effective way to start to appreciate just how much exercise it takes to burn off the calories in your foods and drinks.”
Building muscle
Muscle is an active tissue that needs more calories than fat. So, the more muscle your body contains, the more calories you'll burn even when you’re not exercising. Remember that muscle weighs more than fat so even though you may not see much of a difference on the scales, you will probably see a difference in your body and may be sleeker in shape.
Eating before exercise
What should you eat before exercising to avoid the compensation trap? Research suggests that the hunger you feel depends upon the type of exercise you do. According to Dr Collins, if you are just doing a short burst of exercise, it doesn’t make much difference whether you eat or not because you already have fuel for exercise stored in your muscles called glycogen, a type of carbohydrate (made from the carbohydrates you eat).
“However, for longer periods of exercise, having a piece of fruit before you exercise will give you some fuel to get through your workout,” she said.
If you’re planning an intense session, a healthy snack before exercise may also help you to avoid a post-exercise splurge and prevent you feeling light headed while exercising.
Be sure to make your snack small because eating too much before exercising may trigger nausea and cramping. Don’t leave a very long gap without eating as you may also weaken your willpower and increase your chances of overeating or making unhealthy choices later.
Eating after exercise
If you are hungry after exercise, or if you are due to have a meal, try to include some wholegrain or complex carbohydrate foods to help to refuel your muscles. Some good snack choices would be:
- Low-fat peanut butter on whole-grain bread
- Egg or tuna salad sandwich
- Wholegrain cereal with low fat milk and sliced banana
- Sugar-free yogurt with a piece of fruit
Again, timing is important because if you wait too long to eat after exercising intense hunger could trigger overeating or mean that you end up making the wrong food choices.
Staying hydrated
“As far as your ability to exercise is concerned, what makes a big difference is whether or not you are well hydrated," Dr Collins said. "So, make sure that you sip water before and after exercising. Being as little as 2% dehydrated (that means if you are 100kg and after exercising you then weigh 98kg due to the amount you have sweated) will compromise your exercise ability.”
Drinking enough water could also help to prevent overeating because it is easy to mistake feeling thirsty for feeling hungry, especially when you are dehydrated.
Craving control
Foods that help to control post-exercise cravings are the types of food that need a lot of chewing but don’t provide many calories. Apples, raw carrots and other vegetables, such as celery and capsicum, are good options and chewing sugar-free gum could also help.
Essentially, the only way to avoid falling into the trap of using food to reward yourself after a workout is to wise up about the time it takes to burn off the calories in the treats you’re tempted by.
“Look at the diary and see how long you would need to exercise to burn off certain foods,"Dr Collins said. "Then decide – a piece of chocolate cake or two hours on a treadmill? Only you can choose whether it’s worth it.”