Aaron Braun: How Long Distance Running Affects the Appetite?

If you are a regular long-distance runner or want to be, this may interest you!

If you exercise more, you burn more calories, and you should experience more hunger, right?

Well, when it comes to amateurs or people who do not exercise regularly, the opposite of what would be expected by this simple logic has been seen.

For them, the long distance races in which they burn a good amount of calories, reduce the appetite and energy intake immediately after the training session.

But let's be honest, there are few novice or people with sedentary lifestyle who regularly do these half marathon races.

And then, what happens in practice with the usual or trained runners with these long distance races and how do they influence the appetite after training?

In addition, the professional runner, Aaron Braun gives an answer to all these questions.

1. The Appetite of the Trained Long Distance Runners

A recent study done by Braun along with other runners addresses this question.

To put yourself a bit more in the context of how the study was done, you must first know that the regulation of appetite is coordinated by hormones that are produced by organs of the digestive system. The main one is ghrelin, secreted by the stomach, and its high levels promote appetite and hunger. There are other hormones that have the opposite effect of decreasing the appetite, and they are the peptides YY and GLP-1.

What they did in this study was to evaluate 23 college men who were well-trained regular runners, and each one run for 20 km outdoors. Immediately after, they were offered a buffet-type meal in which they could freely choose what and how much they will eat in order to be satisfied.

During the test, they established in detail the preconditions, such as what they ate the night before (calories), the pace and speed they should have during the race, as well as the amount of liquid they drank during the race.

They took multiple blood samples before and after the race to measure the levels of the hormones mentioned above.

And to make it more rigorous and establish a control group, all the parameters mentioned (caloric intake, blood, hydration, etc.) of these same people were measured a week later. But this time the measurements were taken when they were in a rest room, without doing any physical activity and then they were offered exactly the same buffet to eat.

What Aaron Braun and his team found was that the absolute energy intake (meaning calories) was significantly lower after the race compared to the food they consumed after being in the rest room without doing physical activity.

However, the curious thing is that contrary to what would be expected, this reduction in the amount of energy ingested was not proportionally associated with changes in ghrelin or other hormones related to appetite.

But, beyond the change of the hormone levels in the blood, what really matters is whether, in people who are training in moderation, long-distance running influence the appetite and the total calories consumed.

It is important to be aware of this, proper nutrition in the following hours after an intense training session influences the repairing process of the muscle tissue.

There are also two important points to note about the results:

• In the buffet after the race in which they ate fewer calories, they ate less rice, bread, meat or fish, but not less fruit or drinks. It is important to pay attention to this, because although the hydration was not diminished, the intake of proteins was.

• It was generally accepted that the decrease in appetite depended on the intensity of the exercise. But in this study the average heart rate during the 20-km run did not reach its maximum levels, and was approximately 157 +/- 3 beats per minute at 78% of the estimated maximum heart rate.

In addition, lactate levels did not change significantly in the post-exercise period in respect to the baseline levels. And the resting metabolic rate (resting energy expenditure, without physical activity) increased in the hours following the race.

2. Conclusions of the Study

Although the goal of the study was not to evaluate the influence of long-distance run on the metabolic rate and energy balance, in Aaron Braun’s opinion there are a couple of conclusions that can be drawn from it.

• If you are a trained long distance runner, values well if your goals are to lose fat mass, gain muscle mass or improve your performance and your times. And according to that, pay close attention to your post-race feeding.

• Long distance races can promote weight loss, and not only by the energy expenditure associated with training. But also because they seem to enhance the negative energy balance after exercise, by decreasing appetite and increase the basal metabolic rate. And this may be an additional incentive for the uninitiated to enter the world of running.

"So if you're thinking about it, do not give it more laps and start now," says Aaron Braun.

In addition, if you want to lose weight and be in good shape, according to Braun the exercise is not enough, but you must also eat healthy and built your motivation and willpower to achieve it.