Fat is stored in cells in the form of triglycerides. You’ve heard that exercise increases the body’s ability to burn fat, but probably you’ve never really understood why that happens—or, for that matter, why you shouldeven bother to exercise if you’re already on a good food program.
Shouldn’t just eating correctly be enough? In reality, appropriate exercise
greatly enhances your body’s ability to burn stored fat. Epinephrine is a fat-mobilizing hormone released by your sympathetic nervous system. Studies have shown that during exercise there is a significantly greater concentration of this hormone in your body. When epinephrine binds to specific receptors on fat cells, it stimulates hormone-sensitive lipase, also known as HSL, to break apart triglycerides within the cells and
release them into the bloodstream where they can be used as energy. And
that’s precisely what you want to happen. You don’t want that fat to just sit
around in your body; you want to get it mobilized. When you engage in aerobic exercise, HSL becomes even more sensitive to epinephrine since your body temperature is rising. The greater your aerobic endurance, the less concentration of epinephrine it will take to activate HSL and release stored fat. If you are obese, however, it will take
significantly higher amounts of this hormone to stimulate the breakdown
of triglycerides. Another hormone affected by exercise is leptin, a peptide hormone
produced by the adipose (fatty) tissue that plays a role in the storing of body fat and in overall energy balance. A recent study published in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry states that exercise combined with dieting is the most effective combination to reduce levels of leptin in the body, with a resulting loss of body fat.
No comments:
Post a Comment