If you are like the millions of sedentary people out there who are going to begin an exercise program after New Year’s Day, here’s the bad news for you.  It may be worse to have started and stopped than never have begun at all!

Occasional exercisers, who push themselves to the limits of endurance, get bored and chuck in the towel may be putting their health in unnecessary jeopardy.  A study by Professor Judith Stern at the University of California, Davis, showed that exercised rats taken off their regime soon overate and gained weight like the sedentary rats.  Not a surprising outcome you might say but this bit of the study might make you sit up and take notice.  The blood test results of the exercised rats showed much poorer biochemical profile than the sedentary rats with much higher percentage body fat!

Therefore if you are gearing up for your New Year’s Fitness Resolution only to give it all up by February, my advice is don’t bother.  Some weight gain may be the least of your concerns!

Reference

Animals on an exercise program:  J.S. Stern and E. A. Applegate, “Exercise Termination Effects on Food Intake, Plasma Insulin and Adipose Tissue Lipoprotein Lipase Activity in the Osborne-Mendel Rat,” Metabolism, 1987, 36, pp. 709-714.

P. Lowney, V. M. Lee, R.J. Hansen, et al., “The Effects of Exercise,  Detraining, Starvation and Refeeding on the Lipogenic Capacity of the Osborne-Mendel Rat,” American Journal of Physiology, 1988, 254, pp. 648-654.