Heavy-duty endurance exercise can cause body fat levels to drop without any accompanying weight loss, a new small-scale study indicates.

A group of eleven middle-aged men who cycled 710 miles in seven days lost only about 1% of their total weight, because they ate and drank enough to offset the calorie burn.

But they lost over 9% of their overall body fat, including a nearly 15% reduction in levels of dangerous visceral fat crowding their vital organs.

The cyclists also experienced a more than 20% reduction in total cholesterol and a nearly 40% reduction in triglyceride levels, as well as a substantial reductions in blood pressure.

The results “support the importance of promoting a physically active lifestyle rather than caloric restriction in obesity prevention,” concluded the research team led by co-senior author Jean-Pierre Despres, a professor of kinesiology with University Laval in France.

In other words, the study “provides evidence that humans were designed to be physically active rather than eat as little as possible,” researchers wrote.

For the study, researchers recruited 11 recreational male cyclists ages 50 to 66 who could maintain an average pace of nearly 19 miles per hour over long distances. The men all hailed from the Quebec City metropolitan area in Canada.

During seven consecutive days, the cyclists were sent once or twice on a 64-mile road loop on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River across from Quebec City, until they racked up a total 710 miles of riding.

The men were asked to eat enough to maintain their body weight, and provided unlimited access to a buffet breakfast and lunch as well as a boxed take-home dinner and snacks.

Before their ride, the cyclists had similar levels of visceral fat compared to a control group of men in the same age range. However, the cyclists had significantly lower levels of liver fat and belly fat.

During the week-long ride, the men gained a little more than 1% lean muscle, but lost more than 9% of their body fat, results show.

“These findings once again emphasize the need to go beyond weight loss to fully evaluate changes in body composition induced by … endurance exercise,” the researchers concluded.

The new study appears in the American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism.

More information

The Mayo Clinic has more on exercise for weight loss.

SOURCE: American Physiological Society, news release, Sept. 18, 2024

Source: HealthDay

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