Annie Thorp, RD found this  great article with information that  is a great motivator for exercise! We thought this would be good incentive for clients! Let us know what you think.

Calories Count

In February, a two-year study of more than 800 overweight adults showed that people can lose weight if they reduce calories, regardless of the percentages of fat, protein and carbohydrates in their diets. The study, by researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health, the Pennington Biomedical Research Center and the National Institutes of Health, was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Some foods are more “addictive” than others because they have a bigger effect on the brain chemicals that control the “reward” circuits in our brains. From a neurobiological point of view, sweets, fats and salty foods make us want to eat more of the same, as Dr. David S. Kessler, the former head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, makes clear in his book “The End of Overeating.” Obviously, eating more leads to weight gain.

And what about the question of whether exercise increases or decreases appetite?

Exercise can suppress appetite, says Dr. George Blackburn, associate director of the Division of Nutrition at Harvard Medical School, because it triggers not only the chemical dopamine, which governs the brain’s reward system, but also endorphins, those feel-good brain chemicals. These substances act on the hunger and satiety areas of the brains for as long as four hours afterward. “You don’t need cigarettes or drugs or food, all those things in the pleasure areas of the brain, because exercise has already activated them,” says Blackburn.

A review article in 2007 from researchers at Tufts University also concluded that there is a “spontaneous reduction in hunger associated with participation in exercise.”

Psychologically, as opposed to biochemically, some experts theorize that exercise might lead people to believe they can reward themselves with treats afterward or that they may be tempted to be less active for the rest of the day. And some studies, says Evans, do suggest that if you exercise, say, for 40 minutes a day, you will “then compensate by decreasing how active you are at other times of the day, leaving total energy expenditure unchanged” or that you might reward yourself with food. But other studies say both of those theories are wrong.

Take your time

What we should be focusing on is eating slowly, which does control intake. “It takes about 20 minutes for food to get digested and formulated into hormones for your brain to know what you did, to get that signal to the brain,” says Blackburn. If you wolf your food, you’ll finish your second helping before your brain has registered your first.

An important caveat is that even rigorous diet and exercise may not work for everyone. If you’re seriously overweight or obese, the hormones that stimulate appetite can work against you when you diet severely. Bariatric surgery — such as the “stomach stapling” operations — may be considered.

Chicago Tribune