Post-Exercise Energy Intake in Normal-weight and Overweight Sedentary Males

Abstract

PURPOSE: To investigate the roles of dietary restraint and dieting status on post-exercise energy intake (PE-EI) following an acute bout of moderate-intensity exercise in sedentary males 21–45 years of age who were either normal weight (N) (mean BMI 22.9+1.4) with low or high restraint (N-LR, N-HR); overweight (O) (mean BMI 27.9+1.7) with low or high restraint and not dieting (O-LR-ND, O-HR-ND), or overweight with high restraint and dieting (O-HR-D). METHODS: This study consisted of two experimental conditions, exercise (E) and non-exercise (NE) in a counterbalanced-cross over design on two different days, 4 to 7 days apart. On the E day, participants walked on a treadmill for 60 minutes at a moderate intensity. PE-EI at lunch and 12 hours after exercise was compared on E and NE days. Dietary restraint was determined using the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire. A mixed model, repeated measures, 5×2 ANOVA was used to evaluate the impact of exercise on PE-EI with Fisher's Least Significant Difference test for post hoc comparisons. RESULTS: Preliminary data indicate that there was no significant main effect of exercise on PE-EI. When EI was averaged across the two experimental conditions, there was a significant main effect of group, F(1, 47)=455.891, p<0.001, for 12-hour EI. Post hoc analyses showed that the O-HR-D group (n=9) ate significantly fewer kilocalories at 1703 + 262 (mean + SD), than the O-LR-ND (n=12; 2768 + 227) and O-HR-ND (n=9; 2631 + 262) groups. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that an acute bout of moderate-intensity exercise does not influence PE-EI in normal weight and overweight sedentary males with different restraint and dieting status. Therefore, exercise as a prescription for weight loss does not appear to promote counter-regulatory eating behavior in males.