Shedding Belly Fat by Intense Weekend Workouts, Suggests Study.
Struggling to fit in a workout during your busy weekdays ?
A recent study brings good news, stating that surpassing the weekly exerciser commendations over two days, typically the weekend a practice often referred to as being a “weekend warrior” can also help in burning fat.
Both the World Health Organization and the United States have exercise guidelines for adults that recommend at least 150 minutes of moderate physical activity each week, 75 minutes of vigorous physical activity per week, or a blend of both, supplemented with some strength and flexibility training.
Lihua Zhang, the corresponding author and a healthcare scientist at the National Center for Cardiovascular Diseases, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, advocates the “weekend warrior pattern” for individuals who find it challenging to adhere to the frequency recommended in current guidelines.
Zhang, in an email, stated that their findings showed no significant difference between the “weekend warrior pattern” and the “regularly active pattern” in terms of abdominal and overall body fat.
However, there was a slight catch. Zhang mentioned that the average workout of a weekend warrior was of higher intensity and longer duration compared to the weekday workouts of the study participants.
In fact, weekend warriors spent nearly the entire recommended weekly duration of 147.6 minutes in each exercise session over the two days.
This could “partially explain our results while needing further investigation,” said Zhang. Dr. Andrew Freeman, director of cardiovascular prevention and wellness at National Jewish Health in Denver, Colorado, suggested that individuals capable of exercising for over two hours continuously might be a unique subset of weekend warriors with a distinctive exercise physiology that allows them to push their limits for extended periods.
The study, published in the Obesity journal, used a dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scan, an objective tool, to measure overall fat levels and belly fat, which is considered the most harmful type of fat for overall health, in over 9,600 individuals aged 20 to 59 who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).
Unlike the Body Mass Index (BMI) measurements, which provide a rough estimate of a person’s body fat based on height and weight, DXA scans offer a more precise and comprehensive analysis of bone density, fat tissue, and lean mass.
Zhang, in an email, mentioned that to their knowledge, this is the first study to explore the associations between physical activity patterns and DXA-measured fat tissue mass.
The study found that both the 772 weekend warriors and the 3,277 regular exercisers had lower DXA-measured belly fat, lower waist circumference, lower whole-body fat mass, and lower BMI compared to the 5,580 individuals who reported no regular exercise.
The study concluded that persistence in exercise paid off, especially in terms of belly fat. Weekend warriors who exercised the hardest and longest had “even lower abdominal fat,” stated Dr. Beverly Tchang, an assistant professor of clinical medicine at the Comprehensive Weight Control Center, Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City.
Dr. Tchang, who was not involved in the research, reaffirmed the old saying about physical activity and health: any activity is better than no activity.
The key takeaway is that individuals should engage in physical activities that suit their lifestyle.
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lifestyle