Sunday, October 19, 2008

Research news

Ick. I woke up sick. Sore throat, stuffy head, feeling blah. Playing hooky from church as it is not nice to spread my germs about.

Great strides in the science of boobs and abdominal fat loss!

First off, a tweet from theDailyblonde led me to a Swedish study which has shown that drinking coffee can make women's breasts smaller. Now I wonder, who funds these things?? It apparently doesn't work in my family of busty women who drink copious amounts of coffee, but according to the study only 1/2 of all women have the gene that links the two. Does it matter if it is regular or decaf?
Does it matter when you start drinking it? I would think that drinking it during puberty would have the great effect. What about obese women who gain weight in "the girls" as part of the distribution of excess fat - do they gain less in the boob department due to coffee? What a silly waste of research dollars! Must be a bunch of bored men funding this one.

Second, HA HA! I always get sick when I hear people still believe that low intensity cardio is the way to go to lose weight. Well, Alwyn Cosgrove reviews a study on his blog which yet again dispells that myths. Here is what Alwyn reports:

"The researchers split the subjects into three groups - a control group (no exercise), a low intensity cardio group (performed five days per week), and a high intensity group (performed high intensity three times per week and low intensity twice a week). The study was 16 weeks in length. The only difference between the exercising grops was the three high intensity sessions per week.

The interesting thing was the researchers controlled the groups for total calories burned -- so they adjusted the duration of the high intensity group's workouts so that they didn't burn any more calories than the lower intensity group. So both groups burned the exact same number of calories (400 calories per session) - and obviously the higher intensity group exercised for a shorter period of time on those days.

This is where the results are interesting. Despite burning the exact same amount of calories over the sixteen weeks - the low intensity group did not see any changes in abdominal fat. The exercise program did not do anything. However the high intensity group saw a significant reduction in abdominal fat.

Why? They burned the same calories in training - so they should see the same results.
Because something happens in the post workout period following high intensity exercise that doesn't happen after low intensity exercise. Is it an increase in metabolism, an increase in fat burning enzymes or simply a decrease in appetite as a result of the exercise?"


A thought for the day:

Philippians 4:6-7 (New American Standard Bible)

6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

1 comment:

Jenna Noele said...

Coffee drinking for breast reduction. Huh, sounds like they were grasping at straws to me.

If any of that holds any merit at all i shudder to think what would happen if i quite the coffee.

Lazy people like low intensity workouts.