Thirty minutes of exercise can decrease your appetite

New studies show that, contrary to popular belief, hitting the gym for a half hour or more can decrease your appetite.

One recently published study found that perceived fullness was higher among participants after 12 weeks of aerobic training.

Another study showed that women appeared less hungry on mornings when they walked on a treadmill for 45 minutes compared with mornings they didn’t, Men’s Health reports.

“Exercise can definitely suppress hunger,” Barry Braun, director of the Energy Metabolism Laboratory at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, told Men’s Health.

Similar links between exercise and lack of appetite were found in studies from 2010, according to Scientific American.

Those findings raise an important question: If workouts make people want to eat less, then why do so many people who repeatedly exercise still have trouble losing weight?

“In most studies, there is a poor correspondence between appetite and actual food intake,” Barry Braun said. Translation: just because you might not feel as hungry as usual after a workout, that doesn’t mean you won’t eat too much after a workout nonetheless.

So, how should exercise fanatics avoid the pitfalls of hitting the gym and gaining unwanted weight still?

By cutting back on food rewards after a workout and keeping a food log for at least a week.

Studies show that simply logging your meals can help you cut down on overeating.