Calorie burning and muscle building are the obvious ways cycling helps you drop unwanted pounds. But that’s just the beginning. Here are a few stealth and sometimes surprising ways that bicycling can help you shed body fat fast. —Selene Yeager
Bicycling Makes You Happy - A recent study from Bowling Green State University reported that as little as 10 minutes of cycling improved the mood among 21 men and women, compared to a similar group who did nothing during that time. Feeling happier can help you beat fat by reducing the likelihood that you’ll reach for a mood boost in a pint of ice cream or plow your way through a pizza to burn off the blues after a bad day at work. Cornell University researchers have found that people who are sad tend to not only eat more food but also eat more high-carbohydrate, high-calorie comfort food than those who feel happy.
Bicycling Gives You More Energy to Burn - Energy begets energy. The more you move, the more you’ll want to move. And it’s not just me talking. It’s thousands of people and some hard science.
When University of Georgia researchers analyzed data from 70 studies on exercise and fatigue that involved more than 6,800 men and women, they found that 90 percent of the studies reported the same result: Exercise increases energy and reduces fatigue. Sedentary people who participated in an exercise program experienced less fatigue than their still-sedentary counterparts, and the average energy boost was actually greater than improvements reported from using stimulant medications.
Bicycling Leads to Better Sleep - Because it gives you so much energy during the day, bicycling will help you sleep like a baby during the night, which is a very good thing when you consider the sorry state of most of our nights of shut-eye.
Sleep statistics show that the average night’s sleep has dropped from 9 hours to 7 during the past 20 years, with many of us getting a whole lot less. That’s bad news for your weight-loss efforts, say scientists, because when you don’t give your body the sleep it craves, it starts hunting for relief in the form of food. (Adopted from www.bicycling.com)
