TUESDAY, July 24 (HealthDay News) -- Sitting for 20 minutes between 30-minute workout sessions burns fat faster than exercising without a break, Japanese researchers are reporting.

The researchers tested the blood of seven men -- average age 25 -- during and after exercise on a stationary cycle. The men participated in three different activities: one hour of exercise and one hour of rest afterward; 30 minutes of exercise followed by a 20-minute rest and then a second 30-minute workout followed by an hour of rest; and an hour of rest without exercise. The men sat in a chair during the rest period.

The workout that was broken into two half-hour exercise workouts resulted in more fat breakdown than the other two activities, the researchers report in the June issue of the Journal of Applied Physiology. The second half-hour workout also showed a greater boost of epinephrine and a rapid decrease in insulin as a result of lower plasma glucose. The researchers theorized that these chemical events contribute to the fat breakdown.

The researchers noted that the American College of Sports Medicine recommends moderate exercise for 45 to 60 minutes to burn fat. However, the researchers argue that their results show the benefit of a rest period during the workout.

This comes as a great help to all of those over-weight individuals who cannot do sustained exercise for 45 minute intervals. These people who have not exercised in months or years will benefit the most from this research. They will be greatly encouraged that with just a start of 20 minutes of workout , then 20 minutes of rest, followed by another 20 minutes of workout will do more than 40 minutes done all together.

"Many people believe prolonged exercise will be optimal in order to reduce body fat, but our study has shown that repetitions of shorter exercise may cause enhancements of fat mobilization and utilization during and after the exercise. These findings will be informative about the design of [future] exercise regimens," lead researcher Kazushige Goto, of the University of Tokyo, said in a prepared statement. "Most people are reluctant to perform a single bout of prolonged exercise. The repeated exercise with shorter bouts of exercise will be a great help [in keeping up with fitness]."

Summing it up

For all of you out there wanting to exercise, but not finding the strength to exercise for hours on end rejoice. At last researchers have come up with a well researched plan that will allow you to exercise for shorter periods with a rest in between and still loose more fat than if you exercised at a gym for hours. Build up slowly so that your body can adjust. If you find that exercising for 10 minutes is all that you can do, then by all means start there., Exercise for 10 minutes, rest for 20 , then exercise for 10 minutes again. You may have to do this for several days in order for your body to adjust and then you can increase the amount by 5 minutes until you get to the desired 20 minute exercise program.

For all of those over-weight individuals who are striving to stay on a diet or a diet program and finding it hard to do all of the exercise the program calls for - rejoice in this finding. Start the exercise program slowly with the resting intervals suggested above and see how much more weight you will loose. You will be amazed at the fat loss you will start to experience through exercising for short intervals opposed to long stretches at a time. And loosing weight is the objective right! Give this method a try - exercise for 10 minutes, then rest 10 minutes, exercise for 10 minutes, rest for 10, then finish off with exercising for 10 minutes. Watch that fat melt off.

Remember that anything you do consistently for 30 days will become a habit. So make yourself exercise this way for 30 days. First thing in the morning is best so that you will not get distracted by the days events. After you start your day, it is almost impossible to stop just to exercise. By exercising in the morning you are revving up your metabolism for the entire day -thus burning more calories. So start your day with a good round of exercises to jump start your diet, rev-up your metabolism, and to keep you over-all body strong and healthy.

The worst thing to do is to procrastinate until you do not start an exercise program. There are those out there that always say - tomorrow, yet tomorrow never cones. Don't let this happen to you - stop with the procrastination - you do have time for your health - or you may just loose it!

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