Get this: just a single workout session can actually change the complete makeup of your fat tissue, and it can totally do wonders for your metabolism.
According to a new study, published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, the types of fat we store in our body can be incredibly useful to maintaining a healthy metabolism, and can actually change based on your fitness level and how often you hit the gym.
The fat tissue in your body, as The New York Times explains, is necessary to store fat and is often responsible for causing diabetes and other metabolic conditions. However, with a workout or two, you can work to decrease the amount of fat our body stores. Now that, we’ve known forever. So what’s the real change, thanks to this study?
Previous research has shown that exercise helps to transform regular white fat into brown fat — and it’s the brown fat that can actually burn more calories.
When researchers logged the body composition and fat makeup of their subjects and then checked them again after an hour of exercise, they showed that the workout created better and more open blood vessels, which contributes to improved blood flow and generally increasing the quality of your tissue.
The change — though it was small — leads the researchers to believe that exercise and any amount of exercise can actually do major wonders for how your body receives and stores fat.
“There is no doubt that the best thing for metabolic health is to lose weight,” says Dr. Jeffrey Horowitz, from the University of Michigan School of Kinesiology, who completed the study, tells the Times.
And the more brown fat your body stores, the more fat it will burn on its own (and quicker when you’re working out). So working out = more brown fat and more brown fat = quicker fat loss.
Doesn’t that sound like a total win-win? We’re into it.
