If you’re looking to shape up, researchers at the University of Copenhagen say 30 minutes of rigorous exercise can be as effective as an hour when it comes to shedding weight.
The team studied 60 heavy but healthy men between 20 and 40 years old who wanted to lose weight. Twenty-one were directed to get 30 minutes of aerobic exercise — running, cycling and rowing — daily. Twenty-one were told to get 60 minutes, and 18 were assigned to a control group that remained sedentary. The results showed that exercising for 30 minutes at a pace hard enough to break a sweat was sufficient to promote weight loss.
“I would have expected that more training would be better, perhaps not double as good,” Mads Rosenkilde, a doctoral student who participated in the study, said in an e-mail. “What surprised me the most was the larger than expected loss of “body calories” (exclusively fat mass) in the [moderate] group.”