5 Minutes of Biking Daily Can Prevent Weight Gain after Weight Loss Surgery

Whether you have had LAP-BAND surgery, are currently obese, overweight, or of a healthy weight, you can avoid gaining weight with minimal increases in your daily physical activity, specifially biking or walking briskly. A new study found that even as little as five minutes more of biking each day helped women of any weight to maintain and control their weight. Walking briskly, at a pace of at least 3 mph, was equally as effective.

Over the course of sixteen years, the study participants gained an average of 20.5 pounds, and while some weight gain is natural as we age, bicycling and brisk walking were effective in limiting that weight gain to five percent of the participant’s initial body weight. For overweight and obese women, even bicycling two hours a week increased their ability to control their weight significantly.

While women of a healthy weight benefit from biking or brisk walking as a way to decrease their risk of gaining weight, by substituting bicycling for slow walking or driving, overweight and obese women benefit the most. The study’s authors encourage physicians to prescribe bicycling when they promote physical activity to their overweight female patients. “Bicycling may be more comfortable than brisk walking, especially for overweight women,” said Anne Lusk, research fellow in the Harvard School of Public Health Department of Nutrition. She continues by saying that the United States should take steps to encourage bicycling to combat obesity by providing “… separate and comfortable places to bicycle, such as cycle tracks between sidewalks and parked cars.”