Studies have revealed that short-term increments of exercise could help lower fats in the blood after eating a fatty meal. These findings could be just the motivation for the people who claim they don’t have enough time to exercise need to get moving.

One expert stated that merely performing 10-minute exercise bouts for at least 30 minutes a day would work on lowering fats in the blood as opposed to no exercise at all. Not enough hours in the day to exercise no longer holds as a valid excuse as these short 10-minute bursts of exercise have proven to help prevent cardiovascular disease.

Experts also noted that taking a leisurely stroll around the block wouldn’t qualify as meeting this cardiovascular benefit. Instead, they suggested walking at a moderate pace or taking a light jog. The negative cardiovascular consequences of eating a high-fat meal happens when there is an abnormally high increase in fat, a condition known as postprandial lipemia, which has been linked to increasing the risk of heart disease.

Researchers tested the effects of short-term exercise in a study on 18 men and women who didn’t follow a daily exercise routine. The participants were given a high-fat meal consisting of a milk shake with heavy whipping cream on three separate occasions for the next few weeks.

The duration of exercise before meals were divided into three categories:

• The participants exercised continuously for 30 minutes
• The participants exercised for 30 minutes in three 10-minute increments
• The participants didn’t exercise at all

Before and several times after each meal measurements of triglycerides and other blood fats were taken.

Overall, total cholesterol levels remained the same, however it did appear that triglyceride levels were less pronounced after a bout of exercise as opposed to no exercise at all. This led researchers to believe that exercise did have a positive influence on keeping triglyceride levels from rising after a high-fat meal.