Glycogen, otherwise known as sugar, within the muscles and liver decrease in the night as you sleep. Conventional wisdom suggests that exercising on an empty stomach would promote fat burning and weight loss.

A study from the University of Padua in Italy found the opposite to be true: physical activity after a light meal WORKED BEST best for losing body fat. Researchers studied fat metabolism in 8 males who ran on a treadmill at 65% of their maximum heart rate for 36 minutes on two different occasions - either without eating and after a light breakfast.

A new study says 42% of U.S. adults will be obese by 2030. Just over one-third are obese now. The new study says the rate of increase in obesity is slowing down. But even the smaller increases will add up. Also by 2030, about 11% of Americans will be severely obese, the study predicts. That's at least 100 pounds overweight. People who are severely obese have the greatest increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and other illnesses. The new research was presented at a health conference. The Associated Press wrote about it May 7.

Exercise is connected with a lower occurrence of colon cancer in men and women, and of breast cancer in women. In the November 2003 issue of Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, it has been reported that moderate to vigorous physical activity has a greater protective effect against cancer than lower intensity physical activity.  It seems that about 30–60 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise per day is needed for risk reduction. In addition, physically active women have a 20%–40% reduction in relative risk for breast cancer compared with their inactive counterparts. 

Being pregnant is no time to ditch the gym. Moms-to-be who frequently worked out doing moderately hard workouts ( a 5 to 7 on a scale of 1 to 10) in the first trimester had a lower risk of preterm birth, reports a new study.  Their bodies may replenish more nutrients to their placentas after they exercise, says study author Anne Marie Jukic, Ph.D., a researcher at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Talk to your doctor about exercising while you're expecting she says: If you have certain risk factors or didn't exercise regularly beforehand, you may need to take special precautions.

If your mom is overweight, your own figure isn't doomed.  A study in PLoS Medicine found that doing any amount of exercise is linked to a 40% reduction in the genetic risk of being overweight - and people with the most obesity-related DNA sequences saw the biggest benefits from exercise. No excuses now.

People undergoing cancertreatment traditionally have been told to rest as much as possible and avoid exertion, to save all their strength to battle the dreaded disease.

But a growing number of physicians and researchers now say that people who remain physically active as best they can during treatment are more likely to beat cancer.

The positive evidence for exercise during and after cancer treatment has piled so high that an American College of Sports Medicine panel is revising the group's national guidelines regarding exercise recommended for cancer survivors.