The crucial thing for not being hungry after exercise is better body oxygenation and higher blood Sugar levels so that to feel energetic, not hungry. All these parameters relate to the way we breathe during and after exercise. How should we breathe during and after exercise for better body oxygenation? While most ordinary people are going to tell “more” and “deeper”, hundreds of published medical studies have clearly proven the opposite: The less one breathes at rest, the more oxygen will be provided for all vital organs and tissues of the human body. The same relates to breathing during and after physical exercise.

You can easily check all these ideas in practice. How? As a fitness coach and breathing teacher, I have suggested the following simple experiment to hundreds of my students: “One day breathe more during exercise and after it. Have large and frequent inhalations and exhalations all the time and monitor how you feel. Then the next day try the opposite: breathe only through the nose during exercise and as little as possible after the workout: have small inhalations and just relax for exhalations so that to maintain light air hunger and strictly nasal breathing all the time.”

All those students who tried this test reported huge difference:
- more breathing means physical exhaustion, anxiety, wheezing, chest tightness, etc,
- less breathing means less fatigue, less hunger, better alertness, concentration, focus, memory…

Maximum health benefits from exercise require 100% nasal breathing during exercise (in and out) and after it. A century ago, many competing athletes breathed only though the nose even during contests. For many unfit people it is typical to have chest (angina) pain, exercise-induced asthma attacks, heart attacks, and even stroke during exercise with mouth breathing. You will not suffer from these serious health problems, if you breathe only through the nose.

All these effects of less breathing are easy to explain. Blood oxygenation in case of normal breathing at rest (6 liters of air per minute) is about 98%. If one breathe much more (12-15 l/min are typical rates for heart, asthma, diabetes and many other patients), blood oxygenation is virtually the same. Hence, overbreathing does not increase blood oxygenation in any significant degree!

The only effect then is less CO2 in the blood and all body cells. But CO2 is the most potent known vasodilator: it expands arteries and arterioles. Hence, when one hyperventilates, blood vessels constrict and less blood (with oxygen and glucose) gets into tissues. This is the reason why anybody can easily faint (or pass out) after 2-3 min of rigorous hyperventilation at rest. Why? This is because brain oxygenation is reduced about 2 times after 1 min of hyperventilation.

Nasal breathing all the time, including sleep and exercise, is crucial for better body oxygenation. Among other life style factors for more oxygen in cells are:
- eating only when hungry,
- prevention of sleeping on one’s back,
- correction of nutritional deficiencies (fish oil, Ca, Mg, Zn),
- straight spine (correct posture) 24/7, and many others.

There is one medical therapy that is targeted to increase body oxygenation using natural means (the Buteyko breathing method) and, for this therapy, physical exercise, when done correctly, is the central factor of that helps us to have good health and normal body weight, and enjoy life.