This work examined lentils as an optimal and acceptable pre-exercise meal for athletes of high intensity intermittent exercise. Thirteen male athletes participated in 4 simulated soccer trials with a repeated-measures crossover design. Along with a fasted control condition, isocaloric lentil, potato & egg white, or potato meals providing 1.5 g total carbohydrate/kg were consumed 2-h before the trials. Pre-exercise meal sensory acceptability and digestive tolerability were measured throughout testing with fixed-point scales: A sensory test meal analysis and gastrointestinal digestive symptom rating scale. Participant demographics, nutrition knowledge, and psychosocial perceptions towards lentils were assessed with a questionnaire. Distance covered on a 5 x 1 min repeated sprint test (2.5 min rest) at the end of the soccer trial assessed exercise performance. The Borg Scale (0-20) determined ratings of perceived exertion during exercise testing. Barriers toward pulse-based meal consumption negatively correlated with weekly pulse consumption (r=-0.902, p <0.05), while a positive correlation existed between beneficial beliefs of pulse-based meal consumption and weekly pulse consumption (r=0.620, p <0.05). Participants consumed an average of 79.5 ± 1.8% of each meal. The meals were perceived large in size and cumbersome to ingest by the participants, and no between meal differences were observed (p>0.05). The lentil meal was not as appealing in aroma, appearance, or flavour compared to the potato meal, but no different than the potato & egg meal (p>0.05). Lentil consumption resulted in a minimal increase in nausea compared to the other conditions (1.0, 0.54, 0.31 and 0.08, for lentil, potato & egg, potato, and control, respectively, p<0.05). Initially after consumption, all meals resulted in more bloating and fullness, and less hunger than control (p<0.05). Improved overall exercise performance was proportional with greater pre-exercise meal energy (r = 0.68, p <0.05) and carbohydrate intake (r = 0.67, p<0.05). Pre–exercise consumption of the low glycemic index lentil meal, as well as the two high glycemic pre-exercise meals, resulted in improved total sprint distances compared to the fasted control condition (p<0.05). The comparative sensory acceptability, digestive tolerability and similar performance outcomes of the lentil meal to the other pre-exercise meals indicates lentils may be a suitable pre-exercise meal for athletes of high intensity intermittent exercise.

Recent years have witnessed significant research into the acute effects of exercise on appetite, energy intake and gut hormone responses. The experiments in this thesis have further investigated this topic by examining the appetite, acylated ghrelin, peptide YY and energy intake responses to energy deficits induced via different exercise protocols and food restriction. To achieve this, 48 young healthy males (mean (SD): age 23 (3) years, body mass index 23.7 (2.7) kg.m-2, maximum oxygen uptake 52.9 (9.8) mL.kg 1.min-1) were recruited into four studies. In study one, 60 min of treadmill running at 70% of VO2 max did not stimulate any increases in appetite or daily energy intake regardless of whether the exercise was performed after breakfast or in the fasted state. In study two, six 30 s Wingate tests stimulated increases in appetite during the subsequent hours compared with 60 min of cycling at 68% of VO2 max. Differences in appetite appeared to be unrelated to changes in plasma acylated ghrelin concentrations and did not influence ad libitum energy intake. Subsequently, endurance exercise resulted in a significantly greater negative daily energy balance than sprint exercise due to a larger exercise energy expenditure. Study three revealed that appetite and energy intake did not differ from a resting control trial after either ten, 4 min cycling bouts at 85 90% of VO2 max separated by 2 min of rest or 60 min of constant cycling at 60% of VO2 max. This occurred despite elevated PYY3-36 concentrations during the hours after exercise. Finally, study four showed that an energy deficit of ~1475 kJ stimulated increases in appetite when induced via food restriction but not when achieved by an acute bout of exercise. This was associated with differences in plasma PYY3-36 concentrations but did not appear to be related to changes in circulating levels of acylated ghrelin and did not influence energy intake. This thesis has shown that appetite perceptions do not differ from a resting control trial during the hours after continuous endurance exercise. Alternatively, supramaximal cycling exercise and subtle reductions in food intake stimulated increases in appetite during the subsequent hours. Such increases in appetite do not appear to be related to changes in acylated ghrelin but may be influenced by plasma PYY3-36 concentrations. Despite differences in appetite, daily energy intake was unaffected by all interventions.

L’activité physique (AP) induit des nombreux bénéfices sur la santé. Cependant, le niveau d’inactivité reste important : 42% des Français ne pratiquent aucune AP de loisir. Plusieurs facteurs déterminent l’engagement durable dans l’AP. Cette thèse a pour objectif d’évaluer certains des facteurs susceptibles d’améliorer cet engagement : modalité d’exercice, réponse affective à l’exercice, motivation pour l’AP, et d’optimiser les réponses physiologique et affective à l’exercice.L’oxydation des lipides joue un rôle important dans la prévention et le traitement de certaines pathologies cardio-métaboliques. Des travaux récents montrent l’intérêt potentiel d’un programme d’exercice intermittent intense (EII) sur la diminution de la masse grasse. Nous avons tenté d’optimiser l’oxydation lipidique survenant au cours d’un exercice combiné (COMB : 10-min d’EII + 35-min d’exercice d’intensité modérée continu, EIMC) comparé à une séance d’EIMC prolongé. Ce protocole original induit une oxydation lipidique plus importante (1,5 fois) dans la phase de 35-min d’EIMC au cours de COMB que celle obtenue au cours d’un EIMC prolongé isocalorique. Cette étude montre l’intérêt de l’EII pour augmenter le métabolisme lipidique.La modalité d’exercice ainsi que la réponse affective à l’exercice sont importants pour l’engagement durable dans l’AP. L’étape suivante de ce travail de thèse a consisté donc à évaluer la réponse affective aux différentes modalités d’exercice aigus (EIMC vs EII, avec pic d’intensité au début, au milieu et à la fin, avec ou sans soutien de l’autonomie) chez les individus en surpoids/obèses et chez la personne âgée. Ces populations ont été choisies car elles sont peu enclines à faire de l’AP régulière, alors qu’elle est importante pour eux. Les résultats de ces études montrent que la réponse affective diminue progressivement au cours de l’exercice dans toutes les conditions. Cependant, cette diminution est moins importante dans les conditions avec soutien de l’autonomie (chez la personne âgée et chez les sujets sains) indiquant l’importance de ce facteur. D’autre part, le moment auquel le pic d’intensité apparait détermine la réponse affective qui est plus négative quand la séance se termine avec l’exercice le plus intense.Après avoir évalué les effets de l’exercice aigu sur la réponse affective à l’exercice chez la personne en surpoids/obèse, nous nous sommes intéressés aux effets de l’entraînement sur la condition physique, les variables cardio-métaboliques, la réponse affective et la motivation. Ainsi, la dernière partie de travail de recherche a consisté alors à examiner les effets à court et long terme de l’entrainement (exercice intermittent intense sans : EII, et avec soutien de l’autonomie : EII+SA vs EIMC et groupe contrôle). Les résultats montrent qu’après les deux modalités d’entrainement intermittent intense la condition physique était améliorée après 24 séances. Ce type d’exercice influence positivement la composition corporelle. Cependant, les indicateurs de santé cardio-métabolique n’ont pas été modifiés. L’EII induit un moindre niveau de difficulté perçu de l’effort quand il est combiné avec un soutien de l’autonomie.Cette thèse montre que certaines modalités d’exercice (EII et/ou exercice qui se termine avec une intensité moins importante) ainsi que le soutien de l’autonomie favorisent une réponse affective positive qui pourrait influencer un engagement durable à l’AP. Ceci reste cependant à être démontré. / Regular physical activity (PA) induces many health benefits. However, the level of inactivity remains high: in France 42% of the population do not engage in any sport or leisure time PA. Many factors are responsible for the long-term involvement in PA. The main objective of this thesis was to evaluate some of those factors (exercise modality, affective response to exercise, PA motivation) and to optimize the physiological and affective responses to exercise.Lipid oxidation plays an important role in the prevention and in the treatment of metabolic diseases. Recent studies show the effectiveness of high intensity intermittent exercise (HIIE) on body fat. In this study we sought to optimize the lipid oxidation during a combined exercise (COMB: 10-min HIIE + 35-min prolonged moderate intensity continuous exercise, MICE). The results of this innovative study shows that fat oxidation can be increased (1.5 times) during 35-min MICE of COMB compared to the same period of a prolonged MICE if it’s performed after high intensity interval exercise (HIIE) vs an isocaloric MICE alone. This study shows the importance of HIIE to increase fat metabolism.The type of exercise, as well as affective response to exercise are important in order to increase regular PA participation. In the next part of this thesis, we assessed the affective response to different exercise modalities (MICE vs HIIE, peak of intensity at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of exercise, exercise with or without autonomy support) in overweight/obese subjects and in older adults. These populations were chosen because of their low PA participation level despite of its importance for health. The results show the decrease of affective response in each type of exercise. However, this decrease was lower in all autonomy supportive conditions (in older adults and in healthy subjects) showing the importance of this factor. In addition, the peak intensity time influenced the affective response: more negative feelings were observed when the session ended with the peak of intensity.After examining the effects of acute exercise sessions on affective response in overweight/obese subjects, we focused on the effects of exercise training on physical fitness, cardio metabolic health, affective response and motivation. Hence, in the last part of this thesis we examined the short and long-term effects of HIIE training vs MICE and control group. The main results showed the increase in physical fitness after two high intensity conditions. In addition, HIIE improved body composition. However, the cardio metabolic health variables remained unchanged after 24 sessions. In addition, HIIE induced a lower level of perceived exertion during exercise when it was combined with autonomy support.The results of this thesis show that some of exercise modalities (HIIE and/or exercise that ends with lower intensity) and autonomy support promote more positive affective response and can potentially influence the long term PA engagement. But the latter needs to be demonstrated.