The researchers wound up recruiting 61 volunteers, most of them middle-aged and inactive; all were overweight or obese. The study participants completed detailed questionnaires and online tests of their food preferences and behaviors, picking, for instance, between rapid-fire, on-screen pictures of different foods and also answering questions about bingeing on food and whether they found it hard to not overeat.

Fifteen of the volunteers then were asked to continue with their normal lives as a control group, while the other 46 began exercising, working out on exercise machines at a university facility five times a week for about 45 to 60 minutes or until they had burned about 500 calories per session. They continued this training for 12 weeks, eating as they liked at home.

Then everyone returned to the lab for weigh-ins and to repeat the original tests. Most, but not all, of the exercisers had shed a few pounds, while some of those in the control group had gained weight.

The men and women in the control group also showed little alteration in their feelings about food. But the exercisers’ reactions to pictures of and questions about high-calorie, fatty foods were new. They no longer found them quite so irresistible. In psychological terms, they showed less “wanting” for the most fattening foods.

Interestingly, their scores on measures of “liking,” or how much they expected to enjoy those same foods, remained unchanged and strong. They still felt that they would enjoy a cookie but did not feel quite the same drive to seek one out. They also reported fewer instances of recent binge eating.

Taken as a whole, these results suggest that, in addition to making us healthier, “exercise might improve food reward and eating behavior traits linked to the susceptibility to overconsume,” says Kristine Beaulieu, a research fellow and dietitian at the University of Leeds, who led the new study.