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Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

science.org

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Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#51

Post by esyir »

pverghese wrote: post #38
wesleywt wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You tracked what you ate was the key difference. Not the exercise. I did an experiment on myself. I deliberately did not do any exercise and changed my diet. I loss 5kg quicker on my diet than I did when I was running 10km regularly. I think its counter productive to see an obese person in the gym or running as this will certainly lead to injury. The narrative around weight loss should always be eat less calories and…

Not sure what was your starting weight. But 5 kg is within the realm of normal weight fluctuations over a week for an average American.

Are you sure, I get a one or two kg swing, but 5kg of weight seems a bit extreme.

I'm not American, but in my part of the world people tend to have gradual trends to weight, not sudden swings.

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#52

Post by dahart »

taeric wrote: post #37
dahart wrote: post #4

> “You can’t exercise your way out of obesity,” […] “you can’t outrun a bad diet.” While this article is being a bit dramatic and possibly understating the impact of exercise slightly, I feel a little dumb that I didn’t know this earlier. It took me several decades too long to understand the obvious, that exercise is for building strength, and losing weight happens by eating less. I tried for way too many years to ex…

Yeah... I don't know that it is that simple. In the summer when I bike twenty miles a day, I am eating far more, and still losing weight. Don't get me wrong, I know that the easiest way to lose weight is to limit calorie consumption. I also know that a buffet of 1800 calories going to a bike ride helps a ton.

I agree, maybe you got me a little wrong. I’m more or less talking about the good ol’ adage calories in, calories out. It’s never that simple, amen, but measuring and matching output with intake is a pretty good proxy and works in practice. When calories out is higher, calories in can be higher too (and should be for big exercises). My problem was unregulated calories in, and a tendency to overcompensate a bit.

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#53

Post by plorkyeran »

learc83 wrote: post #7

How do his results line up real world data like soldiers needing about 5k calories a day when active. Or athletes like Michael Phelps consuming 8k-10k calories a day while training?

The obvious answer is that even if the body does become more efficient and reduce calories burned on other things, there's an upper limit to that. The Hazda walk 14 km per day, which is only 800 calories per day. By professional athlete standards, that's a relaxing offseason level of exercise. It's plausible that your body could cut its base calorie consumption from 2000 to 1200 and stay at a stable weight while only consuming 2000 calories, but it certainly can't cut it to -500 calories and stay at a stable weight while burning 2500 a day exercising and only eating 2000.

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#54

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

On the matter of food and weight...

What of the people who tend toward being thin or lithe? I'm 181cm and 68kg (5'11.26" and 150 pounds) at 40 years old.

I can eat and quantity of any food in perpetuity and not gain weight. Although they doesn't mean I don't feel unwell if I were to, say, eat way too much of something.

If I lift weights I gain a small amount of muscle mass, but not much.

What's the theory(ies) of what is going on in the bodies of those like this?

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#55

Post by jms703 »

nsxwolf wrote: post #36

This is very depressing. I find it incredibly difficult to lose weight dieting. And now it's telling me I just wasted all this money on a treadmill (and the effort it took to get it down into the basement).

You need strength and a sedentary lifestyle robs you of necessary strength. The treadmill is a great idea.

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#56

Post by purplepatrick »

digitcatphd wrote: post #33

Has anyone considered that every N years a scientific “discovery”in a given field invalidates a previous one? Commonly in more theoretical sciences like nutritional science, psychology, and astrophysics? In other words, is anything really truly reliable in these domains?

This is precisely how science works…

Check out “Structure of Scientific Revolutions” by Thomas Kuhn when you get the chance.

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#57

Post by taeric »

dahart wrote: post #52
taeric wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah... I don't know that it is that simple. In the summer when I bike twenty miles a day, I am eating far more, and still losing weight. Don't get me wrong, I know that the easiest way to lose weight is to limit calorie consumption. I also know that a buffet of 1800 calories going to a bike ride helps a ton.

I agree, maybe you got me a little wrong. I’m more or less talking about the good ol’ adage calories in, calories out. It’s never that simple, amen, but measuring and matching output with intake is a pretty good proxy and works in practice. When calories out is higher, calories in can be higher too (and should be for big exercises). My problem was unregulated calories in, and a tendency to overcompensate a bit.

Certainly agreed that compensation for exercise is a dangerous and likely way to gain weight. Is why, in the winter, I have a tendency to gain weight... :)

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#58

Post by qaq »

"You can’t exercise your way ..." You sure as hell can but it's a lot of effort. There was a decent stretch of time when I exercised for 2.5-3h per day 5-6 days per week while maintaining very unhealthy diet (we owned a pizza place that had Leffe on tap). Still managed to loose 20+ pounds in half a year.

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#59

Post by armchairhacker »

I think of exercise and weight loss as completely separate.

Almost everyone should exercise. Whether you're skinny, normal weight or overweight. Exercise makes you healthy. It also tends to make skinny people eat more and overweight people eat less, though not always. Form a workout plan with fixed amounts of exercise, like 30-90 minutes per day: any extra exercise isn't bad if you want it, but it doesn't really have any more benefits.

If exercise helps you lose weight? Good. If not? Well it still has benefits. It's generally easier to lose weight through diet. If you really don't like exercise, you don't have to exercise much, and you can do workouts you like.

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#60

Post by djtango »

dpark wrote: post #23
idontwantthis wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it never really worked because I’d unconsciously eat to compensate The wild thing is he’s saying that’s not true either. He’s saying you never burned the extra calories in the first place.

Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. That is literally the thesis here, that calorie expenditure is essentially decoupled from exercise.

Which is laughably ridiculous when you start considering the extremes like Michael Phelps eating 10kcal for breakfast.

The issue is the uptick in energy burn is unintuitive especially in the world energy dense high-processed food

As an ex once put "you have to run 5 miles to earn a cupcake - totally not worth it!"

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