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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

#131

Post by onethought »

nu11ptr wrote: post #93
_9omd wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a big part of the issue is that popular fitness and weight loss advice has perpetuated the wrong way to exercise to loose weight. When most people think about exercise for weight loss, they imagine long exhausting sessions on the treadmill, dripping with sweat, and a high calorie burn number. While the short term results may seem great based on the immediate calories burned, it's actually a terrible strategy…

If you fall into a routine CICO isn't that difficult in practice. First, while sleep/stress definitely impact the equation unless you are at an unusual life crisis, the ups and downs mostly balance out over time. Second, I don't recommend counting calories, at least not in the traditional way. Instead, eat a fairly standardized diet at least on a weekly basis, so roughly the same meals (doesn't have to be exact). Eat…

> Now, to lose weight simple subtract 500 calories per day from what you eat

I appreciate you are trying to be helpful. But most of what you said assumes a certain level or privilege (resources time/money/ableness) that the vast majority of people don't have. People working long hour jobs, or double jobs, or balancing kids/parent responsibilities. Often fast food is the only obvious option, and people aren't buying it until well into the throws of a low blood sugar event.

This coupled with metabolic/genetic differences can really muck up any given diet. What works of you doesn't just not work for everyone, it isn't even possible for everyone to follow.

That said, I know you are being helpful - my words or more to help those that might read them and be saying: "I did all that and it didn't work!"

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#132

Post by asiachick »

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…

This doesn't fit my observations entirely. I have a friend who runs several miles every morning. He says he does this so he can eat an extra 300-500 calories a day ... which he does. He's thin.

I certainly get that less eating is more effective than exercise but in my head I think as long as you burn more calories than you take in you should lose weight. So if you eat 1800 calories a day, assuming you need 2000 a day, you'll lose weight (-200). If you do some exercise that uses 500 calories and eat 2300 calories you're still at (-200)

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#133

Post by dpark »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #78
dugite-code wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my read of the article the data is heavily biased towards running as the exercise of choice, probably because measuring CO2 is easy and non-intrusive to do on a treadmill. They do mention utilizing doubly labeled water but don't say if they only used that for sedentary participants or measured a wider range of exercises. Given I have always heard/read how efficient humans are at running if they didn't account fo…

Running isn't efficient at high speeds. The same with cycling. It's funny to see people buy a bike for exercise and then roll along at a crawl, expending less energy than walking.

Running isn’t much less efficient at higher speeds. It’s harder because the calorie burn per unit time is higher, but the calorie burn per unit distance doesn’t vary that much.

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#134

Post by xedrac »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #54

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 wha…

You're like my wife and her siblings. They can eat just about anything without putting on any significant weight. The running theory is that the food is not absorbed as efficiently, possibly due to it moving through the bowels too quickly, as some of them have IBS.

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#135

Post by AnEro »

nathanaldensr wrote: post #90

I wonder: Does this research mean that current TDEE calculators are incorrect? Or is the research more about how those numbers are correct?

In my experience TDEE calculators are mostly best guesses and the more expensive the bestester the guess. This is mostly showing in various age ranges and pregnancy, you can expect variance compared to what is calculated. (not sure which method was used for this study as the calculated baseline for what was their expected TDEE) The use for this with TDEE is expect variance in age ranges in the graphic, ultimately there is no way to know until you test yourself with a diet for a few weeks.

The biggest thing is showing how much mental stress plays into calorie burning, enough where an average western lifestyle can have the same calorie burned as a hunter gatherer.

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#136

Post by octodog »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #78
dugite-code wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my read of the article the data is heavily biased towards running as the exercise of choice, probably because measuring CO2 is easy and non-intrusive to do on a treadmill. They do mention utilizing doubly labeled water but don't say if they only used that for sedentary participants or measured a wider range of exercises. Given I have always heard/read how efficient humans are at running if they didn't account fo…

Running isn't efficient at high speeds. The same with cycling. It's funny to see people buy a bike for exercise and then roll along at a crawl, expending less energy than walking.

It's more exercise than driving a car though, which is why I think people do that.

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#137

Post by timr »

nu11ptr wrote: post #93
_9omd wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a big part of the issue is that popular fitness and weight loss advice has perpetuated the wrong way to exercise to loose weight. When most people think about exercise for weight loss, they imagine long exhausting sessions on the treadmill, dripping with sweat, and a high calorie burn number. While the short term results may seem great based on the immediate calories burned, it's actually a terrible strategy…

If you fall into a routine CICO isn't that difficult in practice. First, while sleep/stress definitely impact the equation unless you are at an unusual life crisis, the ups and downs mostly balance out over time. Second, I don't recommend counting calories, at least not in the traditional way. Instead, eat a fairly standardized diet at least on a weekly basis, so roughly the same meals (doesn't have to be exact). Eat…

I have also done almost exactly this process, and it worked for years to regulate my weight. But then I hit a plateau (a high plateau, not a low one) where I was unable to drop weight no matter how low I cut my calories. I started at a range that I knew had worked in the past, and lowered it over the course of weeks, well past the point where I was miserable. I even tried more complicated things, like varying my intake, doing on weeks and off weeks, etc. Nothing worked.

I wasn't sure what was causing it, so I hypothesized that I was low on muscle mass, and took up weight training. Then I gained ten pounds.

I'm not sure what the upshot is here, but my guess is that this approach indiscriminately consumes lean muscle mass if you don't pair it with muscle-building exercises.

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#139

Post by KallDrexx »

djtango wrote: post #60
dpark wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!"

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

I think you are missing the fundamental part of the article about the calorie expenditures being adjusted based on non-fat body mass.

So, yes Michael Phelps eats a lot of calories, but him (and other pro athletes) have spent their lives building muscle and keeping fat reserves down. Michael Phelps I think is at a 5% body fat, while the average American is 18%+. He needs more calories for that extra body mass that most people the same height don't have.

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#140

Post by markmark »

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?

I think something is being lost in the reporting. The article itself mentions 2400 kcal for a 75kg woman, and then a paragraph later talks about Race across the USA runners burning 5000+ kcal.

I think the key is in this sentence: " According to Herman, humans who are more active don’t have that much higher TEE as you’d predict". ie, you have a higher Total Energy Expenditure, but it's by less than you would calculate from just adding the energy expenditure of the added exercise.

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