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> What's so controversial about it? Your body burns incredibly more energy just "being there" than you burn moving about. Exercise certainly increases your ca

> What's so controversial about it? Your body burns incredibly more energy just "being there" than you burn moving about. Exercise certainly increases your calorific expenditure, but it's much easier to ingest less fuel than to run 5 more miles because you had a portion of fries. There are benefits in exercise, apart from the obvious ones the raising of the baseline metabolic expenditure, because muscles are expensive to maintain, but again, if you want to lose weight eating one less portion of fries is easier and takes less time than going for a 5 mile run. > body optimizes for energy expenditure No that's wrong, it optimises for energy maintenance. Genetically it's better to maintain fat and survive the next famine, than burning all the energy today. Which is why the body is so efficient at _not_ losing weight unless it has no other choice to maintain homeostasis. And thus to lose fat, we need to preferably eat less, not run more. Do both, and you'll do great.

jeltz 5y ago
While I agree with that excerice isn't a very efficient way to lose weight I think that you understate how many calories running burns. When I run consistently I need to eat what feels like a lot more food to maintain my weight. Running burns about 700-800 kcal per hour for me (I have a quite small build) which ends up quite a bit over a week (I run 5-8 hours per week).
- the-alt-one 5y ago
  I have no clue how many calories running burns, but the act of moving around leaves you less time to eat :). Getting fat in the dark winters of Sweden is more likely for me, because I'm just bored and don't want to go outside as much so I sit inside and eat chocolate.
- scotty79 5y ago
  Think about it this way. The rate at which you burn calories is directly proportional to the rate at which you breathe out CO2 because that what happens with carbon you burn. So if every day you train for an hour so that your breathing is 3 times faster, then you have additional two hours of burning in a day. 23 usual hours plus one worth 3. So you have 26 instead of 24 hours in a day. It's way easier to put 15% less on your plate every day than to intensly train for an hour each day while keeping portions the same.
  - bratwurst3000 5y ago
    Yes but in numbers it is way more. If I bike for an hour I burn 700-1000kcal . Thats not 15 but 50% of the dayli calorie intake… i am no expert btw. My understanding is that the problem is more that after 20 minuts of sport, at a certain heart rate, is starting to burn fat…but not body fat. More free floating fat. And it takes one hour or so to start burning bodymass. So the fuel for one hour sport is what I ate before and not my bodyfat. Another example. I do mountaineering, mostly 1 week walking in the alps for 10h a day. Thats around 4000kcal more burned a day. And there I see instant results with all my friends coming with me . They get thin very fast. Around 500g of body mass a day :)
    - scotty79 5y ago
      > If I bike for an hour I burn 700-1000kcal . Thats not 15 but 50% of the dayli calorie intake… That's estimated and probably impossible. 1000 kcal is 4184000 joules, divided by 3600 it gives you around 1100W Human at rest burns about 100W. Pro-cyclist can do additional 400W. There's no way you can burn energy at the rate of 1.1kW consistently for an hour unless you literally set yourself on fire. EDIT: I was wrong. Apparently 700kcal burned per hour of cycling is a pretty realistic number. https://www.welovecycling.com/wide/2020/05/14/how-to-convert-watts-into-calories-burned-on-the-bike/ https://www.welovecycling.com/wide/2020/05/14/how-to-convert... Also resting kcal burn might be around 1800 per day. So 40% increase in of calories burned by hour of cycling per day every day is achievable. The question is how can you breathe out additional ~10h of CO2 within an hour? 3 times deeper breathes 3 times faster? Because that carbon has to go somewhere.
      - nckthrn 5y ago
        Cycling is only approximately 25% mechanically efficient, so the parent is correct. There's a lot of heat to get rid of.
        scotty79 5y ago
        Apparently 700kcal burned per hour of cycling is a pretty realistic number. https://www.welovecycling.com/wide/2020/05/14/how-to-convert-watts-into-calories-burned-on-the-bike/ https://www.welovecycling.com/wide/2020/05/14/how-to-convert... Also resting kcal burn might be around 1800 per day. So 40% increase in of calories burned by hour of cycling per day every day is achievable. The question is how can you breathe out additional ~10h of CO2 within an hour? 3 times deeper breathes 3 times faster? Because that carbon has to go somewhere.
- zeckalpha 5y ago
  TEE is what the article discusses measuring, not the energy burned during the exercises but the total in the day. The data in the referenced studies indicate the body compensates for the calories burned running by cutting back in energy use elsewhere.
- CJefferson 5y ago
  The problem is, it isn't efficient if you are overweight :) When I was at my heaviest weight, I could only do a normal-speed walk, which burned relatively little calories. At my lightest, I was also having to go out of my way to eat extra calories, as I was cycling so much, and a fast 90 minute cycle would leave me light-headed if I didn't eat some extra calories.
  - watwut 5y ago
    This is primary that thing where exercising makes you more fit and in the long term more active in general. Because what was previously tiring straining activity suddenly becomes pleasurable. And if you eventually manage to stumble upon activity you actually like, it is way easier to do it then to sit at home hungry, passive and obsessed about how miserable you feel (until said person will break and eat a candy or something similar).
mantas 5y ago
> Your body burns incredibly more energy just "being there" than you burn moving about. Bullshit. My body goes through 1600-ish kcal on an idle day. If I go out on a 4h steady bicycle ride (= 100km), I go through 2000 kcal on ride alone. That’s much more than my body burns just being there.
- me_me_me 5y ago
  I don't get it, how is that a myth or controversial. Cutting empty calories is the easiest to remove calories from daily total. Exercise further decreases the ratio of calories in calories out. Bottom line is: calories in - calories out. There are caveats there for sure, like increasing muscle mass increases idle caloric burn. Different types of food have different effect promoting or impeding metabolism.
  - irthomasthomas 5y ago
    calories in - calories out was debunked a while ago. Different types of food and diet cause different degrees of weight gain or loss. For an extreme example compare 100 calories of glucose to 100 calories of fibre, both are types of sugar. The fibre contains an extra electron that acts like a shell, and the body has to expend energy breaking that bond to make it digestible. So most fibre passes through you without affecting your weight. The most useful measure of food is the Glycemic Load. Not Glycemic Index which is a measure of the net glucose in the food. Glycemic Load is a measure of how the body responds to the food. E.g. cold potatoes have the same calories and GI as hot potatoes, but their measured GL is actually lower, so cold potatoes are better for controlling weight.
    - tlamponi 5y ago
      > calories in - calories out was debunked a while ago. Not really, it's just that calories-in is worst-case that's what's on the foods box, you cannot magically produce more energy but it's well known that not everything can be processed by the metabolism with the same efficiency. So with extremes like your example the difference is naturally huge, but that doesn't matter in practice if one balances their consumption just somewhat it averages out and approaches something between upper (100%) and lower (0%) of efficiency, and in reality it rather close to the upper bound (averaged) as our metabolisms are quite efficient with the food most humans actually put into them. Your glycemic index rule holds does not violate the calories in calories out rule, it's just more precise regarding the actual upper bound.

jeltz 5y ago

While I agree with that excerice isn't a very efficient way to lose weight I think that you understate how many calories running burns. When I run consistently I need to eat what feels like a lot more food to maintain my weight. Running burns about 700-800 kcal per hour for me (I have a quite small build) which ends up quite a bit over a week (I run 5-8 hours per week).

the-alt-one 5y ago
I have no clue how many calories running burns, but the act of moving around leaves you less time to eat :). Getting fat in the dark winters of Sweden is more likely for me, because I'm just bored and don't want to go outside as much so I sit inside and eat chocolate.
scotty79 5y ago
Think about it this way. The rate at which you burn calories is directly proportional to the rate at which you breathe out CO2 because that what happens with carbon you burn. So if every day you train for an hour so that your breathing is 3 times faster, then you have additional two hours of burning in a day. 23 usual hours plus one worth 3. So you have 26 instead of 24 hours in a day. It's way easier to put 15% less on your plate every day than to intensly train for an hour each day while keeping portions the same.
- bratwurst3000 5y ago
  Yes but in numbers it is way more. If I bike for an hour I burn 700-1000kcal . Thats not 15 but 50% of the dayli calorie intake… i am no expert btw. My understanding is that the problem is more that after 20 minuts of sport, at a certain heart rate, is starting to burn fat…but not body fat. More free floating fat. And it takes one hour or so to start burning bodymass. So the fuel for one hour sport is what I ate before and not my bodyfat. Another example. I do mountaineering, mostly 1 week walking in the alps for 10h a day. Thats around 4000kcal more burned a day. And there I see instant results with all my friends coming with me . They get thin very fast. Around 500g of body mass a day :)
  - scotty79 5y ago
    > If I bike for an hour I burn 700-1000kcal . Thats not 15 but 50% of the dayli calorie intake… That's estimated and probably impossible. 1000 kcal is 4184000 joules, divided by 3600 it gives you around 1100W Human at rest burns about 100W. Pro-cyclist can do additional 400W. There's no way you can burn energy at the rate of 1.1kW consistently for an hour unless you literally set yourself on fire. EDIT: I was wrong. Apparently 700kcal burned per hour of cycling is a pretty realistic number. https://www.welovecycling.com/wide/2020/05/14/how-to-convert-watts-into-calories-burned-on-the-bike/ https://www.welovecycling.com/wide/2020/05/14/how-to-convert... Also resting kcal burn might be around 1800 per day. So 40% increase in of calories burned by hour of cycling per day every day is achievable. The question is how can you breathe out additional ~10h of CO2 within an hour? 3 times deeper breathes 3 times faster? Because that carbon has to go somewhere.
    - nckthrn 5y ago
      Cycling is only approximately 25% mechanically efficient, so the parent is correct. There's a lot of heat to get rid of.
      - scotty79 5y ago
        Apparently 700kcal burned per hour of cycling is a pretty realistic number. https://www.welovecycling.com/wide/2020/05/14/how-to-convert-watts-into-calories-burned-on-the-bike/ https://www.welovecycling.com/wide/2020/05/14/how-to-convert... Also resting kcal burn might be around 1800 per day. So 40% increase in of calories burned by hour of cycling per day every day is achievable. The question is how can you breathe out additional ~10h of CO2 within an hour? 3 times deeper breathes 3 times faster? Because that carbon has to go somewhere.
zeckalpha 5y ago
TEE is what the article discusses measuring, not the energy burned during the exercises but the total in the day. The data in the referenced studies indicate the body compensates for the calories burned running by cutting back in energy use elsewhere.
CJefferson 5y ago
The problem is, it isn't efficient if you are overweight :) When I was at my heaviest weight, I could only do a normal-speed walk, which burned relatively little calories. At my lightest, I was also having to go out of my way to eat extra calories, as I was cycling so much, and a fast 90 minute cycle would leave me light-headed if I didn't eat some extra calories.
- watwut 5y ago
  This is primary that thing where exercising makes you more fit and in the long term more active in general. Because what was previously tiring straining activity suddenly becomes pleasurable. And if you eventually manage to stumble upon activity you actually like, it is way easier to do it then to sit at home hungry, passive and obsessed about how miserable you feel (until said person will break and eat a candy or something similar).

mantas 5y ago

> Your body burns incredibly more energy just "being there" than you burn moving about. Bullshit. My body goes through 1600-ish kcal on an idle day. If I go out on a 4h steady bicycle ride (= 100km), I go through 2000 kcal on ride alone. That’s much more than my body burns just being there.

me_me_me 5y ago
I don't get it, how is that a myth or controversial. Cutting empty calories is the easiest to remove calories from daily total. Exercise further decreases the ratio of calories in calories out. Bottom line is: calories in - calories out. There are caveats there for sure, like increasing muscle mass increases idle caloric burn. Different types of food have different effect promoting or impeding metabolism.
- irthomasthomas 5y ago
  calories in - calories out was debunked a while ago. Different types of food and diet cause different degrees of weight gain or loss. For an extreme example compare 100 calories of glucose to 100 calories of fibre, both are types of sugar. The fibre contains an extra electron that acts like a shell, and the body has to expend energy breaking that bond to make it digestible. So most fibre passes through you without affecting your weight. The most useful measure of food is the Glycemic Load. Not Glycemic Index which is a measure of the net glucose in the food. Glycemic Load is a measure of how the body responds to the food. E.g. cold potatoes have the same calories and GI as hot potatoes, but their measured GL is actually lower, so cold potatoes are better for controlling weight.
  - tlamponi 5y ago
    > calories in - calories out was debunked a while ago. Not really, it's just that calories-in is worst-case that's what's on the foods box, you cannot magically produce more energy but it's well known that not everything can be processed by the metabolism with the same efficiency. So with extremes like your example the difference is naturally huge, but that doesn't matter in practice if one balances their consumption just somewhat it averages out and approaches something between upper (100%) and lower (0%) of efficiency, and in reality it rather close to the upper bound (averaged) as our metabolisms are quite efficient with the food most humans actually put into them. Your glycemic index rule holds does not violate the calories in calories out rule, it's just more precise regarding the actual upper bound.