“Losing Weight in the Kitchen, Gaining Weight in the Gym”
You can’t eat complete shit and then kick your ass to magically erase those calories: it’s not that easy. If you want to make lasting, healthier changes, what and how much you eat is much more important than how much you exercise.
Thinking about the calories burned during exercise will only hurt your weight loss efforts. This is because we tend to grossly underestimate the number of calories we eat and overestimate how many calories we actually burned.
Dr. Yoni Fridhoff, associate professor of the University of Ottawa, a leading blog on Weighty Matters , says a study in the journal Biology Current , which the authors offer a fascinating idea of a “limited overall energy consumption.” In short, calories burned does not increase in a straight line with increased physical activity. In addition, our bodies adapt to a long-term increase in activity, either subconsciously moving less in other cases, or “reducing” energy expenditure in other parts of the body.
In other words, after a certain point, our bodies try to keep the calories burned relatively stable, no matter how much more general physical activity (such as walking) we do. Sounds illogical, right? To test this idea, the researchers examined total energy expenditure, resting metabolic rate, and physical activity levels in 332 adults (nearly 50-50 genders) from five populations: South Africa, Ghana, Jamaica, Seychelles, and the United States. They made sure to control variables such as weight, age, height, body fat, and so on.
If we burn calories strictly according to how much we exercise, the authors expect to see a linear increase in the number of calories burned with physical activity. In contrast, they found that at some point, daily energy expenditure stabilized and was “limited,” with physical activity accounting for only 7-9% of the difference in total calories burned among their cross-population.
Basically, physical activity has less of an impact than it makes you believe #fitspiration sayings like “Excuses don’t burn calories . “ The study is not perfect, and there is no excuse not to exercise, but nevertheless, the conclusion here is as Dr. Friedhoff says:
Translated, this means that when it comes to energy balance, what you eat matters much more than how much you exercise, regardless of how exercise promotes energy balance. This also means that you are unlikely to be able to overtake the fork.
Of course, you shouldn’t take this as a license to stop exercising, as exercise is probably the most important modifiable determinant of your health. In other words, you lose weight in the kitchen , you gain weight in the gym.
Exercise is good for energy, mood and health, but when it comes to weight loss, “moving more” is only part of the equation.
“Limited Energy Costs” And Don’t Get Ahead Of Our Plugs | Important questions