Physics of weight loss.

marelthu

I just found this article. Interesting read. I thought some of you might be interested too.
http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/why_physical_activity_does_little_to_control_weight

TimothyFish

#2 is misleading. It is true that if a person exercises and then follows that up with more rest that they aren't going to burn more calories than a person who doesn't exercise but rests less. However, if you replace part of the time you normally veg out with exercise and continue your normal activities the rest of the time, you will burn more calories. If you normally burn 2000 calories and you go out and burn 3000 with exercise, you'll probably crash when you get home, so your total burn for the day probably won't be 5000 calories, but at the same time it isn't going to magically become 2000 calories. If that is true of that level of exercise, then why would we think it true of lower levels of exercise? If you burn 500 calories with exercise you are even less likely to crash when you get home, so it is less likely to drop to 2000. The only reason it would drop is if someone decides that because they burned 500 calories that they can reward themselves by being lazy.

Tacklewasher

I worry that the summary does not do justice to the actual study, but the study is behind a paywall. Interesting read, but I'm not really taking anything away from it.

CSARdiver

I'm surprised anyone is still going down this road. True - Balal Metabolic Rate (BMR)/Resting Energy Expenditure (REE) does not vary from individual nearly as much as many would like to believe, but this has little to do with Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). The idea that people have high/low metabolisms has been debunked some time ago and this article seems fixated upon this myth. The only remarkable variable in determining BMR/REE is lean muscle mass.

Other than that this is nothing more than an exercise in placing blame and serves little purpose.