Your Calories Burned Through Exercise May NOT Be As Much As You Think…
Some interesting research came to my attention this week showing that even though your fancy smart watch tells you that you’ve burned 100 calories, your body may only have burned 72 more calories than it would have had you not exercised at all, because it automatically ramps-down base energy expenditure (BEE) in response to the activity to compensate for energy consumed.
This is another great example of how adaptable our bodies are, which is one of the key reasons we as a species have risen to dominate our planet. That’s awesome when the mechanism is working to allow us to better survive periods of famine or “caloric insufficiency”, but not so awesome when we’re intentionally trying to stimulate some weight loss or body composition change.
This comprehensive study looking at the results from nearly 1800 participants also says that the more body fat you are carrying, the more dramatic the compensation. So, for those of us who are more interested in losing body fat / body weight, our bodies are fighting those efforts MORE than those who are already leaner. In terms of evolutionary advantage, this is kind of a “the rich stay richer” sort of deal - those who already have a sufficiency or surplus of energy will be more likely to retain that sufficiency or surplus.
Here’s a link to the study if you’d like to do some further reading:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(21)01120-9?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0960982221011209%3Fshowall%3Dtrue
So…Should I Just Stop Exercising?
If your only goal with exercising is to burn calories for weight loss, you might be tempted to say “I’ll just eat less, and skip that yucky exercise. My couch is pretty comfortable!”
COULD that work? Absolutely.
But it’s not the approach you should take if you want to be the BEST you, rather than just a smaller you. Exercise has MANY other benefits beyond simply burning calories (never mind that 72 calories is still more than the 0 you’d burn sitting around watching Netflix).
Muscle-building resistance training helps your body partition the energy from food better, and with the right kind of intake (hint, hint: a key part starts with “P” and ends in “-rotein”), can help shift your body composition to a leaner state even when there is no caloric deficit. It can also help stave off sarcopenia - the age-related decline in muscle mass and strength.
Steady-state and interval-style “cardio” or conditioning work can help maintain and improve your heart and lung function, and reduce your risk factors for related illnesses.
Exercise overall, applied correctly, can help boost immune function, statistically improves your risk factors for a myriad of chronic health issues, and can just plain make you look better naked, and who wouldn’t want that?
There are many more reasons beyond calorie burn why being more active generally and exercising intentionally can help you live BETTER, not just thinner, and help you THRIVE, not just survive.