The problem is that the 7000 calories are stored and it’s takes a ton of time to process and concert them back to usable energy.
Anyway, soon someone will come with proof that everything we do is wrong…
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I can honestly say I know exactly why I’m not as lean as I’d like to be. I do wonder whether this is actually true for most people? (whether they care to admit it or not)
It’s lack of consistent self discipline in relation to eating.
The times in my life when I’ve been disciplined consistently I get lean. The time when I’ve not been, my bodyfat increases.
Nothing Earth-shattering about this. Exercise** has ‘helped’ however my experience has taught me it counts for not that much generally if I’m stuffing my face with pizza, curry and cake (I f**king love cake 
).
**Prior to taking up cycling for the last 5 years I spent 30+ years before that dedicated to lifting weights and got quite strong / muscular, but regardless of gym time and strength / lack of, my self control with eating (both quantity and quality) was the determining factor in bodyfat.
I’m speaking from experience of having had a really decent six-pack visible abs at 225lbs at age 35 and conversely weighing 268 at age 43 at over 30% bodyfat after I stopped going to the gym before taking up cycling (I actually think cycling has saved my life in terms of the very unhealthy trajectory I was on at the time) so have seen and experienced both ends of the spectrum.
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people who swear their body adapts to whatever lower calories they consume per day are the same ones who over eat without knowing it. It’s very, VERY easy to do. I bet you most people can’t even remember everything they ate / snacked on per day, let alone quantify the calories in it.
Believe me, I’ve been there.
It’s SIMPLE. Calories in / calories out
But it’s not easy to do.
That is body composition, general health and performance aside. I’m only talking about weight loss. What you eat, how much and when become VERY important and nuanced for those.
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I think as a statement it can be true. Someone could be spending a hour a day working out, then have one extra donut and all would have been for nothing. I can only speak for myself. But the 2nd half of last year i counted calories and maintained a 500cal deficit, lost about 10Kg in that time. For me it’s fairly simple, burn more then you consume and you will lose weight. Adding exercise to that process can speed up that process and change your body composition in a positive way.
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Pontzer would say that calories in/calories out isn’t a valid methodology. Doesn’t add up for me.
Read it and still not convinced. According to this article I ride 100 miles and burn same/similar calories as someone who’s moderately active during the day.
So I’m so efficient that all that work done (work done is a fact not assumption. You push watts, that’s work, not imagination) is done by same amount of calories as “someone who chooses stairs instead of elevator”
Yeah ok. That explains me eating 3 dinners and not gaining weight after such days 
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Agreed. But the evidence he cites is compelling.
Agreed, this isn’t for or about most of us here.
This is for the person who goes to the gym for 30 minutes and walks on the treadmill for exercise, it’s something but really also nothing when the root cause is over consumption and that hasn’t been addressed or offset by that exercise.
In that regard it also isn’t news, wasn’t even news last march.
But I also think that is some of the issue in the study. He’s comparing people walking around hunting, yes more than the person going for 30 min on the treadmill, but that’s not something most of us would consider exercise just moving more.
Dunno because when I lose weight it’s all done by 6am weigh ins, and eyeballing food intake. Eat a third of the workout calories on the bike, and make the trend line go down.
Wait is Pontzer referring to BMR or total expenditure? Those would be very different statements.
I think the latter is pretty evidently false for anyone who’s ever done a significant volume of endurance sport and has a reasonably accurate idea of their caloric intake. I’m a 47kg woman with a correspondingly pathetic BMR of ~1250. No way my body’s adjusted to that on 17-20 hours per week, and ya boi certainly isn’t living on 1250 calories
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What he is postulating is that over a period of time (months perhaps) the body adapts to a higher exercise load by reducing the calories the body uses outside of the exercise ie basal metabolic rate, less activity whilst resting (fidgiting etc) and by other means.
Not sure it’s the best idea to use “lean body mass” instead of “total body mass” in those graphs in the study?
Those Hadza people photographed in the article certainly looked to be slimmer than the average American and if they are eating the same amount of calories doesn’t that actually prove that exercise reduces fat percentage? 
I recommend the book ‘racing weight’. The summary is:
Eat high quality food
Eat a balanced mix of food groups
Only eat when you are actually belly hungry
Rule 3 is the hard one. I got myself down to 72kg following those 3 rules, which is pretty lean at 6’3.
I started on Mirtazapine a while back and I have been stuck at 81kg no matter how hard I try. It’s difficult to know why, I must be eating more and Mirtazapine does boost appetite. It does seem to make the whole thing a bit harder to understand though.
Michael Phelps was eating 10k calories a day during his Olympic runs. According to this guy Phelps should weigh 500 lbs.
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Quite the opposite, according to this guy humans are very inefficient swimmers and use a ton of calories to swim a mile vs walk a mile. He absolutely would not say Phelps should weigh 500lbs because that kind of swim volume is not what he’s talking about when comparing sedentary to active individuals.
My average daily exercise expenditure is higher than my sedentary burn, so I assume I’m either made of antimatter or reallocating energy from the cosmic vibrations or something.
Or maybe I’ll drop dead shortly after my body diverts all the calories away from my brain. 
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Does he explain where the breaking point is that the body stops being able to use less calories on daily functions in order to fully fuel exercise? And swimming aside, how about the speed skater who just posted his training log? Or even any of us on a LV plan with weight training on top?
Sure, if you do absolutely no exercise vs someone who does the bare minimum (60 mins/wk) the body will adapt and calories used will be similar. I’m not sure that is very ground breaking. But, this irks me because the click baity headlines are misleading and portraying it as exercise easentially being useless for weight loss. Which is simply not true.
The point is, exercise at some level will in fact lead to weight loss if it is not fueled. And I am not convinced it takes the training level of a generational talent to achieve it.
This is interesting and i did a probably totally inaccurate back of envelope calculation here:
If i average 2000kcal /week in exercise expenditure on the bike (3 to 4 hours), could my body make up for that? According to Google BMR is ~1700 for men. Downregulating to 1500 (lower 12%) would cover 200*7 = 1400. That almost covers the expenditure.
I am sure its more complicated than this, but wanted to make point that calories used to just stay alive may be massive compared to exercise calories, even in modest athletes?
I guess what the thread is getting at: does body push BMR down in light of big exercise loads, even when adequately fueling?
This was my bike ride yesterday. I guess yesterday, I only burnt the same calories as sitting on my sofa. Oh well, I guess I did at least enjoy some nice scenery.
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I’m guessing that what he is getting at, is that fitter you are, the more efficient you get. Thus your body requires less energy when resting, it requires less energy when moving (not that a sedentary person moves much). A person with a resting heart rate in the 40s, is burning less energy than a sedentary person with a resting heart rate of 70 etc.
Then you hear about athletes with a much lower VO2 max than another, but they are able to go faster with less oxygen.More power burning less fuel.