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Exercise for Weight Loss? It’s pretty Meh. Here’s why.
The Body Fat Thermostat Part 7
Exercise is definitely good for you, but completely overrated for weight loss.
Body fat is regulated like a thermostat (see the Body Fat Thermostat series — start with part 1). So, what causes us to store more body fat than in previous generations? Is it calories? No, as we explored in our last article — The Overfeeding Paradox.
Perhaps the thermostat is racheted up by a lack of exercise and increasing exercise is a way to lower our Body Set Weight.
There’s a persistent belief that obesity is caused by lack of exercise. We’ve all heard this before. People are so much less active than before and this is what contributes to the obesity epidemic. Sounds plausible. Lots of ‘experts’ repeat this ad nauseum. The problem is lack of exercise, so you just need to exercise more to lose weight. To lose weight, more exercise is the key.
Sounds convincing. Too bad it’s completely wrong.
We exercise more, yet weigh more
The study “Total Daily Energy Expenditure has declined over the last 3 decades due to declining basal expenditure not reduced activity expenditure” sheds some light upon the question of exercise. The total amount of calories burned in a day is also called Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) or Total Energy Expenditure (TEE).
TEE is composed primarily of two things. First, the metabolic rate or Basal Energy Expenditure (BEE), which is the energy used in generating body heat, keeping our hearts pumping, our lungs, liver, kidneys, brain working etc. The other major component of the calories we use is exercise — which is also called Active Energy Expenditure (AEE). There are some minor components like non exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) and the energy used for digestion of food — thermic effect of food (TEF), but they are small contributors, so we’ll ignore them for now.
