Surprising research shows that people who do loads of exercise don’t tend to burn more calories than someone sitting at a desk all day. It’s time to rethink the calories in, calories out equation. Read for free as part of New Scientist's exercise week
A SIMPLE calculation lies at the heart of a lot of mainstream weight loss advice. If calories out exceed calories in, you will lose weight. It is why both exercise and diet are said to be key to staying trim, and why many of us feel we can make amends for overindulging by joining the gym or dusting off our running shoes.
A few years ago, Herman Pontzer headed to Tanzania to study the Hadza and their metabolism. He wasn’t expecting to reveal any big mysteries around exercise. “It started off that we wanted to just ask a basic question: ‘How many calories do you need to burn to live as a hunter-gatherer?'” he says. The findings caused a stir. They called into question the widely accepted idea that sedentary lifestyles in many societies are responsible for the obesity epidemic. Instead, Pontzer and his team began to wonder whether our daily energy expenditure could have evolved to be fixed at these levels, regardless of whether we sit at a desk all day or search the plains looking for our next meal.
, but after that, calorie burning plateaued. Those who exercised every day didn’t burn any more than those who worked out a few times a week. “Only at the very, very low end did we see anything like a trend of lower activity being paired with lower energy expenditure,” says Pontzer.
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