Athletes and Couch Potatoes
As someone with CFS (a longer hauler from a virus in the late 70s), I understand that immune response and stress are energy expenditures, as is thinking and writing, which I spend a lot of time doing. As someone whose daily total energy expenditure is approximately about 30% less than other adults my age, it’s been important for me to understand the science of energy expenditure, to understand how careful I have to be with what I spend my energy on, how limited my reserves are, how doing what I love can actually give me energy (like dancing), but is something I will have to recover from, balance out later.
AND I live with an (extroverted) athlete who I continue to want to be understood by and who I can’t compare myself to.
The following are excerpts are from a 2022 Science article titled THE CALORIE COUNTER: Evolutionary anthropologist Herman Pontzer busts myths about how humans burn calories—and why. The article outlines new scientific findings that have “shattered consensus views” on energy expenditures, calories and weight. I believe these findings will be meaningful for anyone with compromised energy, for athletes and for people who want to understand more about weight loss and what is meant by the statement “You can’t exercise your way out of being overweight.”
“…As the athletes’ ran more and more over weeks or months, their metabolic engines cut back elsewhere to make room for the extra exercise costs, Pontzer says. Conversely, if you’re a couch potato, you might still spend almost as many calories daily, leaving more energy for your body to spend on internal processes such as a stress response…”
“… Humans have an added energy expense: our big brains, which account for 20% of our energy use per day… Recent studies show that orangutans burned one-third of the energy expected for a mammal their size, shattering the consensus view that mammals all have similar metabolic rates when adjusted for body mass. Among great apes, humans are the outlier. When adjusted for body mass, we burn 20% more energy per day than chimps and bonobos, 40% more than gorillas, and 60% more than orangutans…”
… The difference in body fat is just as shocking: Male humans pack on twice as much fat as other male apes and women three times as much as other female apes. He thinks our hefty body fat evolved in tandem with our faster metabolic rate: Fat burns less energy than lean tissue and provides a fuel reserve…”
“…Pontzer traveled to Tanzania to study the energy budgets of the Hadza hunter-gatherers. “Everyone knew the Hadza had exceptionally high energy expenditures because they were so physically active,” he recalls. “Except they didn’t.” Individual Hadza had days of more and less activity, and some burned 10% more or less calories than average. But when adjusted for nonfat body mass, Hadza men and women burned the same amount of energy per day on average as men and women in the United States, as well as those in Europe, Russia, and Japan, he reported in PLOS ONE in 2012. “It’s surprising when you consider the differences in physical activity…”
“…Pontzer’s findings have a discouraging implication for people wanting to lose weight. “You can’t exercise your way out of obesity,” says evolutionary physiologist John Speakman of the Chinese Academy of Sciences… Already the research is influencing dietary guidelines for nutrition and weight loss. The U.K. National Food Strategy, for example, notes that “you can’t outrun a bad diet.” Pontzer agrees that exercise is essential for good health: The Hadza, who are active and fit into their 70s and 80s, don’t get diabetes and heart disease. And, he adds, “If exercise is tamping down the stress response, that compensation is a good thing.” But he says it’s not fair to mislead dieters: “Exercise prevents you from getting sick, but diet is your best tool for weight management…”
“…Elite athletes can push the limits for several months, as the study of marathoners showed, but can’t sustain it indefinitely, Pontzer says… Meanwhile, Pontzer was laying the groundwork for other surprises… They used the database to do the first comprehensive study of human energy use over the life span.
_________Read the article in its entirety HERE.
