Comment by icedistilled
3 years ago
I'm baffled by the take away from the study. If a sedentary person and an athletic person burn about the same, doesn't that just mean the sedentary person's energy is being spent on maintaining and accumulating fat mass? But why is that waffled about instead of stated?
Major Edit: more concise example
>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.
If storing fat burned calories, it would make for a pretty poor way to store calories...
Cells don't live for free and fat is stored in cells. So yes storing fat burns calories, just far less than muscle. And that's just the direct expenditure.
I see a few numbers thrown out for how many calories a pound of fat burns a day, but that direct burn is only one way additional fat would lead to energy use. A heavier person while less "active" will burn more during day to day due to carrying a heavier mass. I'm sure there's plenty more ways but I'm not going to go do a deep dive.