Could be true. I suspect it's not the whole story. Me and mrpb both provided independent examples of downregulation that wouldn't be captured by step counters.
I cannot get past the paywall for the 2020 study, but I would expect that these sedentary people increased their step count during the study. Maybe mrpb has access to the full text so he can check if they tracked people's step count during the study.
Personal update: Just got back from a weekend trip and as I suspected my analysis now suggests a TDEE increase of 100 calories. This estimate could go further up, stay put or go slightly down and I am of course reassessing regularly, but trying not to get fooled by noise. I am averaging about 11000 steps a day now. I can eat a couple of additional pieces of chocolate every day now, I think I earned those. If anyone thinks it's just counting errors that makes me think there is just a very small TDEE increase even for a lot of added activity, the analysis also suggests I have dialed in a small surplus of about 120 calories a day on average the last month.
|
-
06-14-2021, 12:29 AM #61
Last edited by EiFit91; 06-14-2021 at 12:41 AM.
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.
- Richard Feynman
-
06-14-2021, 06:31 AM #62
-
06-14-2021, 06:48 AM #63
Pointing out that the formula should say EAT instead of exercise is a minor detail indeed. So yes, that's micromanaging.
But that was the least important point I was making. The most important one was that the answer he gave in reply to your hypothetical situation, the one that you called "utterly absurd", actually wasn't absurd. This is just simple logic: If there's at least 4 studies supporting what he said we can't call it utterly absurd. Sure it lacked nuance but in the context given by you it wasn't absurd.
-
06-14-2021, 06:51 AM #64
-
-
06-14-2021, 07:13 AM #65
It's a good question. As you probably know the TDEE calculators are only a rough guess. We try to always tell people that they should only use it as an initial estimate and then quickly rely on real world data.
The TDEE calculators are usually based on older science, represented by the model on the left in the image below. Underlying assumption is that the compensatory effects aren't that meaningful, just like many forum members seem to be assuming. The study referenced by Heisman and Feigenbaum suggests the model on the right would be a better fit where TDEE almost plateaus pretty quickly because compensating effects increase as EAT (exercise activity thermogenesis, in other words calories burned by exercise) increases.
The reason why many studies, like the recent RCT I mentioned, don't find a statistically significant increase in TDEE also has to do with statistics. They found that exercise increases TDEE a little but because it didn't reach statistical significance it's reported as no difference. Feigenbaum kind of covered for that saying exercise doesn't really increase TDEE. The statement on it's own is too much of a blanket stament but in the scenario mentioned it has some decent support. However, there are also studies finding that exercise does increase TDEE, especially in younger people.
-
06-14-2021, 07:15 AM #66
-
06-14-2021, 07:16 AM #67
Important point; they weren't exceptions. It was the average outcome in that study with 60 people. Several other studies found the same: on average, exercise didn't significantly increase TDEE.
And as mentioned there are also studies finding that exercise did significantly increase TDEE, especially in younger people. So really, it depends.
It's well possible that cardio and resistance exercise may be different scenario's too.Last edited by Mrpb; 06-14-2021 at 07:24 AM.
-
06-14-2021, 07:23 AM #68
I'm glad to see some other people are noticing what I'm noticing too. Appreciated.
As for the down regulating mechanisms of NEAT I found this one interesting too: when I ramp up volume and intensity in the gym my house tends to become a mess. Makes sense of course because I feel less like cleaning and I will do it less.
-
-
06-14-2021, 07:31 AM #69
-
06-14-2021, 07:47 AM #70
-
06-14-2021, 07:48 AM #71
-
06-14-2021, 07:53 AM #72
Not sure to what extent this downregulation equates to the actual demand of the exercise (since calculating caloric burn from heavy, anaerobic lifts is apparently quite difficult) but I normally bounce my knees while I sit, pace around after a little while of sitting, take a walk on my lunch break, etc., on a normal day, but for a day or two after deadlifting heavy at high volume, I am basically comatose movement wise and sit still as much as possible for the following day or two.
Interesting to me too, since the prevailing metric for measuring activity ITT has been light or otherwise daily activity (steps taken, household chores, etc. - pushing a stroller with a child uphill is probably an exception though), but what about fairly intense lifting?
Ignore the question if it was already addressed elsewhere as I didn't read 100% of this debate, but how would downregulation effectively counter something which already outweighs it in absolute value? This concept of downregulation is new to me and I hadn't thought of it before, but since this discussion has centered around light, often unaccounted for activity, how does this reasoning apply to dedicated, intense activity? For instance, a few months ago I (slowly, admittedly) ran an unbroken 9.8 miles completely around the lake in the middle of my town. How could someone at my weight running for over an hour and a half without stopping possibly compensate for that caloric burn by simply moving less in a passive sense? Perhaps the reasoning is that this downregulation carries over across days, inconspicuously hiding behind one's avoidance of similar deliberate exertion in days following?Bench: 340
Squat: 405
Deadlift: 505
"... But always, there remained, the discipline of steel!"
-
-
06-14-2021, 08:18 AM #73
-
06-14-2021, 08:37 AM #74
I think it has to do with the law of diminishing returns. For the average american who decides on January 1st to “resolve to workout” and goes to the gym 3 times per week for an hour, and mainly go on the treadmill and possibly machines and burns 100-200 calories. Is hungry from the workout so grabs a “healthy” jamba juice on the way home, plops down on the sofa and watches netflix, and decides the dishes can wait until tomorrow, and the floor isn’t “that” dirty. Sure downregulation can counter the minuscule amount of calories burned during their workout.
But once someone passes a certain mark, maybe its around 10% of daily calories or something along those lines, they are training for a marathon and running 4 miles a day plus some other lifting routine, yeah, no way simply moving less in the off hours will be able to counter that.2 time survivor of The Great Misc Outages of 2022
Survivor of PHP/API Outage of Feb 2023
-
06-14-2021, 08:38 AM #75
-
06-14-2021, 08:44 AM #76
This. Totally sedentary to basic exercise changes nothing typically. By that same token, very active to even more highly active changes nothing. There’s a lot of grey area in between these extremes where more activity might burn more calories.
I mean, endurance athletes have extremely high calorie diets for a reason. It’s not like Michael Phelps is still lean while eating 8-10k calories when he’s no longer swimming just cuz he’s so damn fidgety & cleans the Hell out of his house.
We also all know the fat former athletes who “eat like they’re still competing”.Last edited by Strawng; 06-14-2021 at 08:58 AM.
-
-
06-14-2021, 08:52 AM #77
-
06-14-2021, 09:09 AM #78
Forgot to mention this earlier but also important for this question: if you take a calculator like the one I used in the stickies, it asks for number of workouts per week.
https://www.freedieting.com/calorie-calculator
But daily activities burn calories too, some as much or more than resistance exercise. So ideally they should be used in the estimate too.
Now most people don't track all of these activities of course. It's too tedious. What the studies often find is that people who burn more calories on exercise start to burn less calories on these tasks.
-
06-14-2021, 09:10 AM #79
-
06-14-2021, 09:10 AM #80
Right. What applies to "average" people probably does not apply to people on here. Same thing applies to my rental properties. An "average" person calls me inquiring about renting a house of mine. They ask me how much they are a month. I tell them that I just rent them out by the week. They ask "How much are they a week?". I say $400 to $1600 a week. An average person can't afford that. My tenants are not average people. They have a high school education and make $100,00 a year.
-
-
06-14-2021, 09:23 AM #81
-
06-14-2021, 09:31 AM #82
-
06-14-2021, 09:41 AM #83
-
06-14-2021, 09:45 AM #84
-
-
06-14-2021, 10:01 AM #85
- Join Date: Mar 2006
- Location: Seattle, Washington, United States
- Posts: 26,949
- Rep Power: 137130
I think after a certain amount of time meticulous tracking and counting becomes a massive annoyance and hinders the enjoyment of food to some degree.
After years of education on food, macros, calories, etc, I imagine most people could easily maintain a healthy body comp and make progress without logging or tracking everything all the time.
If you stick to commonly known foods, whole foods, lots of veggies, fruits, fiber, high protein options... how many obese people do you know that eat 150+ grams of protein a day, get 50+ grams of fiber, eat 5-10 servings of fruit/veg, don't cook with oils, don't drink their calories... etc?
People become obese primarily from a lack of exercise and being sedentary combined with consuming foods that are EASY to overeat... they don't get obese eating too much nonfat greek yogurt and strawberries."When I die, I hope it's early in the morning so I don't have to go to work that day for no reason"
-
06-14-2021, 10:42 AM #86
Yea, I purely eat intuitively and it works better for me. I tracked obsessively for a few years, prefer healthy foods, & have always been lean & active though. I legitimately crave fruits & vegetables if I don’t have enough, & can even “sense” whether I need more protein. I’d rather eat “health” foods than processed fast foods or sweets 90% of the time. Sure, every once in a while I like to eat those things, but my body does not consistently crave those things. I truly prefer to eat “healthier” foods.
For a lot of people, they need to relearn what to eat and how to eat. Most of them have no idea what eating with balanced macros looks like & most aren’t craving my salmon, vegetables, & rice more than In-n-Out. They don’t prefer my morning proats with berries to donuts. What’s more, most people think their 30 minutes of cardio 2-3x per week burns hundreds of calories instead of functionally zero, & they reward themselves with “healthy” 400 calorie smoothies. The average obese person has no business “intuitive eating”. I think it the whole concept gets misconstrued as “eat whatever you want”. It’s more like, “get to a place where eating what you want is also eating what your body needs”.Last edited by Strawng; 06-14-2021 at 10:58 AM.
-
06-14-2021, 11:07 AM #87
I could easily overeat even on a healthy diet. But more importantly, if I don't count the indulgencies (e.g. pizza, the occasional snack, candy) I would have to never eat them again. That wouldn't be sustainable in the long run.
I think the last statement in your post is also a bit simplistic and possibly underestimating the force of compensatory mechanisms. For instance, there are studies that have shown that hormonal adaptations to weight loss persist even a year after the initial weight loss (and even after onset of weight regain): https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa1105816
"A multitude of hormones, peptides, and nutrients are involved in the homeostatic regulation of body weight, many of which are perturbed after weight loss. Whether these changes represent a transient compensatory response to an energy deficit is unknown, but an important finding of this study is that many of these alterations persist for 12 months after weight loss, even after the onset of weight regain, suggesting that the high rate of relapse among obese people who have lost weight has a strong physiological basis and is not simply the result of the voluntary resumption of old habits."
"Taken together, these findings indicate that in obese persons who have lost weight, multiple compensatory mechanisms encouraging weight gain, which persist for at least 1 year, must be overcome in order to maintain weight loss."The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.
- Richard Feynman
-
06-15-2021, 06:23 AM #88
Just to inform, in the large 2020 RCT I cited (Hand et al) the moderate group exercised on the treadmill for 159 minutes on average, the high group exercised for 223 minutes per week on average. Even though the high group burned significantly more calories than the moderate group, the moderate group had a slightly higher increase in TDEE than the high group (although the difference did not reach statistically significance). This suggests down regulation was higher for the higher dose of exercise. This was seen in several other studies too; more down regulation with more exercise.
The high group's energy expenditure on the exercise was ~300 kcal per day (~2100 per week). Whether they had a juice or not isn't really relevant for the issue at hand as far as I know.
Postponing cleaning tasks is indeed an example of down regulation but there are many much more subtle ways. For example less fidgeting, exerting less effort holding posture, sitting longer, engaging in less social interactions. The changes in energy expenditure for these examples are often small but adding everything together during the whole day it can make a significant difference.
-
-
06-15-2021, 07:05 AM #89
- Join Date: Mar 2006
- Location: Seattle, Washington, United States
- Posts: 26,949
- Rep Power: 137130
In your last sentence: last for at least one year… that doesn’t really help us understand much and it also doesn’t talk about the quantifiable impact. We are given no number to work with.
It also doesn’t factor in the lifestyle changes YOU have taken on: weight training and a higher general activity during the day.
For all we know, those hormonal changes could be entirely cancelled out or fixed with the added exercise etc.
Most obese people lose a lot of fat AND muscle… unlike you."When I die, I hope it's early in the morning so I don't have to go to work that day for no reason"
-
06-15-2021, 07:31 AM #90
I think you are right. These «obesity treatment» programs typically don’t use resistance training to my knowledge and it would be very interesting to know how that changes things. It could very well be that the hunger responses mentioned is the body’s response to lean mass loss rather than loss of overall body mass. Heisman had some very interesting references on this idea in the study discussion thread btw.
And I may need to take a break from reading pessimistic review articles...The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.
- Richard Feynman
Bookmarks