Slimming Down through Sports? An Evolutionary Biologist Cautions It's Not That Simple! Unveiling the Biggest Weight Loss Myth
Shedding Pounds Exclusively via Exercise? Expert Clears Up the Falsehood - Exercising to shed pounds exclusively?
Written by Alexandra Kraft
This interview is from the stern archive and was first published in June 2023.
Mr. Pontzer, have you noticed the recent surge in sports enthusiasts aiming to shed some pounds? Is that the best way to do it?
No, I'm afraid that's not how it typically works. While exercise can bring numerous health benefits, relying on it as the primary method for weight loss is often ineffective.
But wait a minute! I jogged a few kilometers today, and my fitness tracker tells me I burned an extra 300 calories. I should be shedding pounds, right?
I understand your reasoning, but I have to disappoint you. Just because you burn more calories during exercise doesn't guarantee that you'll lose weight if you don't make changes to your diet.
Let's delve a bit deeper into the intricacies of human evolution, metabolism, and exercise to understand why shedding pounds solely through sports might be a challenge.
- Exercise
- Evolution
- Calorie
- Metabolism
You may be wondering why, despite burning calories during exercise, you don't see immediate weight loss benefits. Evolution has played a significant role in shaping human metabolism and energy regulation. Over countless years, our metabolism adapted to conserve energy efficiently, given the scarcity of food during most of our evolutionary history.
Key points explaining why exercise alone is not sufficient for weight loss from an evolutionary biology perspective include:
- Energy Budget Constraints:our ancestors' daily energy expenditures were overestimated when assuming vigorous physical activity levels. The body has mechanisms to avoid excessive energy expenditure beyond certain limits to preserve energy for essential functions like survival, reproduction, and avoiding starvation. When you increase your exercise, the body may compensate by reducing energy spent on other activities or increasing hunger and food intake[1].
- Limited Weight Loss from Exercise Alone: while aerobic exercise can cause minimal weight loss (zero to two kilograms), resistance training alone does not effectively help you lose weight. Combining exercise types yields better results, but may still be limited without proper dietary adjustments[2].
- Metabolic Adaptations and Compensation: when your body detects increased physical activity, it may adapt metabolically by shifting energy substrate use and altering metabolic rates to maintain energy homeostasis. Metabolism times and activity patterns can impact how fat and carbohydrates are metabolized, suggesting a complex interaction between metabolism and activity patterns shaped by evolution[5].
- Evolutionary Selection for Resilience: evolutionary pressures molded fundamental biological systems to maintain physiological resilience under stress, which includes efficient energy use and storage. This resilience may limit the effectiveness of exercise-induced weight loss as the body strives to maintain energy balance and store fat as a survival mechanism[4].
In conclusion, understanding the interplay between evolution, metabolism, and exercise helps us grasp why relying on sports for weight loss might be a misguided approach. Exercise alone is limited in its ability to facilitate significant weight loss without accompanying dietary control or behavioral interventions.
Community policy should emphasize a holistic approach to health policy focusing on health-and-wellness, fitness-and-exercise, and weight-management, recognizing the limits of weight loss through sports alone as an evolutionary biologist cautions. Science plays a key role in understanding metabolic adaptations and compensations that may hinder weight loss, such as energy budget constraints and metabolic adaptations.
