Confirmation bias is not just in my head

I've been sent a link to this study:

Body fat loss and compensatory mechanisms in response to different doses of aerobic exercise—a randomized controlled trial in overweight sedentary males

Bottom line: Moderate exercise produces equal weight loss to greater exercise. I'll come back to this later.

I commented in the last post that I consider leaving food on your plate is a very reasonable surrogate for experiencing reduced hunger. This shows up as weight loss. When we look at the converse, long term "accidental" weight gain, my perspective is the same. Eating an extra portion is a surrogate for responding to hunger. Long term hunger = Long term weight gain.

Let's say that again:

Fat people are fat because they are affected by hunger. Not gluttons. Not lazy. Hungry.

If people are going to lose weight on a long term basis they can only do this if they are not hungry. If they are not hungry they will reject food, establish an energy deficit and lose weight.

I may believe in CICO, but that CICO is controlled by hunger.

Back to the study. As the authors, struggling for a moment of lucidity, say:

"However, on the basis of the present findings, we propose that the introduction of a moderate dose of exercise may actually lead to an increase in NEAT without any increase in EI resulting in a “bonus effect,” whereas a higher dose of exercise may lead to an increase in EI and, thereby, a degree of compensation and less than expected loss of FM"

As clear as mud. Let's translate and simplify:

“… a moderate dose of exercise may actually lead to an increase in CALORIES OUT without any increase in HUNGER ... whereas a higher dose of exercise may lead to an increase in HUNGER [ie more eating] and … less than expected loss of fat mass”.

Exercise makes you hungry, certainly if you over-do it.

This is the authors' conclusion. I think they are correct. Other explanations are possible but they if miss the hunger component they are not of a great deal of help to anyone who wishes to understand obesity, even if they happen to be factually correct.

Peter

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