Going for a run is very healthy, but it won’t help you lose weight. Our body is too smart for that, according to professor of evolutionary anthropology Herman Pontzer.
The professor at US Duke University explains in his book Burn how evolution prevented us from losing weight through exercise. He spent ten years studying the Hadza, a group of hunter-gatherers in Kenya. The average Hadza man travels 9 miles a day. Yet its energy consumption is hardly higher than that of us sedentary people, writes Pontzer.
How is that possible? 60 percent of our energy is consumed by our body in rest mode, just to keep the system running, say. The hypothalamus monitors our energy consumption: if we move more, this part of the brain ensures that less energy is used for other things, says the anthropology professor.
For example, the stress response and the production of sex hormones are reduced. Hadza men therefore have half as much testosterone as men in the Western world.
It has been known for some time that you lose relatively little weight through a lot of sports, if only because it makes you hungry and start eating more again. But Pontzer goes one step further. He actually says that our body works against us by seeking a new energy balance.
That does not alter the fact that exercise is very healthy. But if you want to lose weight, you better eat less.
Bron (nen): Newsweek
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