The conclusion is almost certainly wrong:
1. From a simple sniff test, if this were true, then athletes wouldn't need a lot of calories. This obviously isn't true, eg Phelps eats 8-11K calories a day. I personally eat around 3.5K calories a day. If exercise didn't impact caloric burn I assure you I'd be a lot fatter...
2. The only plausible mechanisms for why exercise wouldn't result in more overall caloric burn is that less energy is expended in non exercising states, eg the body is trying to conserve energy and either reduces metabolism or reduces fidgeting, walking, etc. This often happens to people trying extreme calorie loss diets.
The implication of this is that somehow the sedentary lifestyle of your average couch potato is the "normal" lifestyle for a body, and the lifestyle of a hunter gatherer is "overactive", and their bodies are chronically tired and trying to reduce their metabolisms. That... seems quite unlikely.
3. Finally, this blog post dives into some methodological issues: https://darrendahly.github.io/post/2012-08-31-hunter-gathere...
EDIT: Increased metabolism due to muscle mass is not as big an effect as you’d think: https://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article%20folder/metabolismcon...
1. From a simple sniff test, if this were true, then athletes wouldn't need a lot of calories. This obviously isn't true, eg Phelps eats 8-11K calories a day. I personally eat around 3.5K calories a day. If exercise didn't impact caloric burn I assure you I'd be a lot fatter...
2. The only plausible mechanisms for why exercise wouldn't result in more overall caloric burn is that less energy is expended in non exercising states, eg the body is trying to conserve energy and either reduces metabolism or reduces fidgeting, walking, etc. This often happens to people trying extreme calorie loss diets.
The implication of this is that somehow the sedentary lifestyle of your average couch potato is the "normal" lifestyle for a body, and the lifestyle of a hunter gatherer is "overactive", and their bodies are chronically tired and trying to reduce their metabolisms. That... seems quite unlikely.
3. Finally, this blog post dives into some methodological issues: https://darrendahly.github.io/post/2012-08-31-hunter-gathere...
EDIT: Increased metabolism due to muscle mass is not as big an effect as you’d think: https://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article%20folder/metabolismcon...