Energy balance
Increasing exercise dose (frequency, duration, intensity, or total energy expenditure) does not increase the magnitude of energy compensation (the body's compensatory response), meaning higher doses are required solely to overcome a fixed compensatory threshold rather than to avoid greater compensation.
If you are exercising to lose weight, doing more exercise does not cause you to compensate by eating more or storing more fat than a smaller amount of exercise would. The body's 'compensatory response' is roughly fixed (around 1,000 kcal/week). To lose fat, you must simply exceed this threshold. Therefore, higher exercise doses are not 'futile' due to compensation; they are necessary to create a net deficit large enough to result in fat loss.
Greater exercise intensity, frequency, ExEE or exercise duration do not promote greater energy compensation when expressed as CI or total energy compensated.
Why this rating
Randomized controlled trial with 44 participants, clear intervention arms, and objective measures of energy compensation.
Source
Energy Compensation with Exercise is not Dependent on Dose
Harry M. Hays · UKnowledge (University of Kentucky) · 2020
DOI 10.13023/etd.2020.127
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