Research
Energy balance
Energy compensation occurs primarily at the within-individual level (reversible trade-offs over time) rather than the between-individual level (genetic/permanent differences), meaning active periods lead to lower basal rates for the same person.
Your metabolism is not fixed. When you are active, your body lowers your resting burn. When you are less active, your resting burn may increase. This dynamic adjustment means that long-term changes in activity levels will trigger metabolic adaptations, making weight management a moving target.
ModerateSupportsMEDIUM confidence
This analysis clearly reveals that energy compensation occurs only at the within-individual level... the within-individual correlation (±SE) between AEE and BEE was r = −0.58 ± 0.08
Why this rating
Based on a smaller longitudinal subset (n=68) of elderly individuals, limiting generalizability to younger populations.
Source
Energy compensation and adiposity in humans
Vincent Careau et al. · Current Biology · 2021
DOI 10.1016/j.cub.2021.08.016
cohort · n=1754Cited 121×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- In free-living humans, increased physical activity triggers energy compensation, where basal metabolic rate (BEE) decreases such that only ~72% of the calories burned through activity translate into increased total energy expenditure (TEE).Good
- The degree of energy compensation increases with body fat mass (FM), with individuals at the 90th percentile of BMI compensating ~49% of activity calories compared to ~28% for those at the 10th percentile.Good
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