
Study finds hunter-gatherers' energy expenditure same as modern Westerners' - georgecmu
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/opinion/sunday/debunking-the-hunter-gatherer-workout.html?src=recg
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jacques_chester
Modern food can be so fantastically calorically dense that it's depressing to
sit down (ha!) and compare food taken in versus the amount of exercise one can
reasonably perform. Anybody who has ever done so will have immediately
realised how much pedalling a slice of pizza or a donut can be equal.

You may have heard that "abs are made in the kitchen", or "you can't outrun
the fork". And this just shows that it's true even for very physically active
people.

I train in Olympic-style Weightlifting, probably one of the more demanding
physical activities. Elite international-level athletes in Weightlifting can
be visually categorised into two groups: superheavyweights and everybody else.

Why? Because superheavies don't need to make a weight class, there is no
incentive to strip down fat. So they eat heavily to support maximal
hypertrophy and training intensity.

Whereas weightlifters trying to squeeze in at the top of a weight division
will often have very low bodyfat. How is this achieved? Through a tightly
controlled diet.

We are talking about athletes who in all other respects _train the same way_.
A Chinese superheavy trains the same way as a Chinese welterweight. A
Bulgarian superheavy, same as a Bulgarian heavy. And so on. Literally every
day, racking from hundreds to thousands of calories of exercise. But they eat
differently.

And the results speak for themselves.

~~~
litmus
>>>>"Of course, if we push our bodies hard enough, we can increase our energy
expenditure, at least in the short term. But our bodies are complex, dynamic
machines, shaped over millions of years of evolution in environments where
resources were usually limited; our bodies adapt to our daily routines and
find ways to keep overall energy expenditure in check."

And yet how do we get from a modern man spending most of time sitting down
spending the same energy as a Hadza walking ~100 miles a week to a modern
Olympian swimmer supposedly spending 12,000 a day and maintaining 8-10% body
fat while swimming 50 miles a week? Does 10+ years qualifiy as 'short term'?

<http://www.michaelphelps.net/michael-phelps-diet/>

~~~
jacques_chester
I think that the NYT article was poorly written.

It's hard to tell what was meant by controlling for differences.

For example, fat people have a higher BMR, simply because they are larger.

Tall people have a higher BMR, because they are larger.

And so on.

The "Phelps diet" is a bit of a media beatup, apparently. Not that it matters,
Phelps could still get fat if he wanted to. Elvis is estimated to have been
eating more calories than that in the year before his death.

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crazygringo
I personally hung out with the Hadza for a few days a little over ten years
ago.

This article rings completely true -- most of them really only spent a couple
hours a day "working", which is typical of hunter-gatherer tribes -- it's
remarkably leisurely. People didn't break their backs working until the
agricultural revolution, which demanded it.

The Hadza spend a ton of time "gambling" amongst each other, which doesn't
involve a lot of energy. And even while the article says:

> _Each day the women comb miles of hilly terrain, foraging for tubers,
> berries and other wild plant foods_

It's really not a big deal. It's like walking around Central Park a bit. And
the East African savannah is a really flat place, the hills are not big. It's
just leisurely strolling around, nobody's in a hurry. The annoying part is
digging for roots with sticks.

Fun fact: in Africa, the hunter-gatherer tribes are the only tribes with no
history of famine.

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peteretep
Anec-data: with no other changes to the amount I work out (a lot), how much
alcohol I drink (I don't), or really the amount of food I eat (6 small meals a
day), weight just started falling off when I stopped eating sugar in the form
of cakes, candy, and donuts. Also my skin cleared up, and my eyes stopped
being shot.

My (far from proven) theory is that refined sugar in enough quantity to give
you a slight buzz is the almost sole factor in weight gain in many
individuals.

~~~
danmaz74
If you consumed the same amount of food, how did you substitute the sugar you
took away? Sugar has a lot of calories per weight, if you simply reduced the
calories intake then losing weight isn't unexpected.

~~~
peteretep
I ate until I was no longer hungry, just not sugar. Did I eat fewer calories?
Almost certainly. Did I go hungry, or feel like I was eating less? Not at
all...

~~~
ryusage
I think it's pretty safe to say then that the weight just started falling off
because you were taking in less calories. That'll happen. I don't think
there's any reason to assume that the same thing wouldn't have happened if you
had cut out fats or protein instead.

~~~
peteretep
There is a massive difference in the ability to satiate of fat and protein vs
sugar.

------
zenon
Dr. Lindeberg and co. found the same thing (albeit using less sophisticated
methods) in the study of the Kitava islanders more than 20 years ago.

<http://www.staffanlindeberg.com/TheKitavaStudy.html>

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lifeisstillgood
>> We think that the Hadzas’ bodies have adjusted to the higher activity
levels required for hunting and gathering by spending less energy elsewhere.

When I commute by bike, my brain is less flexible at work, than if I tube it
in and eat chocolate. I will happily agree that my body shifts from using the
brain at 100% CPU to 50% CPU and 50% body.

That big lump of grey matter does not run 100% all the time.

~~~
peteretep
Also: glucose helps self discipline.

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logn
I lost about 70 pounds without working out. Just moderating my diet.

~~~
bad_user
I lost 44 pounds by drastically cutting out sugar ... no more junk food,
sweats, beer, sodas or sugar in my coffee. The only sugar I get these days is
from fruits and milk.

~~~
potatolicious
Ditto. I lost about 40 lbs cutting out snacks at all, and sticking to highly
regulated meals (high in protein - not carb-less, general caloric restriction,
avoidance of processed high-fat foods like most sauces, dips, etc).

And then I gained 30 lbs of that back by moving to a new city and letting
myself go. Physical activity did not really change.

What goes in has way more to do with your weight than what goes out.

~~~
peteretep
I used to really tightly regulate everything I ate, and stuck to that as a bit
of a crutch, and like you would gain it all back when I stopped. Since I've
stopped allowing myself any candy (or candy-like things), I've been able to be
pretty chilled out about what else I eat... Also: I weigh myself every day,
and plot it, which helps me get back on track if I'm starting to creep up, and
need to eat just a little less

------
rubashov
The article says hadza walk many miles per day but burn the same calories as
sedentary westerners. How is this possible? Well you go look at the table in
the study and the hadza are all 30kg lighter than westerners. The men are all
apparently 5'4 and 115lb, if you look at the BMI. That's probably 115lb at sub
5% bodyfat, too.

The study claims to control for body size. I didn't read it. But I still
suspect we're looking at an apples to oranges situation here. A little dude of
pure muscle who has been walking 10 miles a day his whole life is essentially
incomparable to a fat sedentary Westerner.

I don't think the data presented predicts that if you had 6' fat sedentary
people walk three miles a day they wouldn't lose weight, but that's almost
claimed in the article.

~~~
icegreentea
Obviously, if you had a 6' fat sedentary person suddenly start walking 3 miles
a day, they would lose weight. That's actually -not- the claim of the paper.
The paper claim is that total energy expenditure is largely uncoupled with
physical activity levels. For example, within the Hadza they found no real
difference in energy use compared to different amounts activity. They also
found no relation between body fat percentage and total energy use.

What this points to is that if you give the human body time to adapt to any
set of conditions, you'll likely end up burning roughly the same amount of
calories.

Here's the actual paper by the way:
[http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi/10.1371/journal.po...](http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi/10.1371/journal.pone.0040503)

