Whilst this is true; your body does have some pretty neat tricks to maintain homeostasis; it can shift the energy budget around quite a bit to where it is needed.
Your body will down regulate some systems to try to keep your total energy balance within what is “normal” for each person.
Digestion uses quite a bit of energy; this is why sometimes you feel sleepy after eating; your brain has been down regulated to enable digestion.
Another common example is when runners get into “the zone”; this is your brain prioritising the required processes and reducing the energy of other parts, putting you into a semi trance…this is so your body can maintain an energy balance.
It is also why we sometimes feel sick if exercising hard and then eat quickly afterward; your gut is not ready for that job.
High energy process that can be “switched off” or at least significantly reduced:
- Brain processes (up to 25% of your energy budget)
- Immune system (~20% when fighting infection)
- Digestion (dependent on food 3[sugar] - 30[protein]% of food energy)
Just because you have done some exercise; doesn’t mean you have used more total energy that day…it seems counter intuitive; but your body likely shifted energy from one thing (immune system, brain) to muscles, for the time your were exercising.
In saying that exercising is so good for other things; physical and mental health are enhanced by exercise, there are so many good things about exercise, just don’t rely on it for weight loss.
As the old saying goes “you can’t out run a bad diet”; you are correct, if over the long term you eat fewer calories than your body requires, you will see an effect. But your body is a tricksy beast, it will do all it can to prevent this; it is why dieting is so hard in an age of abundant food.
Zephorah@discuss.online 2 weeks ago
Some people mistake healthier with less calories.
I switched from a box of Little Debbie’s a day to a bag of trail mix! Why can’t I lose weight?
That olive oil you’re using is good for you, sure, but it’s not a freebee. It has calories. Things like this are often not even noticed or counted.
pishadoot@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Tracking calories accurately is a balance between good data and time investment.
I didn’t usually count oils and fats when I made food because I use so little. But I also wouldn’t worry much about very low calorie vegetables either.
To be fair though my goal was to gain weight and meet macros, not to lose weight.
But either way at the end of the day even with really good apps making counting calories way easier than it used to be, there’s still a line that needs to be drawn somewhere as to what your time is worth. If you’re in the ballpark you’re good unless you have very explicit needs to get more detailed data.
Manjushri@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Absolutely true, and getting good data is really, really hard. In fact, the nutritional content on food labels (in the USA) is allowed to be over by as much as 20% by the FDA.
In addition to that the processes and formulas used to calculate those numbers are also far from precise .
However, this is only an estimate because not everything that burns and releases energy to heat the water can be digested by a person eating it. Fiber, for example, burns in the calorimeter but will just pass through your digestive system without giving up its energy.
Many food companies don’t even test food like this. They simply estimate the calorie content based on the number of grams of fat, carbs, and proteins in the food. Still, unless and until someone comes up with a better way to determine the calories in a given measure of food, it’s the best system we’ve got.
LwL@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’d also be willing to bet that the actual amount of calories someone gets from different kinds of food is dependent on their gut biome, and thus variable between people. Ime you really need to experiment on yourself to get a good idea of what will make you lose weight. Same probably applies if you’re underweight and trying to gain.