The Obesity Code: Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss (Why Intermittent Fasting Is the Key to Controlling Your Weight)

by Jason Fung

COMPENSATION: THE HIDDEN CULPRIT WHY DOES ACTUAL weight loss fall so far below projected? The culprit is a phenomenon known as “compensation”—and there are two major mechanisms. First, caloric intake increases in response to exercise—we just eat more following a vigorous workout. (They don’t call it “working up an appetite” for nothing.) A prospective cohort study of 538 students from the Harvard School of Public Health15 found that “although physical activity is thought of as an energy deficit activity, our estimates do not support this hypothesis.” For every extra hour of exercise, the kids ate an extra 292 calories. Caloric intake and expenditure are intimately related: increasing one will cause an increase in the other. This is the biological principle of homeostasis. The body tries to maintain a stable state. Reducing Calories In reduces Calories Out. Increasing Calories Out increases Calories In.