New research debunks the myth that exercise slows down your metabolism or calorie burn

There are countless excuses for not being consistently active, but one of the more difficult obstacles to counter is the demotivating idea that the more you exercise, the better your body becomes at retaining the calories you’re trying to burn. Fortunately, and just in time for those who want to stick to their New Year’s resolutions, a new study appears to have busted this myth.

To find out the relationship between exercise and what experts call the ‘energy budget’, the new studypublished late last year by a top team at Virginia Tech, with the aim of finding out whether exercise causes adaptations in the body that can maintain or slow down the daily calorie-burning process. Of course, you often hear people say that the more they exercise, the harder it is to burn fat, and while better fitness will make you more efficient with the energy you have, there’s more to it than that. When you exercise, you continue to burn more calories than normal long after the session. However, this would be useless if the body compensated by slowing things down later. Fortunately, that is not the case.

How was the research conducted?

For two weeks, 75 participants ranging in age from 19 to 63 and with existing levels of physical activity, including those who were sedentary to ultra-endurance runners, were fitted with a wearable activity sensor. They were then regularly tested on their energy expenditure, using urine samples to provide an indication of the relationship between activity levels achieved and the resulting effects on total calories burned over time. Did those who were consistently active burn less energy overall than those who exercised for the first time? Apparently not.

What were the results?

“Our research found that increased physical activity is associated with higher calorie burn, regardless of body composition, and that this increase is not offset by the body reducing energy spent elsewhere,” said Kevin Davywho is a professor in the Department of Human Nutrition, Food and Exercise and the study’s principal investigator.

Rather than storing energy in one part of the body to compensate for calories burned elsewhere through physical activity, the study found that the body continues to function at its usual pace. This means that total energy expenditure increases in direct response to the increased movement. When the body maintains basic functions such as breathing, circulating blood and regulating temperature, the amount of energy used remains stable. In other words, it appears that the body does not slow down or negate the extra calories burned through activity just because it becomes accustomed to a consistent fitness schedule.

So there you have it. For most of us, being consistently active doesn’t seem to be a process that slows down the overall calorie-burning process. In that case, you may want to cross this excuse off the list and continue your efforts with that positive change!