Katherine Thomas' series about slimming

It's not a good thing and it will be a scandal in the future that Pharma were excessively pushing this for weight loss. A lot of peoples health are being ruined by this.

I wonder who fact checks the show, do RTÉ pass that responsibility to who produced it? It was produced by Aquarius Productions which is owned by Kathryn Thomas.

Fair enough, don't remember that bit, mind you my doc thinks I could do with losing a stone! Bog standard Irish GP!

Well this is not something that ever happened, she's being presenting TV since her late teens, The Grip, and while she might have been chubby before it seems unlikely.

So there are two photos that are shown on that show.

1. From when she is about 10, at most this is puppy fat. (ep 1 3mins 2seconds)
2. From when she is about 16, she's not fat in this photo she's wearing a over sized tee-shirt. (ep 1 3mins 16sec)

I don't think in either she is fat or could be considered fat, she might have been the fattest person in the classroom at the time, either way the Teacher was way out of line.

[Mods feel free to move to fitness, it’s a worthwhile discussion]

Unless you are measuring people NEAT it’s not observation. And I bet if you did measure it, the idea would be disproven pretty quick. I’m following your logic, but it simply doesn’t happen.

Think how many people wear Fitbit’s and the like. If exercise reduced total calories burned like you say, it would be very apparent.

If somebody did something extreme (10k, Spartan race, etc) with no training. Then sure they’d be crippled the day after. But a 300 cal bjj class is not debilitating, (and a newbie at bjj has to work harder and burns more).

I think you are overestimating the impact “exhausted after workout” has on NEAT. Somebody with 1500 NEAT has a very active job, they would be very fit, a bjj class wouldn’t phase them. If somebody is so unfit and sendentry that any exercise wipes them out. They would have very little NEAT, like 400 cals, to begin with. Somebody starting exercise may be tired and sore the next day. But they will still walk to the bus, from/to class, to pick up the kids, doing housework etc. NEAT is the activity you just do anyway

Fitbits and exercise trackerings which notoriously have no idea how many calories you burn while exercising?

Doesn't matter. Even if a particular tracker is over/underestimates wildly, it will do so consistently. So a change is daily total calories will be spotted. Regardless, we also have thousands of studys of calorie expediture.

The low end of NEAT is around 700 calories, not 400.

No it isn't. an active person sure. But a sedentary person will be less than 700.

Total daily energy expenditure is BMR+NEAT+Exercise Activity. BMR is by far the largest contributor for most people. A sedentary person burns about 20% of BMR). This is easy to confirm with various established calorie formulas (like Harris Benedict, or Katch McArdle).

I'm ~80kg. By BMR is 1800cals (via either formula)
If totally sedentary I'd burn about 2200 cals. That's 400 cals for NEAT. A smaller person will be lower again. (Im using sedentary as you referring to unfit, inactive people). Obvious i can burn more with activity.

And if someone reduces their NEAT by half after strenuous exercise (very easy to do over the other 14-15 hours a day they are awake). like e.g. a newbie doing 300cal of BJJ, then they can reduce their NEAT by at least 350cal, more than the exercise calories they burned

I understand what your saying, how exercise could cancels out NEAT. But that's simply doesn't happen. You've offered no evidence to back up that it does happens. Somebody who is sedentary has a low activity, there is very little scope for them to reduce that to the degree you are saying.

Somebody burning 700 cals from everyday activity would have some sort of active job, or be on their feet a lot. In order to drop that to 350 overnight. They'd have to phone in to work sick, and sit on the sofa in their pyjamas all day. And while that is technically possible, people are simply not doing that in response to a 300 BJJ sessions - which is a very light workout overall.
The idea that exercise makes people burn less calories overall by promoting next day laziness is simply not true.

As someone who has worn 3 or 4 different fitness trackers and smart watches to try to track my sleep, I take all their results with a massive pinch of salt.

They seem all over the place, and I think too many people put too much faith in their results.

Of course, they are very rough measurements, not medical devices. Same for steps, heart rate etc. But if you devices says you do 6k steps everyday. Then one day you do 10k - you've probably moved more. The preciseness of the count is not that important.

As per my link, fitbits would measure differently on the same person based on which arm they wore them. They are not accurate or even consistently inaccurate.

Of course they measure activity differently. People move their dominant hand more than there non-dominant hand, that should be obvious. That's an entirely expected result. Different inputs result in a different output. That's a really weak argument.

Again, I haven't claimed they are accurate. The fact you are still persisting with that , suggests you can't counter the actual point. If you activity drops massively following exercise, a fitbit will show a drop. Whether it displays that drop as 300 cals, or 320 cals doesn't change the fact it detects a drop - which was the only point.

Alternately, if what you said was true. There would also be a huge step count drop. Which your article points out fitbit and the like tracker well. So we would know if it happens.

So you took the low end extreme to try to prove the overall population? And you don't see the problem there? You seriously can't see why taking the middle is a better representation of most people? For most people, it does start at 700 calories.

I took the low end, because you literally said "The low end of NEAT is around 700 calories". That was the metric you set.
LMFAO. Move the goal posts much? Middle is not a better representation, as that's not what you claimed.

Or they reduce their effort across the 16 waking hours to the same level as the full-day, no-housework, WFH person.

So a person who catches a the train to work, works in an office, walks around the office, goes out for coffee, on thier feet a bit; You think that if this person starts exercising. Then next day, they will be WFH, seated all day, basically moving as little as possible.

That simply doesn't happen. I've explained that from the start. People who start exercise don't spontaneously change their work routine overnight - not to the tune of a few hundred calories.

Because people who are the low extreme don't start with heavy cardio or weightlifting. They start with just getting up and moving more, getting their 10,000 steps in, i.e. activity that increases their NEAT.

We're not talking about how they can burn more. You claimed they wont have the energy to sustain there current calorie expenditure. But as we've established, they are already at the absolute minimum, they can't go lower. It was a baseless claim.

Why are you concentrating on the vast minority on the small end? Why not put an equal measure on those on the top end, the 2300+calorie agri workers who clearly will have a negative impact on their NEAT if they add in exercise? You are picking and choosing to make you point, ignoring that vast majority of people in the middle.

How am I concentrating on the small end? I responded that a chair bound person can't go lower because you asked about a chair bound person. You seem to be getting very muddled up with what you've said one post to the next.
The example I gave before that was a 700 cals a day office worker. Literally the middleman. Claiming I ignored the middle is it kinda silly when that's literally the point I laid out.

As for an argi worker, or a say construction labourer. 2300 cals a day. Tough, physical work, everyday. If they go to the gym, they won't wake up the next day and decide to get a less physical job - they go to work just the same and do the same job.

NEAT is highly related to occupation, as the study you linked to made clear. NEAT varies person to person, but for a given routine it will be stable. A light, 300 cal bjj session or similar is not going to up-end a persons routine.

Something like a hangover is much more detrimental to activity. But that's a different discussion.

Almost like measuring steps (motion tracking) and calories (motion tracking, heart-rate and other sensors fed through an algorithm using guesses about BMR related to your activity level, age, sex and weight) have wildly different margins and sources of error.

I haven’t said anything that suggests they are all the same accuracy, lol.
And you just listed "activity level, age, sex and weight". As I said, that is why you have variation across multiple people in a study. All of those variables are removed when looking an the one individual every day. A persons age is a constant.
I literally explained that for you already.

Step count is pretty accurate (not perfect). That alone disproves you. We would notice is exercise crippled activity - it doesn't.

Suggestion that fitness trackers measurements are completely unrelation to calories burned is foolish.

The low end for the majority of the population is around 700 calories…

…The low end of NEAT, as per the study I linked, is 700 calories for people with a seated job and no option for moving.

The low end is 3-400. Low end means bottom of the range. You said low end, I provided the low end. The study you linked to had it as 300. Simple. Don't over think this.

The majority of the population are about 700 through their typical daily life. I haven’t disputed that, but that also highlights why your theory falls down. People don't become totally chairbound after exercise.

Yes, of course it does. I've done it. Exercise is fatiguing. You do fatiguing exercise, like a spin class or an hour on the treadmill, you have less energy the rest of the day (even if you have significant fat deposits that you could burn). In work you might have a lower limit that you will force yourself to do, to get your job done, but you have nearly as much time in your day outside of the office as you do in it, and people will put less effort or even put off chores if they are tired enough.

You've done it? Have you measured it? As I think you're overestimating the reduction in NEAT, a lot. You are assuming if that “feeling fatigued”, or a slight reduction in activity means all activity is cancelled out. The last part is specifically where you’re going wrong. You are taking 2+2 and coming up with 7

Yes, exercise is fatiguing. Yes, you might be burn slightly less non exercise calories (you have less time for a start, obviously). But that does not equal cancelling out all the exercise.
Plus, more intense, more fatiguing exercise, will have a higher initial burn.

A spin class or an hour on the treadmill could be 500 cals. You are not reducing NEAT by that much. You are making a logical leap from "reduce chores" to "reduce all activity equal to the exercise calories".

We are talking about how they can burn more. Permanently chairbound WFH home people are generally not given cardio based exercise plans because they won't be able to stick to them. The start for them is increase in steps, and therefore non-fatiguing calorie burning, so they build muscle endurance in a way they will stick to.

At no point did we discuss what their exercise plan should be. Where are you pulling that from???
You asked how they can sustain their current sedentary energy burn. I pointed it can’t actually go any lower.

FWIW the reason that they should increase generally active first is that it is easier to sustain. Not because exercises reduces total calories burned, different things entirely.

What are you talking about? I gave the example of a 700 cal a day NEAT as a base, you claimed 700 meant a very active person and NEAT was 400 or lower.

I didn't say was 700 was a very active person. It's is first activity level above sedentary baseline. I literally said sedentary was NEAT was 400, active 700 and very active 1500, and so on. The study you linked to align with those numbers. (300 in the study was a female).

Trying to focus descriptions like slightly/very active is nit-picky, and highlights how flimsy your position is. They are subjective terms. The label used is irrelevant really. The numbers are important, the numbers proved you wrong, repeatedly.

I referred to your example in post #48. An office worker burning 700 cals via their typical daily activity. You claimed after a 300 cal BJJ class, they'd burn 350 the following day. Right? But as we already agreed, 350-400 is a outlier for extremely sedentary. They would have to phone in sick, and lie on the sofa all day, and do absolutely nothing to reduce 700 to 400. But that doesn't happen. They still go to work, still do most of the same activity, and burn 600-700. That's an net increase.

A small reduction in NEAT might happen sometimes. Even if just down to the reduce hours (2 hours at BJJ means my "non-exercise day" is 2 hours shorter). But that reduction is really marginal compared to the exercise activity (EAT).