The extra pounds during the Holidays also affect the most active, according to a recent study. Find out.
Study shows that people who burn a lot of calories are just as likely as the rest to gain weight during the Holidays.
“The idea that you can regulate body weight with a lot of physical activity is not supported in our study. That doesn’t mean you don’t have to exercise, as a physical activity provides tremendous health benefits and increases energy expenditure, “said Dale Schoeller, a professor at the University of Wisconsin.
In September and October 1999, Schoeller’s team determined the body size of 443 middle-aged men and women; most were overweight. The authors repeated the control after the year-end holiday season, in January or February 2000.
To determine the participants’ daily energy expenditure, the team applied a method called “doubly labeled water” at the beginning of the study, which consists of administering water to patients with slightly different oxygen and hydrogen atoms than ordinary water.
At two weeks, the team analyzed the amount of labeled hydrogen and oxygen excreted in the urine and estimated the amount of remaining labeled oxygen that the body had used to burn calories.
Total energy is the calories available for the body to use daily for sleeping, watching television, walking or exercising.
At the end of the study, the men had gained almost 1 kilogram (kg) and the women, a little more than 0.5 kg, that is, about 1 percent more weight.
Participants who burned more calories daily and those who exercised more were as likely to gain weight as those who were not spending as much energy or were more sedentary.
“I would think that people with more physical activity would be more protected from weight gain than the rest,” said Susan Racette, a professor at Washington University School of Medicine, and who was not involved in the study.
Obviously, he considered Racette, celebrations, sweets and dinners also affect them or it could also be that they do less physical activity during the Holidays.
The team did not assess how much food the participants had consumed or how much exercise they had performed during the period evaluated.
For example, if a Thanksgiving dinner provides 500 calories, that’s 17 percent more energy for a person with a daily energy expenditure of 3,000 calories, but represents 25 percent additional energy for someone who burns just 2,000 calories.
However, the results show that the equation “is not that simple,” Schoeller said. “Those extra calories are a problem for everyone,” Racette told Reuters Health.
Schoeller added that, to prevent obesity, the study supports the idea that diet, and not just exercise, is important. “Both are necessary,” he concluded.