John Briffa: Why exercise slows your metabolism

The idea that the body would down-regulate the metabolism in response to exercise makes, I think, intuitive sense. We know, for example, that when people consciously cut calories to lose weight, it very often puts a sizeable dent in the metabolism. This is probably part of a survival mechanism (the body doesn’t know we’re not going to starve ourselves to death, and will put into play mechanisms which help the body preserve its weight and fat stores). It’s not too difficult to imagine that the body would have a similar response to increased calorie expenditure (through exercise).

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