#208: Herman Pontzer, PhD - Constrained Energy Expenditure Model & the Evolutionary Biology of Energy Balance
Sigma Nutrition Radio
Danny Lennon
4.8 • 626 Ratings
🗓️ 6 December 2017
⏱️ 58 minutes
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Summary
Evoultionary biologist Dr. Herman Pontzer of Hunter College discusses the model of contrained energy expenditure and the metabolic adaptations that accompany high levels of physical activity.
Dr. Pontzer is an associate professor at the Department of Anthropology, Hunter College & City University of New York. He is an evolutionary biologist with a PhD in Biological Anthropology from Harvard University. He has published seminal work in the area of energetics, including viewing human energy expenditure via a model of constrained total energy expenditure. He s truly a world-class leader in this field and has been repeatedly recognized internationally for his research.
In This Episode We Discuss:
Constrained vs. Additive model of total energy expenditure
The physical activity paradox: Do highly active populations actually burn more calories?
Why NEAT, movement efficiency and other metabolic adaptations can't fully explain the paradox
Why did we evolve this way?
Why are human capable of expending so much energy in acute time frames?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Your body adapts to your level of physical activity so that the calories you burn every day, |
| 0:17.1 | the total number of calories you burn every day, doesn't change much as you get more |
| 0:21.1 | and more active. |
| 0:22.7 | And so, you know, if you start an exercise program today, sure, for a couple of weeks, you'll |
| 0:27.1 | burn more energy as your body sort of adjusts to that higher level of activity. |
| 0:31.7 | But after a couple of months, you'd find that your daily energy expenditure, the 2,500 calories |
| 0:37.2 | a day or so that you're burning before you start the program, |
| 0:40.3 | hasn't changed much. And after a couple of months of this training program, even though you're more active, |
| 0:45.3 | you're still burning the same or you are a new listener. |
| 1:12.7 | Welcome to your first episode of Sigma Nutrition Radio. |
| 1:16.3 | We are back after a couple of weeks' break, so a bit longer break between episodes than previously. |
| 1:22.6 | And that's because the recent Sigma Nutrition annual seminar took place in both London and Dublin over the past |
| 1:30.5 | couple of weekends. And I want to give a special mention and shout to all you guys who came to both |
| 1:36.1 | events and really enjoyed talking and meeting with a lot of you. And it seemed that people |
| 1:42.4 | took away something useful from the ideas |
| 1:45.8 | that were presented there so it's great to hear all your feedback so a special mention to everyone |
| 1:51.0 | who attended those seminars and for those who either couldn't make it or those you based internationally |
| 1:57.6 | in the US or Canada or Australia and so on that I've been emailing asking about |
| 2:03.8 | whether there would be recordings or footage then as you attendees at the Dublin event |
| 2:09.0 | will have noticed there was a full recording of that two-day seminar event so that will be likely |
| 2:17.1 | available some stage hopefully in the new year |
| 2:20.3 | depending on the editing and production time on that not too sure how that's going to be |
... |
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