This could be the most important podcast you ever listen to when it comes to understanding the true dynamics behind losing excess body fat, especially breaking free from the flawed notions that underpin the fitness and diet industries.  This show is inspired by my two recent shows with Dr. Herman Pontzer (#1 and #2), author of the new book, Burn: New Research Blows the Lid Off How We Really Burn Calories, Lose Weight, and Stay Healthy. This show aggregates the breakthrough insights about energy expenditure with what we know about calories to uncover, simplify, and demystify the truth about weight loss and caloric intake.This episode completely challenges the foundational premise of the fitness industry as I reveal that you actually burn the same number of calories per day, regardless of exercise level and break down the constrained model of caloric expenditure. You’ll learn why the “additive model” of energy expenditure (which entails figuring out your BMR with a calculator and then adding and subtracting the calories consumed and burned throughout the day) can be highly inaccurate, which can be explained by the Compensation Theory (your vigorous workouts cause you to not only be lazier, but also eat more the rest of the day). You’ll also learn that homo sapiens’ genetics transcends the nuances of our daily lifestyles and training logs and that we are the highest calorie burners among the apes (and the best calorie storers): Gorilla’s burn 20% fewer calories than humans, and apes in zoos actually burn the same amount of calories as a heavily active ape in the wild. I also reveal that activity really burns only a tiny bit more calories: moderately active people burn 200 more calories a day than inactive people, and hugely active people burn around the same amount of calories as the moderately active people.I also talk about what happens when you try to flaunt your Homo sapiens genes and burn calories like crazy in the name of fitness or weight loss, which can be best summed up by this quote: “Reproduction, growth, repair, and locomotion are a zero sum game.” This means that if you do more of one, you take away/borrow from one or more of the others. I explain why the consequences of that are no joke: you’re on the thin red line of suppressed immune function, suppressed cognitive function, suppressed general energy levels, delayed recovery, reduced reproductive drive, and reproductive fitness. I also mention that female extreme endurance amenorrhea is the most visible example of this, as sadly so many women become infertile all just to run more mileage. One important point to take away from this episode: if you reject the constraints of the human and march forward with an unsustainable lifestyle, compensations will be taken for you. This brings to mind stories I’ve heard from amateur fitness enthusiasts who often pair 6 months (or 6 years) of heavy devotion to CrossFit, but need to take 6 months or 6 years off for recovery. Similarly, when you look at the Biggest Loser contestants 6 years after the show, they have dysregulated appetite and fat metabolism. The majority of them ended up gaining all the weight they lost back and then some, and I talk about how this happens frequently to bodybuilders as well.  So how can this be? How is it that an ambitious exercise regimen will not help your fat loss at all? Dr. Herman explains: “Possibly an athlete is undergoing an initial adjustment to a higher level of training. And before they get used to it, the athlete is in a temporary unsustainable physique,” like prepping for the Tour de France. Or it could be that the athlete is also changing their diet as part of lifestyle improvement.  But what is the deal? How and why do we gain fat so easily, and how can we actually lose it, long-term, and not as a temporary fix? While Dr. Herman admits that losing excess body fat is “tough,” the truth is that there is a high genetic component to body fat percentage, and a high lifestyle component to d