Work out less and lose more weight -- even if you eat the same amount.

The devil's in the details. As they say at the bottom of the piece, this may be due to increased eating. Or to people who exercise more being less active outside the gym. It all nets out.

Thinking you're going to work out less and lose more weight can be extremely misleading. If you work out more *and keep all other factors equal* you will lose more weight.

In the end, it all comes down to energy balance. More energy out than in and you lose weight. But nobody likes to hear that.

We cannot avoid basic physics. And anyone who disputes this should patent their DNA immediately. If they are a machine that can take in 100 calories and burn 200 they have just solved the energy crisis and probably have a Nobel Prize waiting for them.

It says "Researchers measured no significant difference in caloric intake" and that while "the more intense workouts may have lead to more compensatory food intake (though, within the limits of this study, they measured no difference)". So FOR THIS STUDY there was no difference in eating between the two groups.

1) This still doesn't address non-exercise expenditure so it's gimmicky to say you can work out less. You're still burning the same amount at the end day but if I kept you in an environment where you had to keep moving (non-sedentary job, the military, etc) you would lose more weight because all extra activity would stay equal.

2) If the eating was self-reported (as it often is) it's a wash because people are rarely accurate (deliberately or unconsciously) about intake. If you want studies that are accurate about food you need to house people and feed them, otherwise they lie or forget. It's extremely common in these studies and one of the reasons there is so much confusion.

Basically, they're not accurately measuring a bunch of stuff and we get surprising results. If you measured everything and reported it I don't think it would be surprising at all.

This would make a great documentary or reality TV show.

If you made Work Out Less and Lose More Weight an e-book you'd have a best seller.

Actually, this is a proven strategy for producing a best-seller:

http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Bad-Is-Good-You/dp/1573223077

That's awesome. And Kindle-only version should sell better if priced right.

No wonder 100 million Kindle-only books have been downloaded so far.