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An average human isn't overweight enough to make this matter. That's why it's an average.

For a morbidly obese person they burn more calories standing up and walking around the house than I do. The thing is once you're past this phase of being overweight or obese your caloric expenditure drops precipitously. When I was working out 4 days a week my body adapted such that my caloric consumption had to go from 3200 calories a day to 2500 calories a day to maintain weight.

Running is not an efficient way to burn fat. It never has been, and never will be. The reason marathon runners are so rail-thin is because they run a lot. Running preferentially burns muscle as well due to the quickness of conversion after glucose is gone. Worse yet, there's no increase in calorie burn via muscle gain and hormone stimulation. It's just a flat consumption of calories.

In summary: being overweight is an edge case and not an average. Any mildly trained person will realize a drop in overall calorie expenditure as their body adapts to exercise. This is why modern exercise science emphasizes "confusion". Otherwise you plateau (and pretty hard, usually).



> The reason marathon runners are so rail-thin is because they run a lot. Running preferentially burns muscle as well due to the quickness of conversion after glucose is gone.

I think there's some selection bias to this though. The morbidly obese tend not to be marathon runners, as well as the very muscular. Marathon running is an extreme activity that preferentially self selects certain physical attributes and conditions. This is not to say that a morbidly obese person can't take up marathon running - but they unlikely to be able to maintain it successfully while remaining so.




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