In postmenopausal women, increasing aerobic exercise from 150 to 300 minutes per week does not lead to a consistent change in how much the body adjusts its energy use in response to exercise.
Mechanism
Synthesis from 1 study
When these women exercise more, their bodies respond by making them hungrier and less active during the rest of the day, so they end up burning about the same total amount of energy no matter how long they work out.
Most probable mechanism
When postmenopausal women exercise more, their bodies don’t burn extra calories because they naturally eat more or move less during the rest of the day, keeping total energy use about the same no matter how much they work out.
Increased energy expenditure from aerobic exercise triggers a physiological signal that upregulates hunger-promoting hormones such as ghrelin and reduces satiety signals like leptin.
Elevated hunger leads to increased voluntary food intake, offsetting the additional calories burned during exercise.
Concurrently, spontaneous non-exercise physical activity—such as fidgeting, standing, or walking around—decreases in response to higher exercise volumes.
The combined increase in energy intake and decrease in non-exercise activity result in a net energy balance that remains unchanged across exercise volumes.
Evidence from Studies
Supporting (1)
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Dose–response effects of aerobic exercise on energy compensation in postmenopausal women: combined results from two randomized controlled trials
Contradicting (0)
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Gold Standard Evidence Needed
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