"You can't out train a bad diet." Basically, this trite saying is trying to convey the idea that if you don’t control your food intake and balance it with your activity, so you sustain a caloric deficit, you won’t lose weight regardless of how much you exercise. Re-stated this way, in the context of energy balance, I don’t think anyone would disagree. However, I'm here to explain how this phrase has gone wrong...

For several years now, there has been a theory that when you exercise more, some of the increased calorie burn is "cancelled" because your basal metabolic rate decreases. An internationally publicized study now appears to confirm this, showing 27.7% "energy compensation." This has caused a number of fitness influencers to start claiming exercise doesn't work for weight loss and that "Weight loss is all diet." But what does a closer look at this research really say? Tom Venuto digs deeper and clears up the controversy...