Does Exercise Really Help You Lose Weight? Evolutionary anthropologist Herman Pontzer found: Not really. Why we shouldn’t stop doing it anyway – and other myths about human energy turnover.
On a warm October Wednesday morning, Herman Pontzer dons his crumpled lab coat, adjusts his mask, and goes into his lab at Duke University to stress out a student. Christina lies on a laboratory table. Her head is under a clear plastic hood. Pontzer greets his student and begins to raise her blood pressure. His proven method for doing this: an oral math test. “Take the number 1022 and subtract 13 until you get to zero,” he says. “Any mistake starts all over again. Ready?” – “1009, 997,” Christina says. “Start again,” calls Pontzer. Christina laughs nervously. She tries again and gets to 889 until Pontzer stops her. Again and again. Potzner now yells at her to multiply 505 by 117. Meanwhile, his staff monitor Christina’s heart rate and the amount of carbon dioxide she exhales into the hood.