[pandaman]

"Exercise" in these studies could be something like leisure walking for a couple of hours. That can only affect your weight by keeping you away from your snacks for a couple of hours, its energy expenditure is not moving your weight in any direction. If you look up, the energy cost of light activity is exaggerated. You can get numbers as high as 1 kcal / (kg*km) so somebody who is 100kg (220lbs) supposedly burns 500 kcals in a 1 hour of walking at 5 km/h (20 minutes mile). I know people who believe these numbers, think themselves at a caloric deficit and, when still gaining weight, doubt the Thermodynamics instead of the exercise "science".

[edaus]

I like the approach of some bodybuilders when trying to lose weight. They just count the cardio as extra, and multiplying the calories burnt by 0 to 0.5 when cutting.

Losing weight also becomes quite straight forward when one tracks their calories and activity in minutes and uses weekly averages. That way changing one side while maintaining the other can get them to losing weight again.

I agree totally with you, people try to find the perfect equation and tracking method for everything, otherwise it's pointless to them. Honestly I like how it is like a game, where losing weight initially is simple and then it gets incrementally harder and you have to find better methods and how there's variations from person to person.

[pandaman]

One can actually measure the work done in cardio - chest HRM or pod can measure running through acceleration, and bikes and rowing machines can have power meters, measuring work applied to the drive axle. It's not the consumed energy but the aerobic COP does not change much so it's easy to estimate the consumed energy from the work done. Because the power output during an activity can vary by orders of magnitude, the time in activity is a very poor estimate IMHO.