Metabolic adaptation “cancels out” some of the calorie-burning effects of exercise.
“They also raise interesting questions about causality, such as whether people who have overweight are better metabolic "compensators" because of their high level of adiposity (which may have hormonal and signaling properties conducive to this form of adaptation) or whether they become overweight because they start out life by being better "compensators" and are more likely exceed their baseline…”