Something I never really got from the summaries on the research is how much training increase they looked at. And what type. I bet going fron 0 to 30 minutes a day would look different than the span 0-120.
Do you BTW have a link to the paper?
Last i saw on this is that there isn’t a 1:1 relation between increased calorie burn by increased exercise and total calorie burn. There are some but also the body diverts energy from one task to another. Still the best way to loose weight, maintaining a calorie deficit, is to eat less. Way easier said than done.
I can attest to this. May not be the sleekest but you can often sit on them with no worries. And drop them in gravel.