Pontzers work shows that a 150lb male, dependent on their activity they can burn anywhere between 2000 to 3750 calories on average per day in a maintainable fashion that can go on for years. I.e activity is highly impactful to total daily caloric expenditure.
Moreover, they also showed that exercise beyond that upper limit of 2.5x the base metabolic rate is very possible for temporary durations, weeks even. The extra energy comes from stores like fat and obvious is not sustainable over years.
Even at minor increases of daily exercise for sedentary people, a regular 400 calories of exercise in one study, leads to increased total daily expenditure of around 225-250 after the body is fully adapted.
If that’s not your understanding of pontzer’s works then there is nothing pedantic about my comments. But it’s understandable if you’ve been confused because pontzer has almost willfully obfuscated the actual interpretation of his groups data. Their actual data & equations versus how they message them and explain their findings is shameful.
he's being pedantic. no use bothering to argue