I wanted to lose weight. I ran a lot (only 5 hours out of the week), ate the same high caloric foods, and lost a lot of weight. Clearly GP's assertion isn't correct, because enough exercise does lose weight.
Try only 4 hours a week of exercise. Most lean runners are only getting that amount of time running in and still eating high calories, because 4 hours of running is ~2,500 extra calories burned every single week.
Even most professional endurance athletes rarely hit 28 hours per week of actual training time. That would be like a peak week in a training plan before tapering leading up to a race.
Even more contrary to GP's claim, the top American marathoners are only doing ~13 hour weeks of running before their races. It's public data on Strava.
Tell that to all the lean 150 pound / 68kg runners stuffing their faces with high calorie foods all the time.