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Found the fatty ;) Ok, seriously.... math: if you eat 3000 kcal per day and lose 1 lb per week, you're burning 3500 kcal per day. This is quite a lot. It's nea

Found the fatty ;) Ok, seriously.... math: if you eat 3000 kcal per day and lose 1 lb per week, you're burning 3500 kcal per day. This is quite a lot. It's near impossible unless you work out a lot and are veeeery muscular... or are impossibly tall... or, well, fat. (Or a combination of those.) Take me for comparison: I am 187cm (6'1ish) tall and weigh 75kg (165 lbs), pretty much smack in the middle of the "normal weight" range. I like running, do about 50km (30 miles) per week. I count calories and let my wrist watch measure my energy expenditure 24/7. On rest days (mostly sedentary), I burn about 2100 kcal. To get up to 3400, I have to do some sort of hard run and some lighter activity in addition, or do a long run (18km+). Now I'm not everybody of course, but you can't be that abnormal, right? So I'm not buying your numbers.

mac01021 8y ago
How accurately/precisely can your wrist watch tell you what your energy expenditure is?
- flcknzwrg 8y ago
  I have only anecdotal evidence, which is me. Since about 3 years I've been counting calories and let various wrist watches with 24/7 heart rate trackers (fitbit, later garmin devices) estimate energy expenditure. So I measure energy in and out (with unknown error bars). The energy balance I get as a result predicts what my body weight should do. My control is stepping on the scale every time before I take a shower, log, and observe trends. Result, consistent over the last three-ish years: my measured weight does almost exactly what the calorie counting and wristwatch estimating predicts. I see absolutely no systematic error in one direction or the other (measured over weeks, that is, to do away with short term fluctuations).
sternocleidom 8y ago
Running is probably the worst sport as far as caloric expenditure is concerned. A serious endurance cyclist or swimmer will certainly go through 3000 kcal on a normal training day if not more. I've burned an estimated 5000kcal daily on the bike for weeks. What's more is I know these numbers are very accurate as we train with power meters that record our energy expenditure with minimal error. It's important to distinguish between serious athletes and average people who exercise. It's possible that truly competitive athletes - for instance, who run 120 miles a week to your 30 - will be much more likely to get ill from their efforts. It can take serious fitness - and a mentality acquired only by years of serious training - to push yourself to the extent that you fall ill, and maybe the recreational "athlete" described in this text can't reach that point.
- mrfusion 8y ago
  Why do you think cycling would burn more calories than jogging?
  - sp332 8y ago
    Jogging is very efficient, mechanically speaking. You're not going to burn a lot of calories per hour.
    - ksk 8y ago
      Depends on how you look at it. I can bike all day without getting tired, but there's no way I can jog all day. If your definition of efficiency includes duration of effort, or distance covered, then cycling is very efficient.
    - smnplk 8y ago
      You need to put more effort in 1 hour cycling session to burn the same amount of calories as in 1 hour running session. Running activates more muscles.
      - riku_iki 8y ago
        But cycling affects largest human muscles, which work more intensively..
        smnplk 8y ago
        I was "professional" athlete many moons ago. When we measured max heart rate, we did it on a bike first and then on a treadmill running and then bike again. My max heart rate running was +5 beats allways and I was not a single case. I just couldn't get to my max heart rate while cycling.
  - chrisfosterelli 8y ago
    They are actually much more similar than most people realize. However, people usually burn more calories total on cycling because it's easier to put longer time periods into cycling than it is for running. Put another way, an average cyclist will find a 2 hour bike ride to be an average ride but an average runner will consider a 2 hour run to be quite long.
rorykoehler 8y ago
I'm the same height as you as recently dropped 5kg to 81kg due to fasting and cutting starch from my diet. Why wife started freaking out because I was looking so skinny (I'm not remotely fat normally either). I can easily burn 4000 kcal a day. All it takes is one hour on the bike. I burn ~3000 kcal on rest days. You have an endurance optimised build, I have a sprinters build. Everyone is different. Those numbers seem perfectly normal to me.
- tyleraldrich 8y ago
  Yeah but the OP said nothing about biking for an hour every day... OP was replying to a guy who said "We lift 2 times a week. Warm up, then do 2+ reps of a heavy set." That does not at all sound like a guy who burns 3k kcal on a rest day and burns 4k kcal on a bike a few times a week.
hathawsh 8y ago
A couple of years ago, I took a half-day hike up a mountain called Timpanogos with my son. According to my fitness tracker, I burned over 8000 kcal on that trip. It was a bit strenuous, but not painful. The estimate of calories burned seemed reasonable to me. EDIT: According to this chart, I probably burned around 600 kcal per hour: http://www.nutristrategy.com/caloriesburnedwalking.htm http://www.nutristrategy.com/caloriesburnedwalking.htm It took us about 8 hours, so the total was probably closer to 4800 kcal. In any case, the point I'm trying to make is that it's easy to burn a lot more than 2000 kcal per day.
- paulcole 8y ago
  Your estimate has already gone from 8000 to 4800 and you're still relying on the unsourced data of NutriStrategy. Who's willing to be the truth is significantly lower still?
- nradov 8y ago
  Not even close. It's highly unlikely that you burned more than about 3300kcal (and probably less). You can check out calorie counts from hikers with similar times on Strava. https://www.strava.com/segments/8428908 https://www.strava.com/segments/8428908
  - hathawsh 8y ago
    Maybe. My body is definitely less efficient than those runners. :-) According to this site, typical energy expenditure on the Timpanogos hike is 4000-5000 kcal: https://www.bettercheaperslower.com/ways/to-the-summit-of-mt-timpanogos/ https://www.bettercheaperslower.com/ways/to-the-summit-of-mt...
    - nradov 8y ago
      The people who did it in the same time as you were walking, not running. They were no more efficient.
smnplk 8y ago
3500 kcal per day is nothing. One can have a basal resting metabolic rate of 2500 kcal, then do some sports and you get 3500 easily. And you seem to be a bit underweight, go build some more muscle. 75kg is featherweight for that height ;)
- Luc 8y ago
  > And you seem to be a bit underweight, go build some more muscle. 75kg is featherweight for that height ;) Oh you put a smiley, that makes it alright then!
- flcknzwrg 8y ago
  > And you seem to be a bit underweight Incorrect. My BMI is 21.4, which is almost exactly in the middle of the "healthy" range for my height. (Healthy BMI range is defined 18.5 - 25)
  - science4sail 8y ago
    I think that the issue here is that we're comparing aerobic and strength sports - weightlifters usually seem to aim for BMIs around the "overweight" 25-30 range.

mac01021 8y ago

How accurately/precisely can your wrist watch tell you what your energy expenditure is?

flcknzwrg 8y ago
I have only anecdotal evidence, which is me. Since about 3 years I've been counting calories and let various wrist watches with 24/7 heart rate trackers (fitbit, later garmin devices) estimate energy expenditure. So I measure energy in and out (with unknown error bars). The energy balance I get as a result predicts what my body weight should do. My control is stepping on the scale every time before I take a shower, log, and observe trends. Result, consistent over the last three-ish years: my measured weight does almost exactly what the calorie counting and wristwatch estimating predicts. I see absolutely no systematic error in one direction or the other (measured over weeks, that is, to do away with short term fluctuations).

sternocleidom 8y ago

Running is probably the worst sport as far as caloric expenditure is concerned. A serious endurance cyclist or swimmer will certainly go through 3000 kcal on a normal training day if not more. I've burned an estimated 5000kcal daily on the bike for weeks. What's more is I know these numbers are very accurate as we train with power meters that record our energy expenditure with minimal error. It's important to distinguish between serious athletes and average people who exercise. It's possible that truly competitive athletes - for instance, who run 120 miles a week to your 30 - will be much more likely to get ill from their efforts. It can take serious fitness - and a mentality acquired only by years of serious training - to push yourself to the extent that you fall ill, and maybe the recreational "athlete" described in this text can't reach that point.

mrfusion 8y ago
Why do you think cycling would burn more calories than jogging?
- sp332 8y ago
  Jogging is very efficient, mechanically speaking. You're not going to burn a lot of calories per hour.
  - ksk 8y ago
    Depends on how you look at it. I can bike all day without getting tired, but there's no way I can jog all day. If your definition of efficiency includes duration of effort, or distance covered, then cycling is very efficient.
  - smnplk 8y ago
    You need to put more effort in 1 hour cycling session to burn the same amount of calories as in 1 hour running session. Running activates more muscles.
    - riku_iki 8y ago
      But cycling affects largest human muscles, which work more intensively..
      - smnplk 8y ago
        I was "professional" athlete many moons ago. When we measured max heart rate, we did it on a bike first and then on a treadmill running and then bike again. My max heart rate running was +5 beats allways and I was not a single case. I just couldn't get to my max heart rate while cycling.
- chrisfosterelli 8y ago
  They are actually much more similar than most people realize. However, people usually burn more calories total on cycling because it's easier to put longer time periods into cycling than it is for running. Put another way, an average cyclist will find a 2 hour bike ride to be an average ride but an average runner will consider a 2 hour run to be quite long.

rorykoehler 8y ago

I'm the same height as you as recently dropped 5kg to 81kg due to fasting and cutting starch from my diet. Why wife started freaking out because I was looking so skinny (I'm not remotely fat normally either). I can easily burn 4000 kcal a day. All it takes is one hour on the bike. I burn ~3000 kcal on rest days. You have an endurance optimised build, I have a sprinters build. Everyone is different. Those numbers seem perfectly normal to me.

tyleraldrich 8y ago
Yeah but the OP said nothing about biking for an hour every day... OP was replying to a guy who said "We lift 2 times a week. Warm up, then do 2+ reps of a heavy set." That does not at all sound like a guy who burns 3k kcal on a rest day and burns 4k kcal on a bike a few times a week.

hathawsh 8y ago

A couple of years ago, I took a half-day hike up a mountain called Timpanogos with my son. According to my fitness tracker, I burned over 8000 kcal on that trip. It was a bit strenuous, but not painful. The estimate of calories burned seemed reasonable to me. EDIT: According to this chart, I probably burned around 600 kcal per hour: http://www.nutristrategy.com/caloriesburnedwalking.htm http://www.nutristrategy.com/caloriesburnedwalking.htm It took us about 8 hours, so the total was probably closer to 4800 kcal. In any case, the point I'm trying to make is that it's easy to burn a lot more than 2000 kcal per day.

paulcole 8y ago
Your estimate has already gone from 8000 to 4800 and you're still relying on the unsourced data of NutriStrategy. Who's willing to be the truth is significantly lower still?
nradov 8y ago
Not even close. It's highly unlikely that you burned more than about 3300kcal (and probably less). You can check out calorie counts from hikers with similar times on Strava. https://www.strava.com/segments/8428908 https://www.strava.com/segments/8428908
- hathawsh 8y ago
  Maybe. My body is definitely less efficient than those runners. :-) According to this site, typical energy expenditure on the Timpanogos hike is 4000-5000 kcal: https://www.bettercheaperslower.com/ways/to-the-summit-of-mt-timpanogos/ https://www.bettercheaperslower.com/ways/to-the-summit-of-mt...
  - nradov 8y ago
    The people who did it in the same time as you were walking, not running. They were no more efficient.

smnplk 8y ago

3500 kcal per day is nothing. One can have a basal resting metabolic rate of 2500 kcal, then do some sports and you get 3500 easily. And you seem to be a bit underweight, go build some more muscle. 75kg is featherweight for that height ;)

Luc 8y ago
> And you seem to be a bit underweight, go build some more muscle. 75kg is featherweight for that height ;) Oh you put a smiley, that makes it alright then!
flcknzwrg 8y ago
> And you seem to be a bit underweight Incorrect. My BMI is 21.4, which is almost exactly in the middle of the "healthy" range for my height. (Healthy BMI range is defined 18.5 - 25)
- science4sail 8y ago
  I think that the issue here is that we're comparing aerobic and strength sports - weightlifters usually seem to aim for BMIs around the "overweight" 25-30 range.