14 ms·

I don't think you can directly translate work done by a person into calories. According to this article[1] it looks like most humans use roughly the same number

• MillionOClock 3y ago
  Indeed this would mean my reasoning doesn't hold anymore since it's based on calorie consumption. The only thing that still surprises me, but that's no calculation and just a fact, is that you only need around 5x more joules to move a 1800kg car vs a bicycle according to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_transport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_transport) even tho the car weights >18x more. On the matter of calorie burn staying stable, I had never heard of this before! Will be very interested in checking it more in detail as it seems like a very important thing to take into account when trying to loose weight, surprised this research isn't more widely known! Thanks for the feedback and article.
  • theossuary 3y ago
    Yeah it's fascinating! I don't know enough to reconcile that with the common knowledge that Olypmians can consume up to 12,000 calories a day[1]. So there may be more nuance there than my original comment let on. But it definitely shows there's some disconnect. As for dieting, I think the very common phrase, "weight loss starts in the kitchen" encapsulates the idea that you can't burn off excess calories, you can only consume less. [1]: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93666256 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=936662...