How many food calories do I need to burn off exercising/moving etc. to burn off a pound of food? I realize that there is probably a lot of fuzziness due to metabolism, etc., but please give me a midrange figure…are we talking 500? 2000? 5000?
One pound of fat contains 3,500 Calories. That is independant of your metabolism. What you’ll have to do to burn that many extra Calories is a function of your metabolism.
So are all of the numbers I’ve seen (like running for an hour burns X calories) dependent on metabolism? What is the range from a fit person to a sedentary one? I’m just starting to get off my ass and I’m trying to set some goals in terms of calories burned at the gym.
I’m not entirely certain what you mean. When you start talking about things like miles run, the quick answer is, no, not really. Running one mile burns roughly 100 calories (more or less - it has been a while since I worried about it), regardless of your metabolism. Run 35 miles with out eating, and you’ll lose one pound of fat (and, of course, a gizillion pounds of water weight). I’ve always heard of calories burned as a function of miles run, rather than a function of time. I heard it from my track coach, though; he may have had an agenda.
There is something called your basal (sp?) metabolism, which is the amount of calories burned sitting around doing nothing. This seems to range from 1700 calories to 2200 calories, based on a quick reading. As I recall, a sedentary person has a lower basal metabolsim than a fit person.
I suddenly realized that you say “a pound of food”, rather than “a pound of fat”. I am refering to stored fat - if you are “10 pounds” overweight, then you need to burn off an excess stored 35,000 Calories. Hope that was clear.
( I put “10 pounds” in quotes because I’ve known quite a few people who replaced the 10 pounds of fat with 10 pounds of muscle. Disheartening if your goal is weight lose).
I plugged “how many calories are in a pound of human fat” into http://www.google.com and more information than I ever wanted on this subject. The first page was filled with advice for traditional diets; help on figuring out how many calories you could consume, how many extra you could plan on burning per day,etc. You might try that approach, seeing as how I’m not a doctor, a licensed phys. therapist, an athelete, etc, etc, etc.
They can always get rid of some brain mass. They’re not using it.
It can be disheartening, at first, if you don’t realize that muscle weighs more than fat. If you are just starting to get into better shape from a very sedentary lifestyle, the numbers on your scale may not move much at first. That is because you are exchanging fat for muscle. What you should notice is that your clothing will start to fit differently, indicating that your diet and exercise are, indeed, having an effect on your body shape.
Take me, for example. I had, over the course of having 4 children, put on an extra 30 pounds. Having finally decided to get back in shape I have, over the last 2 months, faithfully spent an hour on my treadmill 5 or 6 days per week. I started out slowly, barely able to run a full mile. At this point, I can run 5 miles in a little over 45 minutes. Because this has required a lot of muscle growth at first, my weight has only gone down by about 5 pounds so far. But there is a real difference in my body shape. As the muscle growth slows down, I expect that the numbers on the scale will go down more quickly.
I would advise staying away from the scale, especially at first. If you want a more precise measurement than “how tight is the waistband on my pants?” you could measure your waist with a tape measure. That would give you a way to chart your progress if that is helpful to you.
Just to make clear what bashere was saying…
Exercising has variable effects in terms of calories burned. One person doing a 6-minute mile might burn 150 claories, another might burn 180. Some people burn quite a few calories just sitting around, some hardly at all.
However, given x calories burned, every person will experience the same amount of fat burned, i.e. 3,500 calories to a pound of fat.
To continue the muscle thing, among the many other good effects of having muscle is that it increases your basal metabolism. It takes x calories a day to support one pound of muscle, and y of fat. I’ve forgotten the numbers (x=13, y=5?), but x is much more than y. So once you have the muscle, you burn more calories.
Don’t forget - ‘junk’ food have lots of calories and it takes a helluva lotta work to burn, say, 300 calories more.
Conclusion: It is much easier to not eat something than to eat something and attempt to ‘burn it off’. Keep that in mind.
But don’t forget to do your excercises either.
Thanks muttrox; that’s exactly what I was trying to say. I was half asleep when I posted my response, and couldn’t seem to make things clear. The one thing I disagree with is that I am actually pretty sure that one mile run == about 100 calories, with very small deviations for speed and metabolism.
RM mentock and robinh - I probably should have included a smilie. My suggestion was supposed to be that the metric (weight) was wrong. What robinh said was particularly important; use a tape measure, or see if you can get body fat calculations at your health club. Not as easy as stepping on a scale, but more accurate.
I don’t believe this is true. I believe it is true that running a mile usually burns the same amount of calories regardless of if you’re running quickly or slowly. IE, running a mile at a 6 min/mile pace or running a mile at a 10 min/mile pace burns about the same number of calories, because you run for a longer period of time when you go slower.
However, you have to take into account weight. It takes more energy for a 200 pound person to run for a mile than it does for a 150 pound person to run for a mile. Simple physics - the greater the weight, the more energy needs to be expended to move it.
Yup, a big guy will burn more calories running a mile than a petite woman. Heck, a big guy will burn more calories even if they are both sitting on the couch.
Yup also: your fat contains the same calories as my fat so for equal calories burnt, equal amout of fat gone…
BUT, you do not start burning fat as soon as you get off the couch. Generally the way it works is that you start by burning the sugar in your bloodstream for the first 20 mins. At that point you feel tired and hungry and head back to the fridge and replenish more calories than you burnt (at least that’s the way it works with me). If you have the willpower which I don’t and you keep going, then you start burning fat. So don’t expect to burn fat more than 50 - 65 % of the time. If now you can resist the urge to stuff yourself and replace the calories, then you will have successfully lost a few grams of fat.
Actually, I stand corrected on both counts. WRT running, it seems calories burned is a function of both speed and body weight. Speed has a very very small impact on the calories burned per mile. For a 150 lb person clocking 6 minute miles, it is in fact about 120 calories/mile. A 200 pound person drops 160/mile at that speed.
All of the numbers I looked at were pretty close, but this link was the most comprehensive.
http://www.healthdiscovery.net/links/calculators/calorie_calculator.htm