How many calories can a body burn in a day? (link)

cfriend71

I thought this was an important topic since it recently came up with a friend of mine. Your body cannot burn over a certain amount per day, so exercising too much really is counterproductive. I have heard 1 hour maximum is the best bet, per day. Or 1/2 hour per day everyday of the week. Rule of thumb for the diabetes diet.

http://www.fit4maui.com/pages/weightloss/reduce.php

marbly

Your body cannot burn over a certain amount per day, so exercising too much really is counterproductive.

How on earth did you come to this conclusion with the article you posted a link to in your post?

While it appears to be an article promoting products, the article gives some good advice on effective weight loss (though not what you concluded).

Ruger2506

I do not see anything to lead me to the conclusion that a body can only burn so many calories. I wonder what that number is? Michael Phelps consumes 12,000 calories per day. I know Big Horn Sheep hunters can consume and burn around 10,000+ calories per day.

joejccva71

Your body cannot burn over a certain amount per day, so exercising too much really is counterproductive.

cmriverside

:laugh: Say what???

cfriend71

OK, so if someone exercises for 5 hours - then they burn that many calories and they can eat more?

I guess I am confused. I am still learning... but, see this excerpt from the link I posted:

Your body can only metabolize (burn) so much fat into energy a day. If you reduce your calories too much, your body will begin to consume muscle. You may lose weight on a bathroom scale (temporary loss of water and muscle weight), but you will not achieve your ultimate objective of getting lean and staying that way.

So I guess what I am saying is, if you exercise too much can't you lose muscle, which is also bad....?

wolfchild59

That quote is basically telling you that you need to be properly fueling your body for the energy that it's exerting via the exercise you are doing. That it's only going to metabolize (burn) a certain amount of fat before it starts using the muscle as fuel if you haven't given your body the proper fuel and energy that it needs to be able to do those workouts.

The "article" is trying to sell you a product that offers calories and vitamins for your body to be fueled, so they want you to think that you need their product to save your muscles from being burned up during exercise, so they aren't really focused on wording things totally clearly for folks to really understand how the body works. They just want you to think you need their product to stop bad things from happening.

cfriend71

LOL so you mean to tell me, if I exercise for like 4 hours a day, I'll lose weight faster? I didn't think that was possible. Honestly.

marbly

LOL so you mean to tell me, if I exercise for like 4 hours a day, I'll lose weight faster? I didn't think that was possible. Honestly.

If you create a large calorie deficit by exercising 4 hours a day, yes, you will lose a lot of weight initially (usually the case for most people). There are issues though - the more you exercise, the hungrier you get so you may binge and sabotage your loss. You may also get a burn out and stop exercising due to overtraining. If you don't fuel your body properly, your body may 'break down' resulting in a loss of muscle, injury and worst of all, you may stop losing weight because of all of the aforesaid.

wolfchild59

LOL so you mean to tell me, if I exercise for like 4 hours a day, I'll lose weight faster? I didn't think that was possible. Honestly.

Depends a lot on what you're doing and what your goals are. My long run days when training for a half marathon and the half marathon itself easily kill two hours of solid running. People that do full marathons knock out four hours of running per marathon. So it's definitely possible.

But you also can't just go and work out for hours and keep that huge deficit. That's the point the "article"/ad for a meal replacement product is making. That you have to fuel the body properly when you're working out for long periods of time.

When I do my long runs, I burn 1000-1300 calories, which means that I'm eating an additional 800-1100 calories those days, or more, depending on how active I was the rest of the day outside of my running. And that's on top of my normal calorie intake of 1500-1700 calories. On the day of my half marathon I ate a total of 3329 calories and still woke up the next day showing a weight loss on the scale. Because I was feeding my body what it needed before, during, and after the workout I put it through.

Is working out that long required? No. Is it something that most people would opt to do? Not really. 30 minutes to an hour of working out 4-5 days a week is more than enough to create a good caloric burn/deficit to help aid in your weight loss journey. And even more than it helping with your weight loss, it helps with your overall physical health, which is the best benefit of it all.

cfriend71

LOL so you mean to tell me, if I exercise for like 4 hours a day, I'll lose weight faster? I didn't think that was possible. Honestly.

If you create a large calorie deficit by exercising 4 hours a day, yes, you will lose a lot of weight initially (usually the case for most people). There are issues though - the more you exercise, the hungrier you get so you may binge and sabotage your loss. You may also get a burn out and stop exercising due to overtraining. If you don't fuel your body properly, your body may 'break down' resulting in a loss of muscle, injury and worst of all, you may stop losing weight because of all of the aforesaid.

cfriend71

Oops I was trying to quote you. I feel more hungry when I exercise more, so that makes sense. What do you do in order to curb that?