Blood donation

powr69 wrote: »

CattOfTheGarage wrote: »

Why wouldn't it be right? Animal bodies contain a LOT of calories, and that includes the blood. Why do you think mosquitoes bite?

That's a good question, which is why I resurrected this thread. Google "blood donation calories". Read all the threads and such all over. You'll note exactly what I did: every discussion is full of people saying they don't log it, the calories lost are via burn over XX days and therefore insignificant. No one counts an instant loss. I'm trying to find out if this is right, because it doesn't seem so. I'm trying to figure out what the overall caloric content of blood might be, because even if it's only a few hundred, that's still worth logging and would mean a whole lot of people and what appears to be the "conventional wisdom" is incorrect.

janejellyroll wrote: »

Given that it takes a shortage of 3,500 calories to lose a pound, I don't know if a 600-650 swing within a day is that significant especially given the inherent variables in logging calories anyway.

My guess is that even the most avid blood donor (one who gives on the spot every eight weeks) isn't likely to get results they would notice if they don't replenish the calories. Yes, blood itself is high calorie. But we're "rebuilding" it over a period of time. It may indeed offset one meal. But if your weight loss plan was to skip one meal every eight weeks, I doubt you would ever seen a result that you would notice.

That's just a guess though.

How could it not be? If it wasn't, then why bother logging that walk or jog or run? They're only a few hundred more calories over that, and if it's meaningless... My basal metabolic rate is around 2700 calories right now. I do my best to accurately track my intake and exercise on MFP. The calories burned in a walk allow me to either eat more for the day if I'm hungry and still come under, or lose a bit faster. 600-650 calories is damn significant, that's a good walk for me. If I counted that and the walk I'll be doing tonight, that potentially gives me back at least 1000+/- calories. I'm not suggesting blood donation/loss as a diet plan, I'm just pointing out that it's rather ludicrous to not track a donation every two months because it's "insignificant," if you'll track a walk that burns the same and count it because it is. It's illogical. One can't be significant and the other not. Both are a caloric deficit of non-trivial levels (assuming that pint of blood is indeed 600-650 calories).

janejellyroll wrote: »

If I only exercised once every two months, I wouldn't track that either. I log my exercise because it is significant over the course of an entire week, not for the impact on any one day. One day of heavy activity is going to be pretty meaningless for your weight loss.

I realize that anecdotal experiences aren't worth much, but I've been logging for over two years and I've never factored in whatever calories I'm losing through blood donation (and I donate every two months) and I lose/maintain exactly as I would expect.

You may have an approach that works for you, but I would say generally that a hyper-focus on rare events isn't really productive in weight loss or maintaining. It's our day-in-day-out routines that typically define our weight, not the things that happen every other month. We probably have a wider swing in typical logging errors and lack of accuracy than we do with blood donation.

That said, if it works for you, then feel free to do it.

DrifterBear wrote: »

I think you're still missing the point... There is an instant loss of calories when the blood is removed. We're animals, just as cows and chickens are. And like them, all of our tissues, fluids, etc., contain calories. If you were to chop your arm off you would remove calories that are part of your body. The difference is, your arm wouldn't grow back. In the case of blood donation the calorie burn, which is what most of us are interested in, occurs gradually as blood is replenished. In this case, removing calories is completely different from calorie burn. Your body isn't a perfect system so I'd imagine that if you donated some number of calories worth of blood, say 400 calories worth, it would actually take more calories for your body to generate that much to replace the lost fluid. So maybe it would take 600 calories to replace 400 calories of blood.

It takes a few weeks for the blood to be replaced so it's probably 20-30 calories extra per day as others have pointed out. Eating after donation just increases your blood sugar levels to keep you from passing out. I'd say enjoy the snack and maybe there's some benefit over the next few weeks of slightly higher burn. But it might amount to a 1/3 extra pound on the scale when it's done.

janejellyroll wrote: »

If anything I wrote conveyed that I think there is something wrong with counting them, I apologize for that. I don't think there is anything wrong with your approach, even though it isn't what I would personally do.