Calories Burned

killacamillaa
killacamillaa Posts: 7 Member
in Getting Started
Is 5k calories burned a week safe?

Replies

  • MikePTY
    MikePTY Posts: 3,814 Member
    Not sure what you mean? Your body burns calories all day long. It burns a lot more than 5k in a week. Do you mean 5k from deleberage exercise? It's safe as long as you are eating back your exercise calories. But you'll want to be sure you are in fact actually burning 5k, and that it's not an overestimate, or else you will be eating too much. Gym machine and MFP exercise entries usually overestimate.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    edited March 2019
    killacamillaa wrote: »
    Is 5k calories burned a week safe?

    For someone starving themselves or someone eating an appropriate amount of food?
    For someone accustomed to exercise or someone starting exercise?

    Your question needs expanding and context.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    killacamillaa wrote: »
    Is 5k calories burned a week safe?

    You mean for exercise? For one, that's a ton of exercise and if you're new to fitness, you are going to either burnout or injure yourself. As to whether it's safe or not...depends on if you're feeding yourself properly. If you're going to train like an athlete, you'll need to eat like one.

    You do realize that you burn calories 24/7 right?
  • tbright1965
    tbright1965 Posts: 852 Member
    edited March 2019
    killacamillaa wrote: »
    Is 5k calories burned a week safe?

    I burn about 5k calories in two days before exercise is considered.

    I'm in my mid 50s. Apparently, it's not too dangerous as 5k is what my body burns in 2, maybe 2.5 days before I even start exercising.

    However, I think I know where you might be coming from. I've seen some articles, warning people off hours of cardio, warning them to only burn about 2k of exercise calories/week.

    My thought is any fixed number, 2k, 5k or whatever doesn't take into account how much someone burns if they were not doing anything.

    A 220# man might burn 2500 being moderately active, while a 110# woman, might only burn 1500 calories during that same day. (Just spitballing numbers here, don't go plugging them into calculators...)

    So telling the man he shouldn't get more than 2000 calories worth of exercise doesn't take into consideration his size. Maybe the rule for him should really be 3000 or 5000, assuming such a rule should exist.

    It's my opinion it shouldn't. But for sake of argument, such rules seldom seem to take into consideration the wide variation in people. Two thousand calories is not even a day's worth of calorie burn for me, but it may be closer to two days for someone much smaller.

    So for someone like me, who will burn 17500 calories a week just being alive and doing relatively sedentary life things, 5000 calories burned during exercise is about a 29% increase in caloric burn.

    For someone half my size, that might be closer to 50-60% more. It's probably more of a problem for the smaller person than for a 220# / 100kg man.
  • sarabushby
    sarabushby Posts: 784 Member
    Plenty of people burn 5000 calories in one event - an ultramarathon, 24hr race, Ironman etc. So long as you replace what you’re burning as best you can then it shouldn’t be a problem. I regularly burn >5000cal per week from exercise, especially during training season. No ill effects. I find hydration is more of a concern.
  • lucymaeburridge
    lucymaeburridge Posts: 3 Member
    edited April 2019
    In terms of calories burned on cardio machines in the gym, how much should I be altering it if at all? I've got the impression that I haven't burned as much as the machine says and I have heard quite a few people say it overestimates. I'd just like a more accurate figure to put in my diary so I can plan my nutrition accordingly. I now spend 60 min on the treadmill doing a mixture of fast paced incline walking and short spurts of running on flat for 2 mins. The treadmill reads over 1000 kcal.
  • sarabushby
    sarabushby Posts: 784 Member
    It’s really entirely up to you, for weight loss....a lot of people may add just half or 3/4 of the machine suggested burn, but some machines will be more or less accurate estimating your burn depending on the activity and if it knows your personal weight etc.
    Then also it depends if you will eat all of those back. You could log the full amount but aim to only eat half for example or log half and aim to eat them all.
    At the end of the day a far greater influencer on your rate of loss is likely to be your accuracy in logging. Thus eating back just half may in part help to compensate for some sketchy diary entries or logging in cups not by weight or for not logging your cheat meals.
    Whatever you decide, be consistent with it for 4-6wks, then compare your actual rate of loss to the predicted/estimated rate and if the two do not match, then tweek accordingly.
    Good luck!
  • lucymaeburridge
    lucymaeburridge Posts: 3 Member
    That's brilliant advice, thank you so much. I've just done a quick calculation with the information provided and works out at roughly 700 which sounds more accurate 👍

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