I was playing around with the mileages that I posted yesterday from my 2005 races.
Estimating caloric expenditure for various forms of exercise is making ballpark guesses at best for any individual of a given body weight, but I'd estimate that I probably burn something on the order of:
- Swimming: 700 kcal/mile
- Cycling: 50 kcal/mile
- Running: 150 kcal/mile
Adding up all the calories burned in my various events of 2005 (not counting training at all), that totals the caloric equivalent of roughly 11 pounds of body weight.
So (given the fact that I only weigh about 4 pounds less than I started the year), all those events saved me from gaining an additional 7 pounds this year. (In addition to the other good things those events do for me).
As long as it's moving in the right direction, slow and steady does it! It sure beats the alternative!
7 comments:
Hi Nancy,
I didn't realize u burn so much calories swimming. Maybe that's why I lost 5 lbs over a few weeks ever since i start swimming.
My friend is sponsoring me to get that lady bug helmet. Some of my closer friends even want to pitch in to get me some lady bug bike shorts (or shirt)...if u see any..can u let me know? That will be my new outfit for tri :D
Oh dear. This *is* getting complicated, isn't it!?
I do the same thing with calorie counts. Good for you my OCD friend.
very interesting indeed.
lets see, you burned 11 pounds of weight, but only lost 4. so because of your exercising, you were able to eat 7 extra pounds of food over the year.
now lets say it's 3500 calories for a pound, and so 7 pounds is 24,500 calories. a slice of pizza is around 250 calories. and 24,500 divided by 250 equals 98.
so after all those calculations, a whole year's worth of exercise let you eat just over a dozen pies of pizza without gaining weight.
(not too impressive, i know. but the numbers don't really work that way. when you exercise regularly you increase your metabolism so you're burning more calories the rest of the day as well.)
Well, that's probably close, though, and only comes to an extra meal of pizza once per week! Bummer! Which also shows how closely we have to watch our eating to make progress, dammit!
Actually, I think you also need to take into account a gain in pounds of muscle. Maybe you lost 9 pounds of fat, but gained 5 pounds of muscle, for a net loss of 4 pounds. The spreadsheets are endless.
Post a Comment