How come your body burns 2000 calories a day by existing, but running a mile only burns 100 calories?
In: Biology
Assuming you jog at an average pace of 10min/mile you burn 10calories per minute.
Just by existing you burn 2000/24/60 = 1.5 calories per minute.
So when jogging you burn 6-7 times more calories than when you’re sitting in the couch.
If you could jog for an entire day you’d burn 15k calories.
That’s hardly “only”.
If your body burns 2000 calories a day just existing, that’s ~83 calories an hour on average.
Compared to that, you can run a mile in a fifth to a tenth of an hour, burning 100 calories. So it’s actually very effective if you think about it.
Small and steady goes a scary long way.
Also you’re the product of millions of years of evolution. So at each of those branching points 1 or more traits was selected for.
So at rest you’re using a lot more energy keeping things going than say a crocodile.
Running humans are fairly efficient, as hunting characteristics got selected for us, unlike for example the gorilla’s ancestors that were able to survive mostly just eating plants.
You need extra energy for the running, but if it required huge amounts then you’d be exhausted before you caught anything.
Without big claws or teeth we either needed to outlast our prey, or use our brains to devise weapons and traps to assist. So a relatively large proportion of our energy is devoted to maintaining a brain capable of planning for those future events and coordinating with the rest of our group (family, tribe etc) for success.
Think of running as adding a log to a campfire. The more you run, the more logs you add and the longer the campfire runs for. Eventually with enough running you can build a big enough campfire that will roast marshmallows like nothing.
You’re not fairly comparing two time periods.
A day is 24 hours and the average person can run a mile anywhere from 10-15 mins.
Well,you burn 2000 cal in 24×60=1440mins?! while you burn 100 calories in 10 mins, you basically burn calories 7 times faster by running,that’s not bad if you ask me
Does a car burn fuel when idling? Yes.
Do we need energy to function? Yes.
2000 calories is like out idle consumption. The 100 calories burned when running is like calories over your base rate.
Note that 2000 is a rough number. If you’re not doing much a particular day it is possible you might burn much less. Some have a higher BMR and that 2000 might be more like 2500
I need a good weight loss sub. I’ve gotta get down about 20kg to be back under 100kg – what suggestions do you all have so I can start reading and learning. Cheers
> ELI5: How come your body burns 2000 calories a day by existing
Because your body generates a lot of heat, and powers a very complex computer that is stored inside your skull.
> but running a mile only burns 100 calories?
Well that number is different for everyone, and it varies according to your own body and how much effort you are exerting. My Garmin tells me that I burn 100 calories for every 1 kilometre that I run, so I would burn 162 calories per mile.
And that would take me around 8 minutes (I’m old, heavy, and slow)
But the most important factor is that whatever you burn while running is IN ADDITION TO whatever your body was buying anyway by being alive (the 2000 calories you mentioned earlier)
Let’s do some maths.
There are 1440 (24 x 60) minutes in a day. If we burn 2000 calories a day that means we burn 1.39 (2000 / 1440) calories per minute assuming that we burn at a constant rate throughout the day.
In the 8 minutes that I take to run a mile, I’ve burned 11.12 (1.39 x 8) calories by existing, and then another 162 on top of that by running. Total 173.12
174.12 / 11.12 = 15.5
So for me, running burns 15.5 times as many calories as existing.
So your use of the word “only” isn’t really justified.
That’s the baseline, the lowest number you can burn. The body is always pumping blood, always catalyzing fuel, always breathing, and always thinking, at your base metabolic rate. Anything you do on top of that, taking a walk, or going to a gym, landscaping, talking with people, or even thinking, raises that rate. That’s why desk work, or dealing with people’s drama, can be surprisingly exhausting.
(This is also what METs means on gym equipment)
So if running that mile takes ten minutes, you would burn 600 calories in that hour. That’s 4800 calories in 8 hours. Just one hour can raise your METs for the next few hours if you don’t immediately go back to sitting. That’s like running a boiled egg under cold water to stop it from cooking.
Everything you do is processing fuel. Your effort (or lack of) can raise or lower the rate. And here’s the frustrating part: when you attune your body to more work on a consistent basis, you improve efficiency. So you don’t burn as much by running if you’re already a runner. That’s why you might lose the first fifty pounds easily, but the last ten is a challenge.
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