How do humans estimate how many calories are burned through a certain type of workout? ie : it is estimated that you burn 200-600 calories walking for an hour, depending on body weight.
In: Biology
Calories are simply a unit of energy. To calculate calories burned, you simply need to calculate the energy required to perform an action.
For instance, the energy to lift an object of a certain mass straight into the air is equal to the object’s mass multiplied by the acceleration due to gravity multiplied by the height in which you lift it. It would take a minimum that amount of energy for a human to do this. I say minimum because we aren’t 100% efficient and there will be excess energy loss. But it’s pretty trivial to get a good estimate.
The reason excercises like walking depend on body weight is because that’s the amount of weight you need to move when walking.
For every sugar molecule you burn for energy, you give off a certain number of carbon dioxide molecules.
Measuring carbon dioxide output while exercising can provide a pretty good estimate of sugar and therefore for calories burned..
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