Basically the title. I saw this thing about how much you have to exercise to burn off certain foods and was wondering how your body burns so many calories by doing nothing.
In: 160
Just chipping in, your brain is very very hungry. It uses about a third of your base metabolic rate. So just to be awake and thinking for 16 hours a day takes 600 calories. That’s without any movement. Neurons need to maintain a precise chemical balance to work properly and part of working involves moving chemicals effectively “upstream” (against a concentration gradient) only to release them again when needed.
[This](https://www.science.org/content/article/scientist-busts-myths-about-how-humans-burn-calories-and-why) was a fascinating read. Latest research suggests that running and cardio do less to burn calories than we thought. When adjusted for lean muscle mass, office workers, long distance runners, Olympic athletes, all burn roughly the same number of calories regardless of activity level. If you want to burn more calories, you gotta put on more muscle.
And honestly, as someone who has lost about 250lbs and now exercises daily and closely monitors my caloric intake, that research matches up with my experience. I used to do cardio like a mad man thinking I was burning calories and then after a while, my body would adjust and my weight loss would stagnate. It wasn’t until I started intense weight training that that I saw an increase in my TDEE.
This research is still very new, I’m not saying is gospel by any means, just that it aligns with my personal experience.
Basal metabolic rate for people of average height and weight is typically lower than 2000kcal. It’s been a long time since I calculated this, but when I was in my late 20s, ~5’11 and ~70kg, I think my BMR was around 1600kcal. In my college nutrition course, we were taught that that ~130g of carbohydrate go towards brain function, so that was ~30% of my baseline energy needs going directly toward basic brain function.
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