Calories/Running

According to all the calculations I have seen, calories burned depend only on distance covered and
your weight. Any decent calorie calculator will ask your weight as well as the distance. Some
calculators ask for time run and pace. This is a red herring. They just convert this to distance!

Now, there might be some non-linear effects where doubling the distance may increase your metabolic
rate for a time, so that over the long run you burn more than twice as many calories, but I haven't
seen any way any calculators can take this into account.

Larry

Young Goodman <[email hidden]> writes:

: Is 8 miles of running worth the same amount of calories if I went very fast or very slow? Does
: intensity/extreme exertion burn more calories? I took my search to google but just came up with
: all different estimations of how much one can burn running. Any comments would help. Thanks

: .:\:/:.
: .:\:\:/:/:.
: :.:\:\:/:/:.:
: :=.' - - '.=:
: '=(\ 9 9 /)=' ( (_) ) /`-vvv-'\ / \ / /|,,,,,|\ \ /_// /H\ \\_\
:

In article said:

Is 8 miles of running worth the same amount of calories if I went very fast or very slow?

The amount of calories burned during exercise only depends upon distance, not speed.

The actual amount is about 100 calories/mile for someone who weighs 137lb, and scales linearly
with weight

so it's calories = weight*100*miles/137

Quoted message said:

Does intensity/extreme exertion burn more calories? I took my

Not during exercise, it doesn't.

It will have a greater effect on metabolism though, especially if you're doing interval training. Do
a google search on Tremblay, and HIIT. This study showed that intermittent training produced good
fat loss results.

The only disavantage of training harder is that it's very stressful. It's easy to get injured or
overtrain if you train too hard. If you want to do hard intervals 3 times a week, it would probably
be safer to do them on an exercise bike.

General comment on this: if you're doing reasonable milage, say 30 miles/week or more, you are not
going to have any difficulty losing weight. For someone who weighs 160lb, that's enough to lose 1lb
of weight each week, without counting any metabolic magic.

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi pegasus.rutgers.edu~elflordOpen ↗

Everyone will say that speed/effort doesn't matter, but I don't care what they say. Common sense
would say that you use more energy running 5 miles at a good pace than just strolling along. When
you run, your heart rate goes up, your lungs work harder and you use fuel faster. If you walk, you
can do it without even breaking a sweat. That's why you can go to the mall and see 100's of fat
people walking in circles every morning.

Get in a car and drive 80mph for a couple hundred miles, then cover the same distance at 40mph.
Check fuel usage after each trip, and then tell me that effort doesn't matter.

I don't know who developed all the internet calorie calculators, but I suspect they are all designed
from one original faulty calculator.

Its can be as much as a 15% difference if you are running inefficiently- too slow or too fast. The
conventional wisdom is to run efficiently and 5-10 minutes longer instead. Proper running form is
more enjoyable and less injury prone. If you arent enjoying your running, you are going to stop
and get fat.

my.webmd.com1671 51993.htmOpen ↗

Quoted message said:

Is 8 miles of running worth the same amount of calories if I went very fast or very slow? Does
intensity/extreme exertion burn more calories? I took my search to google but just came up with
all different estimations of how much one can burn running. Any comments would help. Thanks

.:\:/:.
.:\:\:/:/:.

"Dave B." <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Everyone will say that speed/effort doesn't matter, but I don't care what they say. Common sense
would say that you use more energy running 5 miles at a good pace than just strolling along.

Too bad your common sense goes against scientific study! I'll think I'll stick with the latter. By
the way, you are conveniently leaving out the fact that if you walk 5 miles, you will be
exercising/burning calories for more than twice as long a period of time as you would if you ran it.
I think you are confusing cardio-vascular effects/fitness with burning calories. Two totally
different things.

In article said:

Everyone will say that speed/effort doesn't matter, but I don't care what they say. Common sense
would say that you use more energy running 5 miles at a good pace than just strolling along.
When you

Not really. Strolling along uses quite a lot of energy -- if you do it for 5 miles.

Quoted message said:

run, your heart rate goes up, your lungs work harder and you use fuel faster. If you walk, you can
do it without even breaking a sweat.

Yes, but if you walk, it takes a lot longer to do it.

Quoted message said:

That's why you can go to the mall and see 100's of fat people walking in circles every morning.

They don't walk 5 miles at the mall.

Quoted message said:

Get in a car and drive 80mph for a couple hundred miles, then cover the same distance at 40mph.
Check fuel usage after each trip, and then tell me that effort doesn't matter.

Yes, economy is an issue, but you have to go pretty fast to make it an issue.

Having said all that, there are a number of reasons why harder exercise (than walking) is more
effective for weight loss.

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi pegasus.rutgers.edu~elflordOpen ↗

KGreen said:

Too bad your common sense goes against scientific study! I'll think I'll stick with the latter. By
the way, you are conveniently leaving out the fact that if you walk 5 miles, you will be
exercising/burning calories for more than twice as long a period of time as you would if you ran
it. I think you are confusing cardio-vascular effects/fitness with burning calories. Two totally
different things.

Point me to one good study. Every study I have read is suspect in even the measuring of
calories burned.

As for the person who emailed me directly to call me a jackass for giving dangerous advice, I'd just
like to say that I didn't give any advice.

How many times do medical studies come out and say one thing only to be contradicted by the
next study?

I didn't leave out the time involved. I was comparing the effort used to cover a distance. Just
because it takes longer doesn't mean you use the same amount of energy in the end.

Dave B. said:

KGreen said:

Too bad your common sense goes against scientific study! I'll think I'll stick with the latter. By
the way, you are conveniently leaving out the fact that if you walk 5 miles, you will be
exercising/burning calories for more than twice as long a period of time as you would if you ran
it. I think you are confusing cardio-vascular effects/fitness with burning calories. Two totally
different things.

Point me to one good study. Every study I have read is suspect in even the measuring of
calories burned.

As for the person who emailed me directly to call me a jackass for giving dangerous advice, I'd
just like to say that I didn't give any advice.

How many times do medical studies come out and say one thing only to be contradicted by the
next study?

I didn't leave out the time involved. I was comparing the effort used to cover a distance. Just
because it takes longer doesn't mean you use the same amount of energy in the end.

Well lets leave medical out of it and use physics instead. Leaving out some factors such as
drag, which is negligible at running speeds, the energy used to move a mass over the same
distance at one speed versus another is the same. Of course the simple physics depends on
the coeffecint of friction (the force you must overcome to move) and assumes the same
coefficient at different speeds. Obviously in the case if running things are much more
complex than the picture of dragging a 150lb block for one mile. However the simply
calculations are derived from the same equations. I would agree that most if not all people
consume more calories at higher speeds. However most of this is due to the runner becoming
less efficient and losing running form. The goal however would be to be just as efficient at
higher speed as lower speeds.

~Matt ~Matt

(Young Goodman) said:

Is 8 miles of running worth the same amount of calories if I went very fast or very slow? Does
intensity/extreme exertion burn more calories? I took my search to google but just came up with all
different estimations of how much one can burn running.

The rec.running FAQ? Everyone should save it to their local disk as a single file and run a text
search across it....

In part one there's this (plus other stuff on glycogen, fat etc which are constant sources of
questions here...):
------------------------------------------
Calories burned by running (Rob Lingelbach [email hidden])

Here is a table I clipped from Runner's World; the source listed is "Exercise & Physiology" (Lea &
Febiger, 1986). At 70% of max.

Pace (minutes per mile)
12:00 10:43 9:41 8:46 8:02 7:26 6:54 6:26 6:02 Wt(lbs) Calories burned per hour running 100
400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750 800 119 432 486 540 594 648 702 756 810 864 128 464 522 580
638 696 754 812 870 928 137 496 558 620 682 744 806 868 930 992 146 528 594 660 726 792 858
924 990 1056 154 560 630 700 770 840 910 980 1050 1120 163 592 666 740 814 888 962 1036
1110 1184 172 624 702 780 858 936 1014 1092 1170 1248 181 656 738 820 902 984 1066 1148
1230 1312 190 688 774 860 946 1032 1118 1204 1290 1376 199 720 810 900 990 1080 1170 1260
1350 1440 207 752 846 940 1034 1128 1222 1316 1410 1504 216 784 882 980 1078 1176 1274 1372
1470 1568 225 816 918 1020 1122 1224 1326 1428 1530 1632 234 848 954 1060 1166 1272 1378
1484 1590 1696

[email hidden] (Young Goodman) wrote:

Follow up answer cos the first bit posted too soon:

Quoted message said:

Is 8 miles of running worth the same amount of calories if I went very fast or very slow?

More or less. The difference is so slight as to make no odds. Simplifying: calories = weight hauled
x time x speed of haulage

So if you run at 8km/h pace for 1 hour, you use the same energy as running at 16km/h for 30 minutes.

A useful rule of thumb is: kcals = kilograms * kilometers. It's not dead accurate of course but
gives a sufficiently good approximation for most purposes.

Quoted message said:

Does intensity/extreme exertion burn more calories?

Per unit time, yes of course. 1h at 8km/h uses half as much as 1h at 16km/h.

In article said:

(Young Goodman) said:

Is 8 miles of running worth the same amount of calories if I went very fast or very slow? Does
intensity/extreme exertion burn more calories? I took my search to google but just came up with
all different estimations of how much one can burn running.

The rec.running FAQ? Everyone should save it to their local disk as a single file and run a text
search across it....

In part one there's this (plus other stuff on glycogen, fat etc which are constant sources of
questions here...):
------------------------------------------
Calories burned by running (Rob Lingelbach [email hidden])

Here is a table I clipped from Runner's World; the source listed is "Exercise & Physiology" (Lea &
Febiger, 1986). At 70% of max.

Doesn't really help much -- they don't actually take measurements for every table cell. They usually
fill the table by using a formula that assumes a linear relationship.

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi pegasus.rutgers.edu~elflordOpen ↗

Donovan Rebbechi said:

Doesn't really help much -- they don't actually take measurements for every table cell. They
usually fill the table by using a formula that assumes a linear relationship.

Bummer :-( Il have to find a new reference...

In article said:

KGreen said:

Too bad your common sense goes against scientific study! I'll think I'll stick with the latter. By
the way, you are conveniently leaving out the fact that if you walk 5 miles, you will be
exercising/burning calories for more than twice as long a period of time as you would if you ran
it. I think you are confusing cardio-vascular effects/fitness with burning calories. Two totally
different things.

Point me to one good study. Every study I have read is suspect in even the measuring of
calories burned.

There are fairly good methods for measuring calories burned. It is possible to actually measure
oxygen uptake.

[snip]

Quoted message said:

How many times do medical studies come out and say one thing only to be contradicted by the
next study?

Studies are the best we have to go on. What is more likely to happen in practice is a gradual
refinement, more than outright contradiction. For example, Einstein didn't show that Newton was
wrong, he simply showed that Newton's model was inappropriate for some situations.

Likewise, it's possible that a single study may be later challenged. However, my understanding is
that the economy of performing walking or running is fairly well understood.

What happens over time is that results are either replicated, or not replicated. But with something
like the energy cost of different activities, energy costs have been measured several times for
different purposes. So it's unlikely that someone will come along and publish a study that
contradicts everything we know about energy metabolism during exercise.

Quoted message said:

I didn't leave out the time involved. I was comparing the effort used to cover a distance. Just
because it takes longer doesn't mean you use the same amount of energy in the end.

It doesn't necessarily mean that, no. In fact, I think that if you tried to do 1 mile in sprints,
you would almost certainly use more energy than if you jogged one mile.

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi pegasus.rutgers.edu~elflordOpen ↗

In article said:

Donovan Rebbechi said:

Doesn't really help much -- they don't actually take measurements for every table cell. They
usually fill the table by using a formula that assumes a linear relationship.

Bummer :-( Il have to find a new reference...

The running table I've got has a curve that is supposed to approximate running economy, by this
formula that relates VO2 to speed in meters/minute (based on Jack Daniels' work). Note that there is
a slight quadratic term to model the drop in economy as speed increases -- it's almost linear, but
not quite.

VO2(v) = J1 + J2 * v + J3 * v*v

J1 = -4.60 J2 = 0.182258 J3 = 0.000104

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi pegasus.rutgers.edu~elflordOpen ↗

From: Larry McMahan [email hidden]

Quoted message said:

According to all the calculations I have seen, calories burned depend only on distance covered and
your weight. Any decent calorie calculator will ask your weight as well as the distance. Some
calculators ask for time run and pace. This is a red herring. They just convert this to distance!

It's not a red herring, just reciprocal. Plus some people run for time and not distance. True,
whether you run 5mph or 10 mph you'll burn about 130 calories per mile, but if you run faster you'll
burn more calories in the same period of time. In other words your burn rate (basal+activity
cal/min/lb) goes up as you run faster since you run more distance in a shorter time. The heavier you
are, the more you burn. Also, you *will* burn more calories if you gain elevation as you run.

Quoted message said:

Now, there might be some non-linear effects where doubling the distance may increase your metabolic
rate for a time, so that over the long run you burn more than twice as many calories, but I haven't
seen any way any calculators can take this into account.

Larry

Young Goodman <[email hidden]> writes:

: Is 8 miles of running worth the same amount of calories if I went very
fast or
: very slow? Does intensity/extreme exertion burn more calories? I took
my search
: to google but just came up with all different estimations of how much
one can
: burn running. Any comments would help. Thanks

: .:\:/:.
: .:\:\:/:/:.
: :.:\:\:/:/:.:
: :=.' - - '.=:
: '=(\ 9 9 /)=' ( (_) ) /`-vvv-'\ / \ / /|,,,,,|\ \ /_// /H\ \\_\
:

"Nospam777" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Also, you *will* burn more calories if you gain elevation as you run.

Interesting. Do you burn less if you lose elevation? I think you burn more on left-handed corners
than on right-handed corners. No evidence, just a guess. Plus, I think you burn more if you run in
shorts when it's chilly. Plus, I think you burn less if you skip down hills like a fairy. Plus, I
think you burn more if you always follow the North Star.

Couldn't you take this twaddle to alt.diet.support, you calorie-obsessed numpty?

Roger.

"Bill-always hard-Rodgers " <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Plus, I think you burn less if you skip down hills like a fairy.

Take advice from Roger on this point, he has vast personal experience from

on

Quoted message said:

which to draw.

'Tis true. I'm a dainty little creature.

Roger.

Nospam777 said:

Also, you *will*

Quoted message said:

burn more calories if you gain elevation as you run.

I was wondering how long this thread was going to go on before somebody brought some reality into it
😉 Not only do hills make a difference, but snow and mud as well as whether you are snowshoe
running. Anybody that's read race reports - or done them - from this past weekend has to recognize
these realities of running. Longer times per mile do *not* necessarily translate into less effort or
less calorie burn - perhaps just more challenge 😉 I vote for weight (including loaded camelbak),
effort, and time - and maybe something I haven't thought about.

Dot

--
"Success is different things to different people" -Bernd Heinrich in Racing the Antelope