Is it possible to burn 5,000 calories a day without fatigue or injuries?

[Gershon]

This thread is a challenge to myself. I'm currently burning about 2,500 calories a day as measured by the Fitbit Surge. I've found through strict calorie counting and weight changes the Surge is accurate for me regardless of the types of activities. The Zip measures about 15% fewer calories.

Time to get to work. 🙂 

[shipo]

Reliable or not, that is just one reference of many-MANY on the subject.

[GershonSurge]

Shipo,

It is pointless for us to get upset at each other. Let's you and I drop the subject. You may find the next few posts interesting anyway. 

Thanks,

Gershon

[shipo]

Upset?  Please understand, I'm not even remotely upset; just presenting a different perspective.

FWIW, I personally don't believe in any of the fad diet/weight loss plans.  Instead, I believe in a balanced diet and lots of exercise.  No need to get any more complicated than that, for me that is.  🙂

[GershonSurge]

Shipo,

Many people feel the same way you do.

This is not a fad diet. It is thousands of years old and is followed by every large healthy and long-lived population.

Rigorous studies are over 100 years old.

[CarolS]

I once "burned" 1,156 calories in an hour (according to the treadmill).  Oh, of course, I told the treadmill I was 18 years old and weighed 350 pounds.  It was funny, actually.  In real life, I rarely burn over 2,000 in a day.  30,000 steps  recently netted me a burn of 2,046.  I'm a 5'3", 58 year old female and I weigh between 124-125 pounds.  My BMR (without adding in my activity level) is just above 1,200 calories a day.   Burn 5,000 in a day???  I wish!

[GershonSurge]

Yesterday, I burned 5,023 calories. I walked 35,061 steps and 15.09 "miles." 

I started the day with a 7.2 mile walk and got another mile later. Eight hours after waking, I had 4,000 calories clinched. 

In the five days preceding yesterday, I was over 4,000 calories each day except the first, which was 3,979 calories.

The Fitbit Surge measured the calories. Based on a weight loss experiment last year, I feel the Surge is pretty accurate for me. The Fitbit Zip shows about 80% of what the Surge shows.

A person who has an active job like fast food, etc., may burn 4,000 calories a day (or the equivalent based on weight) if they work eight hours. Maybe they should be paid a food surcharge so they can afford to eat.

Today was supposed to be a rest day for me, but my son wants to go for a hike in the mountains. 

[Dominique]

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@GershonSurge wrote:

A person who has an active job like fast food, etc., may burn 4,000 calories a day (or the equivalent based on weight) 

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Frankly, I don’t think a typical hamburger-flipper would move that much during their workday. And "the equivalent based on weight" (and sex/age/height) is very true: you were able to burn 5000 calories with just 35k steps. I could "only" burn 4700 calories with 54k steps (my personal high so far), although I’m slightly younger than you. 

[GershonSurge]

Dominique,

You are probably right that fast food workers don't burn as many calories as I think. I'm going to try to stay near 4,000 for a while and see what happens. Five thousand takes too long.

Meanwhile, I lost 3.9 pounds last week. Based on the approximation of 3,500 calories/pound, the predicted loss was 4.05 pounds. I'll know more in a couple weeks, but the calories estimated by the Surge are close enough for me.

[GershonSurge]

I was able to average 4,000 calories a day for 30 days. Then a minor muscle sprain in my back slowed me down for a few days.

I started most days with "old man runs" about 6.8 miles long. These burned about 1,000 calories. Then I spent a few hours during the day doing housework and yard work. Generally, I had my calories clinched by about 2:00. I wake up at about 3 am, so it would be later for most.

It seems like the Surge overcounts calories by about 500 calories a day. The Zip undercounts by about the same. The step count on both is about the same when averaged over a week. 

Burning more calories made it easier to maintain a higher deficit without hunger. I lost 10.3 pounds in the 30 days without ever feeling hungry. 

It helped to have calorie goals on a spreadsheet for each 10 minutes of the day. I estimated I burn 12 calories every 10 minutes while asleep. 15 when awake and resting. 38 for those periods when I'd work. I was generous with the rest breaks during the work periods. 95 every 10 minutes when I'm old man running.

According to two scales, I gained more lean mass than seems possible according to popular research.  

A byproduct of this experiment is some information about the Zip and Surge. The Zip captures more steps if a person walks slowly because of some body pains. The Surge counts more steps during certain activities. Overall, they are about the same. I using the workout function or the treadmill function on the Surge to time a work period and see the results. 

Is 5,000 calories a day sustainable? It certainly is for people with an active job who is active when not working. For me, 4,000 calories on the Surge or 3,500 calories on the Zip is more reasonable. 

On the Surge, I set goals for each meal. 2,000 calories before breakfast if I ran. 2,800 calories before lunch. No supper until I had my calories clinched. I did have between meal snacks if I felt I needed them. My average deficit was about 1,700 calories. I stopped tracking the numbers after the first 20 days, but I still count calories. I know most people hate counting calories, but I find it's the only way I can be successful at losing or maintaining weight.

Step count for the day generally followed the calorie count, so I don't consider calorie goals any better or worse than step goals. A 4,000 calorie day generally worked out to roughly 23-24,000 steps.

[Dominique]

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@GershonSurge wrote:

According to two scales, I gained more lean mass than seems possible according to popular research. 

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The key words here are "according to the scales": the likelihood that a man in his sixties gain any lean mass at all in one month time while eating at a deficit and running/walking/performing house chores is very small. That the scales suggest otherwise merely shows bioimpedance (as a way of estimating body composition) is notoriously inaccurate.

Maximal muscle gain is usually observed with younger males (high production of testosterone) who eat at a surplus, get a sufficient amount of protein and engage in a resistance training programme based on progressive overload. Even then, they would only gain so much lean mass in just one month time.

[GershonSurge]

Dominique,

Everything you say agrees with the research I've read. However, a person should not be too quick to toss outlying data as it may hold the key to another answer.

My diet is low fat, almost always below 10% and often below 5%. It's also high carb. Usually about 75-80%. These are not exact numbers, but close enough.

Technically, my body was never at a calorie deficit as my carbs were always sufficient. Fat calories are freely available in massive quantities from my fat. Virtually all of my exercise is in the fat burning range where 70% of the calories come from fat. 

If, and this is a big if, I did gain lean mass, I attribute it to the growth of many small muscles. I'll see what happens in the next 30 days.

[FitBeforeFifty]

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@GershonSurge wrote:

Dominique,

Technically, my body was never at a calorie deficit as my carbs were always sufficient.

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That isn't the technical definition of a calorie deficit.

[GershonSurge]

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@FitBeforeFifty wrote:

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@GershonSurge wrote:

Dominique,

Technically, my body was never at a calorie deficit as my carbs were always sufficient. Added: Fat calories were always available from my fat.

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That isn't the technical definition of a calorie deficit.

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Perhaps I used the wrong word for what I'm trying to express. Think of it like the body having two fuel tanks. One for carbs, and one for fats. Except for times of high heart rate activity, the body burns about 70% fat. The average body can store approximately two pounds of carbs in the muscles, liver and in the process of digestion. That's about 3,500 calores.

Let's say I eat 1,600 calories of carbs, 2,00 calories of fat and 200 calories of proteins and burn 4,000 calories. I'd only burn 1,200 calories of carbs and 2,800 calories of fat. All but about the 2-400 calories I consumed is readily available from body fat, so the body does not have to consume anything important to make up for the deficit. I'm not sure how proteins are used for energy. Everything I've read suggests they are not except for those in the earliest stages of starting to exercise.

[naty_silvaje]

nice job! keep it up. I actually routinely burn 2500-3000 calories a day but yesterday I reached 3,600.

22yo weight 185 and 69 inches tall.

was pretty proud of myself!

[GershonSurge]

Deleted. Wrong place

[DerrickS]

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@Dominique wrote:

For instance, Michael Phelps is said to burn 8000-9000 calories in average.

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@Dominique Not to take any credit away from Michael Phelps (he's one of the greatest athletes of all-time), but I read a theory that a huge factor in his caloric burn is thermodynamics. (source)

The TL;DR version is that by exposing his body to the cold water in the pool, Phelp's body has to "fight to maintain it's temperature" on top of doing Olympic-caliber pool workouts.

[Fitness996]

I walk a golf course in the morning with my wife than, I usually play 18 holes of golf in the afternoon. I'm over 60 and very active. It is not that I try to reach 4-5K calorie burn but I do very often. So my question is my Blaze not working correctly? I get 20k steps very often in one day walking about 6 hours on most days walking with my wife and then playing golf.

[shipo]

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@Fitness996 wrote:
I walk a golf course in the morning with my wife than, I usually play 18 holes of golf in the afternoon. I'm over 60 and very active. It is not that I try to reach 4-5K calorie burn but I do very often. So my question is my Blaze not working correctly? I get 20k steps very often in one day walking about 6 hours on most days walking with my wife and then playing golf.

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It's hard to tell if your Blaze is accurate or not; for me walking 20,000 steps in a day wouldn't get me anywhere near 4,000 calories in a day; heck, yesterday I logged 21,329 steps, 15,369 of which were logged during a 10.1 mile run, and I only ended the day with 3,551 calories burned (per my Fitbit Surge).

Back to you... How heavy are you; your weight will dramatically affect how many calories the Fitbit app will calculate for you on a daily and a step-by-step basis.

[Fitness996]

I'm 6' tall and weigh 189. It has to be my Blaze.. Thanks for the input.

Sent from my iPhone

[GershonSurge]

Fitness996,

I'm 6 feet tall and weigh 170. You could compare your calories to those on my profile. They are probably a few hundred calories higher each day than what I actually burned. I discovered this while seeing how many calories it took to lose a pound.