Hourly Calory Use -- [Was: Re: [at-l] Re: Weight Loss]

[rafeb at speakeasy.net (Rafe Bustin)]

At 11:35 AM 8/25/2005 -0400, Jim Bullard wrote:

>You can't really reduce it to a formula except in a generalized sense. 
>Take Lance Armstrong for instance. He has an over sized heart and higher 
>than normal muscle efficiency (the capacity to turn fuel into energy). If 
>an individual's circulatory system is less efficient at getting fuel to 
>the muscles, if your muscles (in particular those muscles used for a given 
>activity) are of a less efficient type than the average then you will burn 
>more calories than the charts/calculators indicate. It also would vary 
>with how often you do it. As you become more accustomed to the activity 
>your efficiency may improve and you will burn fewer calories for the same 
>amount of exercise. I also suspect that running a given distance burns 
>more calories than walking it just as driving 'X' miles at 80 mph burns 
>more gas than driving the same distance at 50 mph.



Work (energy) is force over a distance.  F delta s.

Calories and foot-pounds are in the same units: energy (Joules).

If your analysis were correct, a thru-hiker ought to require
less and less food-per-mile as he/she improves in fitness
along the way.  I don't think it works that way.

Your automobile analogy works OK, because the
force (wind resistance) term goes up with velocity,
and total distance ('X' miles) is the same.



rafe b
aka terrapin


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