Hello,
Well I am an angry fat bloke just like the name says. I was an angry fat child too and I've decided to stop being fat.
Now the common guideline is you can't lose more than 2lbs of fat a week. I want to know if this is really true and why. If you want to answer this thread, please cite references. Don't get angry if you don't like the way I put my post, just don't reply. This should hopefully turn into an informative thread, backed up with sound science not a bunch of half baked ideas from people who just "feel" they are right, or "know because it worked for me and my mate Dave" (too small a sample size).
See, I just had this plan and I want to know how feasible it is. I read on mayoclinic (fairly reliable source) that walking 3.5 miles an hour for 1 hour when you are 200lbs burns 346 calories. I'm about 230 lbs right now and would like to be somewhere between 170 and 180 which should be about right for my body composition. It turns out that there are about 68.5 difference in calories per 40 lbs of body-weight according to that same chart. So 364 calories per hour ain't going to be exactly right, but even if it's half right it will do for the following calculation.
If I decided to hike for 1000 miles at a rate of 12 hours per day I would, a) be able to say, "I went on a 1000 mile hike to stop being a fatty, buy my book and lose weight too" and fill 200 pages with advice saying, "walk about a bit, stop being fat", padded out for the gaps. More importantly, I would b) burn off the following calories:
1000 / 3.5 * 346 = 98857.14 calories.
Seeing as a lb of fat is supposed to be 3500 calories (google it, there are thousands of places saying so), that gives us the following:
98857.14 / 3500 = 28.25 lbs of fat
1000 / 3.5 / 12 = just under 24 days of walking at 12 hours per day
So if I hiked a thousand miles (I walk faster than most people naturally) at 12 hours a day (I'd imagine it hurts real bad for the first week but don't suppose it cripples you) that would mean I'd lose the following lbs of fat a week:
( 346 * 12 * 7 ) / 3500.0 = 8.3 lbs
But apparently losing more than 2lbs of fat a week is supposed to be bad and I've heard it said (word of mouth, I have no idea how true this is) that if you lose more you will be losing muscle. But I don't see how you could lose muscle if you are doing that much extra exercise. What do YOU think would happen, based on your scientific knowledge about the body, and what sources do you base that on?
Oh, I'd stop drinking my 4000 calories a week in alcohol while on my mad hike too; so I'd probably lose more than that. Even if I didn't I'd be around the 200lb mark and miles fitter so who's complaining.
Anyway, what do you think would happen and can you cite something to back it up? I'm tempted to do it as an experiment regardless of what everyone says, but it would be nice to know what current knowledge says before I got started. If you want to put a smart-ass answer like, "you won't make it", you're wrong.
Thx.
-- Angry Fat Bloke
Well I am an angry fat bloke just like the name says. I was an angry fat child too and I've decided to stop being fat.
Now the common guideline is you can't lose more than 2lbs of fat a week. I want to know if this is really true and why. If you want to answer this thread, please cite references. Don't get angry if you don't like the way I put my post, just don't reply. This should hopefully turn into an informative thread, backed up with sound science not a bunch of half baked ideas from people who just "feel" they are right, or "know because it worked for me and my mate Dave" (too small a sample size).
See, I just had this plan and I want to know how feasible it is. I read on mayoclinic (fairly reliable source) that walking 3.5 miles an hour for 1 hour when you are 200lbs burns 346 calories. I'm about 230 lbs right now and would like to be somewhere between 170 and 180 which should be about right for my body composition. It turns out that there are about 68.5 difference in calories per 40 lbs of body-weight according to that same chart. So 364 calories per hour ain't going to be exactly right, but even if it's half right it will do for the following calculation.
If I decided to hike for 1000 miles at a rate of 12 hours per day I would, a) be able to say, "I went on a 1000 mile hike to stop being a fatty, buy my book and lose weight too" and fill 200 pages with advice saying, "walk about a bit, stop being fat", padded out for the gaps. More importantly, I would b) burn off the following calories:
1000 / 3.5 * 346 = 98857.14 calories.
Seeing as a lb of fat is supposed to be 3500 calories (google it, there are thousands of places saying so), that gives us the following:
98857.14 / 3500 = 28.25 lbs of fat
1000 / 3.5 / 12 = just under 24 days of walking at 12 hours per day
So if I hiked a thousand miles (I walk faster than most people naturally) at 12 hours a day (I'd imagine it hurts real bad for the first week but don't suppose it cripples you) that would mean I'd lose the following lbs of fat a week:
( 346 * 12 * 7 ) / 3500.0 = 8.3 lbs
But apparently losing more than 2lbs of fat a week is supposed to be bad and I've heard it said (word of mouth, I have no idea how true this is) that if you lose more you will be losing muscle. But I don't see how you could lose muscle if you are doing that much extra exercise. What do YOU think would happen, based on your scientific knowledge about the body, and what sources do you base that on?
Oh, I'd stop drinking my 4000 calories a week in alcohol while on my mad hike too; so I'd probably lose more than that. Even if I didn't I'd be around the 200lb mark and miles fitter so who's complaining.
Anyway, what do you think would happen and can you cite something to back it up? I'm tempted to do it as an experiment regardless of what everyone says, but it would be nice to know what current knowledge says before I got started. If you want to put a smart-ass answer like, "you won't make it", you're wrong.
Thx.
-- Angry Fat Bloke
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