Weight loss for Physicists (and physics students)
Thursday, January 3rd, 2008I love the Richard Muller lectures over at UCBerkeley. You can enjoy them too, for free.
I was stumbling through Dr. Muller’s web site today and I ran across this article on weight loss. He basically says the same things I’ve repeated here before (which I learned and repeated from The Hacker’s Diet). To wit,
- Exercise will not help you lose weight the way you think it will.
- Hunger is the way to lose.
- Learn to appreciate the feeling of hunger as your body burning fat.
I’ve been challenged on these assertions before, sometimes by emotionally-charged lose-by-exercising proponents who are certain they needn’t be hungry. I hope they’re right, for their sakes. But it’s nice to see these ideas reiterated by a respected physicist. I wonder if I’ll ever see a nutritionist say the same thing.
If not, maybe it’s because it’s not true.
Want to lose a pound of fat? You can work it off by hiking to the top of a 2,500-story building. Or by running 60 miles. Or by spending 7 hours cleaning animal stalls.
According to Google and this site, I only have to run 22 miles to lose 1 lb of fat (or 25 miles if you go by Muller’s rounded-up 4000 kcals/lb).
I found a handy chart on this Fitness Software site which gives calories burned per hour for various activities based on a person’s weight. I’ll use the 190 lb column, and I run about a 6-minute mile, drop it in Excel [download my Calorie Burning Worksheet (Excel XLS)] and calculate the amount of running I have to do just to lose 1 lb.
Results:
- 1 pound/week: eat 500-600 fewer calories/day, or run 3.5 miles per day (24 miles per week).
- 2 pounds/week: eat 1000-1200 fewer calories/day, or run 7 miles per day (49 miles per week).
I’ll keep running (10 miles per week), but it’s not to lose weight.