Fun and Fitness for the 40-Something

I came across something in a Runner’s World article that, while seemingly obvious in retrospect, startled me. The article focuses on how we typically think we’re eating fewer and burning more calories than we really are.

“‘In general, people will underestimate the calories in a typical meal by about 20 percent, but after a tough workout, you might underestimate how much you’re eating by as much as 50 percent.”

That’s not the part that threw me for a loop, though. This is:

“… that 100-calories-per-mile standard (which is built into the readouts on your gym’s treadmills) is the gross energy cost of running—strictly how many calories you burn going from point A to point B. But runners who are trying to lose weight need to also know the net energy cost of their runs so that they can more accurately calculate their entire calorie burn for the day. For example, if you go for a three-mile run and it takes a half hour, you need to subtract out however many calories you would have burned during those 30 minutes even if you’d been just sitting at your desk (about 80 calories). That means the true net energy cost of your run over the course of the day is more like 220 calories than 300.”

I had never considered that aspect before. What a drag!