this post was submitted on 29 May 2026
92 points (96.0% liked)

Ask Lemmy

39765 readers
1039 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Obviously you can kind of but its extremely difficult (for those pedantic commentators I foresee)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] ada@piefed.blahaj.zone 44 points 1 day ago (5 children)

I absolutely used to run enough to out run my bad diet!

It only became a problem when I got injured and couldn't run for several months :P

[–] SharkWeek@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Yeah. After I sobered up I went through about 3 years of intense training (may have had a hyperfixation) ... I was down to an A-cup, just lean muscle and bone. After a normal training session I'd get the greasiest half-pound double cheeseburger with bacon money could buy.

These days I look at a stick of celery wrong and put on weight :-/

[–] tburkhol@slrpnk.net 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Had a friend training for Iron Man. He'd do like 15 mile bike in to work (and back), 5 mile run at lunch, and swim in the evening. Dude would eat sticks of butter straight out of the refrigerator for lunch. I couldn't watch.

[–] ada@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah, I looked like a piece of leather wrapped around a stick when I was training that hard. And I pretty much just lived on takeout

And yeah, 10 years later, older, no longer anywhere near that fit, and even as I train for a half marathon, it's hard to shift my weight to where I want it to be for my race

[–] SharkWeek@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago

Well done for taking on a half marathon!

I'm just trying to keep my old baby bulge in check, lol

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah, but the saying is usually told to fat people. It is very unlikely that a fat person has enough endurance to burn 4,000+ calories a day via physical activity.

[–] Hudell@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago

It's still possible to build up endurance even while fat, if you never got completely sedentary or if you take the time to build it back up. But if you're too fat there comes a point where physical activity starts becoming dangerous without proper guidance - and if you have that then you're probably looking into your diet too.

[–] zikzak025@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Yeah, it works as a general rule of thumb but there are nuances. Running 2km or 1 mile burns roughly 100 calories.

If you were burning 100 calories running per day, and consuming just as many calories each day as you were burning, the lack of running puts you at a 100 calorie daily surplus without a change in diet. That translates to an annual surplus of 36,500 calories, which will likely gain you about 10 pounds of body fat in that year.

Simple solution in that situation is to eat 100 fewer calories per day, if you can (or however much else you estimate you were burning). 100 calories is half a candy bar, half a bottle of soda, skipping sugar in your coffee/tea, etc. If the injury was specifically a leg injury, can also supplement with cardio exercises that only work the upper body and don't require your legs, if desired.

[–] exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

When I was marathon training I found that eating enough calories was a matter of meal timing, simply because I didn't have the stomach to be able to eat that much in a single sitting.

With training a total of 50 miles (80 km) per week at a body weight of 190 lbs (85 kg), that's basically 6700 calories per week of direct energy expenditure, maybe another 1000 calories of excess post-exercise energy expenditure. That's 7700 calories per week from running, which allows you to add a whole 1100 calories per day to your diet, plus the amount you'd normally need for day to day.

With intense exercise, there's a lot of room to work with.

[–] ada@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago

That's one of the reasons I ended up eating like trash. Fatty foods are calories dense foods, and that made it easier to get enough calories in a single meal, rather than trying to eat enough food throughout the day that wasn't as calorie dense.

I won't pretend that was the only reason I ate like trash, but it was definitely a part of it

[–] Return_of_Chippy@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Then you weren't eating enough ice cream 😉 on average a mile run is 100 to 150 calories burned. Eat one pint of Ben and Jerry's and you're looking at 10ish miles to burn that off if you're not in caloric defecit. Like I said it's technically possible but by disagreeing you're really just being pedantic. If your body's ideal caloric intake should be 2000 calories to maintain your weight, eating 3000 a day (which is easy) means ten miles run a day.

[–] ada@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago

I wasn't trying to be pedantic as such. It's just that I found fitness when I was on a path to trying to bring my body fat down to a level I was happier with. I had originally though "losing weight" was healthy, but then I read that being active is more beneficial than losing weight, so I thought I needed to include a bit of fitness training in there.

And then when I started running, to my great surprise, I found out that I loved it, and I kept running. I ended up SUPER SUPER in to running. And one of the things that I discovered was that after a period of trying to watch how much I eat, when my training peaked, I was often struggling to get enough calories to match my burn.

And I often joked to myself back then that if I'd have known I could have outrun my bad diet, I'd have started there :P

But in all seriousness, as you said, it's not possible to sustain. Age, injury, decreased training levels, eventually, something happens and your calorie burn returns to more regular levels, and then you're not outrunning it anymore