How many calories does an average man burn per day ?

super_metroid

????

Captain Furball

I didn't "google" it so

2000 would be my answer.

Mellor

Probably a bit more, say 2300
although whats average?

rubadub

The usual thing quoted is 2500kcal for men and 2000kcal for women. However I think this is based on an "ideal" sized man/woman. In Ireland the average calorie intake for "people" is meant to be ~3400kcal.

The bigger you are the more calories you need, so bigger people will have a natrually higher amount of calories burned per day. So since the overall average person in Ireland is larger than "ideal" they would burn more calories than the 2500/2000kcal average.

You can estimate your own using calculators here
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=50956807&postcount=19

104494431

Average daily requirement is 2,500 kcals.

I personally have an RMR of about 2,400 kcals.

I eat around 2,600 kcals a day, some days more, some days less.

MyPeopleDrankTheSoup

http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm

Mellor

rubadub wrote: »

The bigger you are the more calories you need, so bigger people will have a natrually higher amount of calories burned per day. So since the overall average person in Ireland is larger than "ideal" they would burn more calories than the 2500/2000kcal average.

True, but, they are bigger due to excess fat, which doesn't increase RMR. Obviously extra muscle due to carrying this fat everywhere is going to cause an increase.
But on the other hand, the average person doesn't get the "ideal" amount of excercise. Which would lower required cals. So the two likely cancel each other, or at least close, 2500 is about right imo.

rubadub

Mellor wrote: »

True, but, they are bigger due to excess fat, which doesn't increase RMR.

Any calculators I see would raise the BMR or RMR due to extra weight. It always made sense to me, a bigger person would need more energy just to maintain body temperature with a larger mass. I expect they have more blood to pump around etc.

Mellor wrote: »

Obviously extra muscle due to carrying this fat everywhere is going to cause an increase

Yes, there was a post in the fitness forum and I think it was saying up to 20-30% of excess weight is usually extra muscle, I was surprised it was so high, I expect it would be lower for very obese people. People are in effect weightlifting all day long so you would expect them to have more muscle, than say their "ideal weight" twin brother. It is a shame that so many people just starve themselves thin and lose all this metabolically active muscle.

So all of the weight is not just "lazy fat", there will be much more active muscle mass along with it.

Mellor wrote: »

But on the other hand, the average person doesn't get the "ideal" amount of excercise.

Yes, I also expect these figures might have been made many moons ago when people were thinner and more active.

Mellor wrote: »

But on the other hand, the average person doesn't get the "ideal" amount of excercise. Which would lower required cals. So the two likely cancel each other, or at least close, 2500 is about right imo.

They will cancel at some stage, most overweight people I know are at a fairly stable weight. The average intake is meant to be 3400kcal, if I got to say 18stone I might be stable eating that, I would burn 3400kcal just keeping my large body warm, and burn more calories lugging myself around. Many people do not take into account that as you get smaller your calorie needs do too, so many will drop from that 18stone to say 12stone and then go right back on their "normal" 3400kcal a day.

I cycle a fixed distance to work each day, and when I was overweight I lost a lot of fat in the beginning, I was unfit and was lugging around 20kg of extra weight on my bike, so it was very taxing. This is the other thing to take into account, the same exercise might not have the same results when you get smaller too.

I still wonder what the OP really wanted to know. How much people DO burn per day, or how much they SHOULD burn. i.e. a big guy could be burning 4000kcal due to his large size, but if he changed to 2500kcal he would drop weight and stablise at a lower weight.

The average intake is meant to be 3400kcal, and the average for women & men is 2000, and 2500kcal, so say 2250kcal average. If you worked on the theoretical 3500kcal per lb loss/gain, then the average 3400kcal intake is 1150kcal over the "average burned", so 8050kcal per week which should result in 2.3lb fat gain per week, or 119.6lb or 8.5stone per year, every year, if their basal rate did not change. I know that is theoretical figures but it is why I would think the average person is burning far more than 2250kcal per day, and I put it down to their increased metabolic needs due to being overweight (certainly not due to overexercise!).

Mellor

rubadub wrote: »

Any calculators I see would raise the BMR or RMR due to extra weight. It always made sense to me, a bigger person would need more energy just to maintain body temperature with a larger mass. I expect they have more blood to pump around etc.

You are aware that these calculators work on the basis of lean weight. Extra fat doesn't increase RMR. (however, you would be considered more active due to the extra weight carried everywhere)

Maybe 3400 is the average intake, it just seams huge to me. I aim for less than half that

rubadub

Mellor wrote: »

You are aware that these calculators work on the basis of lean weight.

I do not think they are working on the basis of lean mass, on the contrary I would have thought they presume it is extra fat. Have you seen any calculators specifically saying they do work on lean mass? I have seen very few pages/calculators even mention the difference between lean mass and fat.

For the vast majority of people the extra weight they carry is fat, muscly "overweight" weightlifters are in the minority. So in the fitness forum you will see the BMI scale ridiculed but the fact is that it IS useful to 90%+ of the poplulation (along with other measures) since 90% of people whos BMI is high probably are overfat. It is rare to see BMI pages warning against being "over muscly", I expect most presume if the user is weightlifting they would be aware of such anamolies, same with BMR/RMR calculators. In most cases I would think they presume the extra weight is fat and not muscle. If not there would be far more reason to give adequate warning to "overfat" people that this calculator might not suit them.

Extra fat doesn't increase RMR

What about simply keeping the extra mass at body temperature? Would you not think this uses more calories?

Just a quick search on google for calculators.

http://www.caloriesperhour.com/tutorial_BMR.php

We explain the equations in detail in the Technical Notes, below. But whether or not such details interest you, you might find a few observations about them interesting:

When your age goes up, your BMR and RMR go down.
When your height goes down, your BMR and RMR go down.
When your weight goes down, your BMR and RMR go down

It did also say

Body Composition
The equations do not take into account body composition, a measure of the percentages of muscle and fat composing your body. It is therefore less accurate if you have a non-typical amount of muscle. This is because muscle burns calories, while fat does not.

A person with an above average amount of muscle will have a higher BMR or RMR than calculated; a person with a below average amount of muscle will have a lower BMR or RMR than calculated.

It makes no mention of additional energy needed to keep a body warm. But like I mentioned before if people are overweight then a certain % of that additional weight will be additional muscle and so should increase BMR/RMR.

3400 does seem high to me too, I dunno how they arrived at the figures, but I do see people regularly eating 1000kcal+ sandwiches at work on commenting on me eating "like a pig" when my lunch might be 600kcal!, I see mates devouring 2500kcal massive pizzas on their own washed down with 10 cans of beer (2000kcal). If you look at those "you are what you eat" type programs you can see people with massive intakes, they eventually stablise though.

Mellor

rubadub wrote: »

I do not think they are working on the basis of lean mass, on the contrary I would have thought they presume it is extra fat. Have you seen any calculators specifically saying they do work on lean mass? I have seen very few pages/calculators even mention the difference between lean mass and fat.

I've seen lean mass refered to in plenty of places. Actually, I'm pretty sure its mentioned in the stickies above that it is lean mass. It's makes perfect sense that it is lean mass. Muscles burns cals at rest to basically stay alive.
Fat doesn't burn calories.

For the vast majority of people the extra weight they carry is fat, muscly "overweight" weightlifters are in the minority. So in the fitness forum you will see the BMI scale ridiculed but the fact is that it IS useful to 90%+ of the poplulation (along with other measures) since 90% of people whos BMI is high probably are overfat. It is rare to see BMI pages warning against being "over muscly", I expect most presume if the user is weightlifting they would be aware of such anamolies, same with BMR/RMR calculators. In most cases I would think they presume the extra weight is fat and not muscle. If not there would be far more reason to give adequate warning to "overfat" people that this calculator might not suit them.

These "anolomolies" don't exist if lean mass is used. So there is no need for a warning.

Not all calculatiors are equal, they are based on formulas. There are at 2 or 3 common ones. The original from 100 years, which doesn't take account of lean mass and uses total mass. It is generally understood to apply (more accurately) to those close to ideal body fat. Which is why they aren't so good for those that are considerably over weight
And there are the newer ones that account for lean body mass. Which are considered more accurate. Especially in extremes.

What about simply keeping the extra mass at body temperature? Would you not think this uses more calories?

I agree that it would. And this is likely a possible tolerance/error in the calcs. Although, it could be recouped in the activity level.



While it's not infallible, wikipedia is generally a decent source for science based topics.

wiki wrote:

Basal metabolic rate...........
BMR decreases with age and with the loss of lean body mass. Increasing muscle mass increases BMR. Aerobic fitness level, a product of cardiovascular exercise, while previously thought to have effect on BMR, has been shown in the 1990s not to correlate with BMR, when fat-free body mass was adjusted for......

BMR and RMR are measured by gas analysis through either direct or indirect calorimetry, though a rough estimation can be acquired through an equation using age, sex, height, and weight. Studies of energy metabolism using both methods provide convincing evidence for the validity of the respiratory quotient (R.Q.), which measures the inherent composition and utilization of carbohydrates, fats and proteins as they are converted to energy substrate units that can be used by the body as energy. Studies conducted by Spennewyn in 1990 found strong correlations between lean mass and metabolism based on indirect calorimetry measurements. Spennewyn discovered that lean tissue in men and women required approximately 16 calories per pound per day. Thus, once a lean mass was known it could be multiplied by 16 to reveal daily caloric needs based on the activity level of the individual. This method has been used in many health club environments to determine daily caloric needs.

rubadub

Mellor wrote: »

I've seen lean mass refered to in plenty of places....

These "anolomolies" don't exist if lean mass is used. So there is no need for a warning.

Most BBers and athletes would be well aware of the whole issue, the lay person would not be -that is why I would expect very clear and overemphasised warnings if overfat people were to use these calculators. I would say 90% of people with a high BMI are overfat, it would make sense to cater for the average person.

Mellor wrote: »

Muscles burns cals at rest to basically stay alive.
Fat doesn't burn calories.

And as I said, the more overfat you are the more muscle you are likely to have too.

http://www.halls.md/body-mass-index/leanbody.htm

Maybe you are wondering why your lean body mass goes up, as your weight goes up, even though your height is unchanged. The reason is that the skeletal muscle mass tends to increase as body fat increases. It takes extra muscle to carry extra fat around, right?

The formula for lean body mass using the method of James1,2 is:

Lean Body Weight (men) = (1.10 x Weight(kg)) - 128 x ( Weight2/(100 x Height(m))2)
Lean Body Weight (women) = (1.07 x Weight(kg)) - 148 x ( Weight2/(100 x Height(m))2)

An alternate formula for lean body mass using the method of Hume3 is

For men over the age of 16: lean body mass in kilograms = (0.32810 * (body weight in kilograms)) + (0.33929 * (height in centimeters)) - 29.5336

For women over the age of 30: lean body mass in kilograms = (0.29569 * (body weight in kilograms)) + (0.41813 * (height in centimeters)) - 43.2933

These formulas are trusted and highly scientific, based on various types of measurements of human body composition, including dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA). However, remember that they are based on "averages". They predict the lean body weight "average" of a group of people with similar height and weight.

But you, as an individual, might have more muscle than others in your group, or bigger internal organs, or denser bones, or any number of factors that make you a little different than others. So even the lean body weight formulas are estimates.