Calorie expenditure post-marathon? (Read 464 times)

emuporium

posted: 10/7/2008 at 2:31 PM
modified: 10/7/2008 at 2:40 PM

Well look at that fancy smart sounding topic. I was curious how many calories your body burns as you rest and relax after a marathon, relative to pre-race. I imagine theres gotta be a lot of work being done under the hood in order to let me regain the use of my legs, for example. I've completely pigged out each day since the race which does little to squelch the hunger. I'm not trying to use this information to carefully balance my diet to make sure i don't gain 0.1 lbs of fat after the race or anything, I'm just genuinely curious. Also i'm a bit restless having my phyiscal activity being largely limited to an awkward shuffling limp, as I try to gain the courage to climb that set of stairs.

Bonkin

posted: 10/7/2008 at 3:28 PM

Since your activity is limited to an awkward shuffling limp, I'd say your calorie expenditure is pretty low right now. What's happening is you burned through a lot of calories on marathon day - probably creating a huge deficit for the day. You also probably lost a significant amount of electrolytes in the process. Your body is just doing it's job of reacting (and over reacting) to the stress it went through and reloading your missing calories and minerals. It will all be back to normal soon.

When it’s all said and done, will you have said more than you’ve done?