How Many Calories Can You Actually Eat In A Day?

the average human needs somewhere between 1,200 and 1,500 calories a day to function optimally but what would happen if you went way overboard and ate somewhere around 10,000 calories today instead sounds like a question for our old friend Brainerd you see Brainerd has recently gotten into bodybuilding in an attempt to get swole and impress the ladies and eating 10,000 calories worth of food sounds like it'll work well with his bulking program but do you think all those calories will end up turning into muscle or fat and will the system even be able to handle the caloric overload guess we'll find out calories calories calories you see that word crop up everywhere these days especially in relation to food but what are calories anyway the term calorie actually refers to a unit of energy now in theory that energy could come from any fuel coal wood natural gas etc but usually when we mentioned calories we're talking about them in a nutritional sense so carbohydrates fats and proteins according to an article in an early edition of the Journal of nutrition one calorie is the amount of energy to raise one kilogram of water from 0 to 1 degrees Celsius so your average chocolate bar which typically contains around 200 calories contains enough energy to boil 2 kilograms of water or boil 1 kilogram of water twice hashtag math for the wind am i right contextualizing calories in this way might make your daily intake of over 1,200 seem pretty intense after all that's a lot of boiling water but just think about how much energy it takes to power organs like your brain in your heart and move that big ol hunk of body around all day and all of a sudden things start to make a little more sense of course following this logic people who are more active should need more calories which is why according to the National Institute of Health moderately active females can eat around 2,000 calories a day while moderately active men can have up to 2600 now the source of your calories matter hugely in terms of your physical health and how you feel after all you can eat 2,000 calories of cake or 2,000 calories of lean meat and vegetables but only one of those options will lead to healthy results while most diets recommend limiting calories from sugars and carbs and increasing calories from fats and proteins in general it's best to eat a varied diet in order to make sure you're getting all the nutrition you require so considering moderately active people top out at around 2600 calories per day does anyone really have any justification for eating 10,000 well that depends power lifters and bodybuilders like Brainard here spend long days in the gym aiming to build muscle and in order to build muscle you do need to consume more calories than you expend however most people only really need to consume on average around 500 additional calories a day to build that muscle anything more is kind of overkill well unless you're an Olympian that is these peak athletes are the only ones that should be eating anything close to that many calories a day and that's because they're gonna put their bodies through the rigorous training necessary to use them up take Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte or Michael Phelps for example Ryan's breakfast on a normal training day consisted of five to six eggs with spinach tomatoes and ham hash browns pancakes oatmeal and fruit with a french vanilla coffee and if you think that's a heavy start to the day just wait to hear Phelps's on a training day the twenty one time gold medalist eats three fried egg sandwiches with cheese lettuce tomatoes fried onions and mayonnaise a five egg omelet a bowl of grain three slices of French toast with toppings and three chocolate chip pancakes with a couple of cups of coffee to wash it all down now that's what I call a real breakfast of champions of course Phelps doesn't stop there for lunch he has a pound of pasta two large ham and cheese sandwiches and some energy drinks while for dinner he'll have another round of an entire pizza and what the heck a couple more energy drinks by his perhaps slightly exaggerated estimates his daily training intake totals around twelve thousand calories and judging by his 5% body fat he needs every calorie he can get of course it goes without saying that the average person should have nowhere near this many carbs and sugars in their daily diet but let's imagine we give brainier this exact diet for a day how does he fare well to start he might not even be able to choke down all that food training his hardest Phelps and Lochte do is bound to work up a fierce appetite but for someone who's just lifting weights for a couple hours a day it'll be difficult to burn enough calories to get through such large portions even if he does pack it down his stomach will feel uncomfortably full after each meal Brainard's blood sugar will skyrocket as his body converts carbs into glucose and his cholesterol blood pressure and fluid retention rates will undoubtedly spike - although they should all come down within a couple of hours and he may even get a little sleepy after each meal as his body redirects energy towards his stomach to help him digest all that food fortunately for Brainard there are no real long-term negative effects of his ten thousand calorie binge he'll probably feel a natural urge to eat a little less over the next couple of days as his body balances things out if not he might put on a pound or two a fat due to the excess but overall he'll be no worse for the wear that said Brainard should make a habit out of eating this much food at least not until his olympic training gets underway but that's for another video if you enjoyed this video please make sure to hit the like and subscribe buttons then head on over the Braniac youtube channel for more tasty tasty facts see you later brainiacs [Music]

Channel: Brainiac

Views: 89,558

Rating: 4.9071803 out of 5

Keywords: Calories, Energy, Diet, Carbohydrates, Fat, Protein, Sugar, Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte, Olympics, 10 000 calorie challenge, how many calories do you need in a day?, what happens if you eat too much, bodybuilding, increase calories, powerlifter, olympic athlete, weight lifting, carb overload

Id: 4Tr1o397ODc

Length: 5min 43sec (343 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 19 2020