There was an interesting article in the May issue of Nutrition Action. The graphs and article compared the change in how people from 1970 to 2016 ate. It is always interesting to compare the old with the new and see how the changes have affected the population. The article did not give a very positive outlook.
The one item that stood out at first glance was that the average number of calories for a person to eat each day. In 1970 the total number of calories was 2,055. In 2016 the total calories increased to 2,515 per day. That is an increase of 460 calories the average person eats every day. Not to alarm you, but that amounts to a total of 167,900 more calories the average person eats in a year. To apply this information to a runner, we can use, as an example, a 150-pound person running an eight-minute mile and burning up 13.5 calories a minute (energy = cal./min./lb.= .09 cal. per minute). He would have to run 12,437 more minutes than we did back in 1970. If this runner continued the eight-minute-per-mile pace during the added 12,437 minutes he would need to run 1,554 more miles to maintain the same level as in 1970.
For a non-runner this is an impossible concept to imagine. It is sort of like, “the moon is a long way off” and the idea of getting there by driving that far is hoping the car can last that many years. For a runner, trying to approach 1,554 miles in a year is a lot of running – and even more when those miles have to be added on to the miles you usually run in a year. I have run 2,400 miles in a year when I was doing marathons and I can tell you that any spare time you had was spent out on the pavement running. Weekends are almost a total loss for social events as if you are not spending between three or four hours running, you spent another three or four hours sleeping and recovering from the morning run. Saturday night parties were always cut short early as you knew you had to get up early in the morning to go for a long run. It isn’t long before you go from a party animal to a fitness nerd that joined other runners putting in those long miles. As you can see, adding another 1,554 miles to burn up extra calories is a full time task.
