How many calories does diving burn?

[TSandM]

Reefduffer, your posts are pretty much right on. Minute ventilation, which is tightly measured in divers, is tightly linked to CO2 production, and CO2 production is the end product of oxygen consumption. If you assume the diver is past the novice gas-huffing stage, you should be able to get a pretty good calculation of energy consumption from SAC rate.

I believe average O2 consumption is known for CCR divers, too. They add O2 as it is metabolized, so their VO2 is also measurable. I don't have the figures.

I seriously doubt that even cave diving, where you swim fairly constantly, uses as much energy as walking. My waistline certainly suggests that it doesn't.

 

[reefduffer]

Reefduffer, your posts are pretty much right on. Minute ventilation, which is tightly measured in divers, is tightly linked to CO2 production, and CO2 production is the end product of oxygen consumption. If you assume the diver is past the novice gas-huffing stage, you should be able to get a pretty good calculation of energy consumption from SAC rate.

Thank you. As an admitted amateur on this subject, validation of my conclusions from researching this, by both a physician and informed diver, is greatly appreciated.

I believe average O2 consumption is known for CCR divers, too. They add O2 as it is metabolized, so their VO2 is also measurable. I don't have the figures.

See post #35, answering a follow-up question. I agree that the estimate that could be made from the direct instrumentation of expired O2 that exists in electronically controlled rebreathers would eliminate most of the error in computing caloric consumption from using the estimate for VO2 based on VE possible for OC divers.

 

[nrengle]

If you use a app called LoseIt, it averages Scuba Diving out to 1 hour as being equal to 643 calories. Now I just use this as a guide as everyone is different. But if you really are doing an hour straight, that's not bad. You'll still burn more calories walking for an hour (at about 3mph) or so. Just use it as a guideline to help you moderate what you eat. If you do an hour of diving then go eat a BigMac, you haven't done squat for your health, besides eating a BigMac and clogging your arteries a little more. A BigMac (just the sandwich no extras) is 550 calories and 29 grams of fat. Now add the fries and the drink and whatever else to that. You've ate at least 1/4 to 1/2 of your daily caloric intake, and the 29 grams of fat is 50% of your daily allowance for fat... Also I find that with fast food I may feel full pretty quickly, it doesn't last nearly as long as what I cook at home.

 

[Ben Prusinski]

Well for me after a long dive trip I come back a few pounds lighter or stay same weight even if I eat and drink like crazy. When I dove 4-5 dives daily in Bonaire, I ate and drank plenty and came back few pounds lighter. Cold water diving is more intense and I burn even more diving Carmel/Monterey.

 

[stevensamler]

I was wondering, along with a lot of other people in our boat today...

Does anyone know how many calories, on average, diving burns? Obviously it varies from diver to diver and per environment but someone had to done some research on this?

Anyone have a ball park number per amount of time and temp?

All i know is after a day of diving i can eat a horse....

 

[EastEndDiver]

All i know is after a day of diving i can eat a horse....

Well that is good considering the way we "beat a dead horse" with some topics.

 

[stevensamler]

Being on a dive boat out at sea that pitches and rolls all day your body subconsciously tries to stay in a vertical position, thus the muscules are continuously working. I believe the body does the same whether you're vertical or horizontal in the water col. It may not seam like much of a workout but add water resistance, current , surge plus a 3 or 4 dive day it all adds up.

 

[chrpai]

Old thread but always relevant....

Scuba might not be the most exhaustive form of excercise known to man.... but it helped me drop 16lbs in the past year. Just the fact that I was out there doing *something* *anything* and not *sitting* on the couch *eating*.

This year I'm hoping to drop more.