Piggish Appetite on Dive Trip

[TravelDave]

I noticed on my last trip that I had a voracious appetite throughout the trip. Snacking after each dive and large meals. Fortunately, it went back to normal again quickly.

My question is whether I'm burning a lot of calories while diving. It doesn't feel like that much work (although it was all Bonaire shore diving, so arguably more work than boat diving), but I sure get hungry.

Looking forward to comments,
Dave

 

[BKP]

I think the pre- and post-dive activities are the killers (the dives are usually a piece of cake):
Lugging gear each way (unless you're on a liveaboard),
Setup and breakdown,
Trying to get back into that wet wetsuit after an extended SI,
Trying to get back *out* of that wetsuit after a 100 yard surface swim in 3-foot swells,
Washing/rinsing all that crap in the hotel room at the end of a four-dive day...

 

[pickens_46929]

Calories Burned During Exercise

It burns up a lot of calories depending upon how relaxed or active you are... anywhere between 400 and some, up to as many as 600 calories per hour.

Part of it is the fact that water is so dense you do fight with it, especially new divers. Another part is that unless it's in really really warm water, you're burning calories to stay warm too.

Then there's all the pre and post dive activities as BKP says...

 

[ronbeau]

I noticed on my last trip that I had a voracious appetite throughout the trip. Snacking after each dive and large meals. Fortunately, it went back to normal again quickly.

My question is whether I'm burning a lot of calories while diving. It doesn't feel like that much work (although it was all Bonaire shore diving, so arguably more work than boat diving), but I sure get hungry.

Looking forward to comments,
Dave

Did you gain any weight on the trip?

I think that is the true measure of whether you are burning off the calories or not.

 

[TravelDave]

Did you gain any weight on the trip?

I think that is the true measure of whether you are burning off the calories or not.

I came home at roughly the same place that I left (a couple of pound higher - within the margin of error). However, I also had a 3 day stopover on the way home that also had a fair amount of food.

We generally try to maintain a really calm pace under water. I do think the surface swims and gear hauling definitely burned a few cals.

 

[ClayJar]

After a day in the springs, I'm famished. After a day in the Gulf, I'm rather hungry, but not quite to famished. It seems that my caloric requirements are driven by heat loss. Then again, I'm not swimming hard (except when chasing students as a DM) or anything like that.

 

[TSandM]

I don't think diving itself burns many calories, unless you start to shiver (which burns a LOT). There is certainly some exertion involved in moving the gear around, but if you're diving off a resort boat, most of that is done by staff.

On the other hand, I just came home from a trip to the Yucatan, which involved five days of cave class and 7 days of cave diving. Admittedly, during class, we didn't eat all that much, but the second week we certainly ate normally, and I came home five pounds lighter. I think it was the several hours of swimming each day. Even though it wasn't swimming FAST, it was continuous exertion.

 

[DandyDon]

I eat about twice as much on a dive trip without gaining. Even in 80 F water, it's 98.6 so you'll lose some calories - more in colder water, plus the chilling afterwards. Add swimming, all the things BKP mentioned, sleeping in strange bed, eating different foods - I think it all adds up some.

 

[heligeek]

I have always found that I eat a nice filling meal following a deeper dive than a leisure dive.

However, I dive with Apollo Bio Fins so the swimming and surface swimming is not a factor.

The metabolic accelerators in diving is the differential between your body heat and the water, the increased amount of heat transfer with Water as opposed to Air, excess Nitrogen in your bloodstream, and general mental state for some.

Although, another factor to consider is you have no better way to exchange diving stories following a dive than around a table at Dave and Buster's.

 

[drl]

I'm always ravenous after diving, but I never gain weight on dive trips, so it must burn some calories! A lot of it is probably heat loss, but swimming for 4+ hours in a day, even slowly, has got to count for something (not to mention toning the glutes and hamstrings...)