We’re all familiar with that certain sting of guilt that comes after a good meal that
was -- let’s face it -- way too much.
Most of us are trying to maintain our health and level of fitness, while the media is teaming
with warnings about extra calories.
But, let’s have some fun and face our diet fears at their worst – what would happen
if you ate 100,000 calories in a single day?
Is that even possible?
Without too much joking around, which is hard for me as you know, I wouldn’t hesitate
to put this question in the territory of insane theories.
Why?
Well, let’s try to get a picture of what 100,000 calories would really look like for
us.
How about 164 hot fudge sundaes?
Ooh!
There are worse ways to go.
But wait I’m getting ahead of myself.
Calories are generally a unit of measurement used to determine the amount of energy contained
inside of something.
Just like rocket fuel provides the rocket with energy – people use food for fuel.
And the food is so rich with energy, that what we usually call 1 Cal – with a capital
C - is 1 kcal (Kilocalories), which is equal to 1,000 calories.
So it turns out, we’re talking about 100,000 calories here, but still, to avoid any misunderstanding,
let’s stick to the measurement we’re used to.
An average human burns 2,500 calories throughout the day, depending on their size and metabolism.
That’s more than enough energy to boil a little under 2 gallons of water.
This happens because your body is constantly busy: the heart is pumping, there’s food
you need to digest, and your brain, which is the hungriest part of your body, uses 320
calories alone during your average day.
Imagine what happens when you have a test tomorrow and really need to go through everything
you’ve been studying for months.
No wonder students often look hungry.
You need to consume relatively the same 2,500 calories in a day to maintain yourself in
the same shape you currently are.
And most of the time, this happens naturally – it’s all balanced by you just feeling
full enough to go on with your day as usual.
Now, try to compare this number to the literal mountain of food that is 100,000 calories.
Already, an idea about eating this much is hard to envision.
100,000 calories is an energy value of 42 gallons of whole milk – that’s a bathtub
filled to the brim with milk we’re talking about.
That would be a pepperoni pizza roughly 100 ft in diameter.
Or, if you prefer burgers, it would about 300 reasonably sized cheeseburgers.
Do you still think it’s even possible to eat that much?
If yes, then you need to consider your future as an absolute champion in competitive eating.
There are a lot of them around the globe; hundreds of people challenge their stomachs
to prove that they can eat thousands of calories in record time.
Some even take it as an integral part of their lifestyle, and compete in as many competitions
as they can, sometimes traveling great distances.
The champions among them claim to have eaten up to 200,000 calories during one such tour
from one contest to another.
In July 2018, one champion broke the world record by eating 19 and a quarter 9-inch pizzas
in 10 minutes!
And how about 74 hot dogs?
That’s another record by the man that won the hot dog eating competition 11 times!
One competitive eater stated that he once chewed his way through as much as 20,000 calories
in one meal.
That’s more than impressive, but still only meets one-fifth of our goal.
Well, another one chewed through 100,000 calories, but in 4 different competitions put together.
So we have our answer to one of the questions: it’s absolutely impossible to eat 100,000
calories in one go.
You may think that those people have to be in really bad shape, but prepare your stereotypes
to get crushed.
Even though these people spend their lives eating tons of stuff regularly, they know
all too well about how bad this can be for the human body.
In fact, they’re surprisingly fit, spending most of their days eating pretty humble meals
and doing a ton of hardcore workouts in a gym.
You need to compensate for championships like this, I guess.
Their training also involves swallowing gallons of water, or eating several watermelons in
one sitting to stretch their tummies.
And we’re not even considering what happens at the other end with all this food.
There is one catch though – an average human stomach can hold just 1 gallon of water, and
the old principle of ‘if it fits it sits’ won’t work here.
It may fit, but it won’t sit for long.
Water intoxication is a real thing, and no one wants to deal with it.
Just like no one would try to eat a mountain made of burgers or hot dogs.
Remember, anything even remotely close to the competitive eating standards of over 10,000
calories is extremely dangerous, and can be approached only by trained people.
Several circumstances might help an average person to consume more food than usual, though.
For example, men can naturally eat more than women, and a growing and maturing teenager
can eat much more than just about anyone.
Just look at my food bill for the month.
Yikes.
It’s also important to take into account the weight and height of a person.
Athletes that burn a lot of calories during training may choose a diet that would be excessive
for anyone who doesn’t want to build a lot of muscles in a short time.
The sensation of the Olympic Games, American swimmer Michael Phelps, who is a record holder
in many categories due to his 28 medals total, with 23 of them being gold, holds another
record in a surprising field – he’s also an eater of Olympic scale.
Allegedly, he was consuming 12,000 calories per day during training days.
Three fried eggs, toast with a lot of vegetables, a five-egg omelet, three French toasts, a
bowl of grits and two cups of coffee – that’s just breakfast!
His lunch would consist of about a pound of pasta and two large sandwiches.
And dinner would be just as huge with a pizza on top of everything else.
As the man himself said after winning another gold medal, all he has time to do is eat,
sleep and swim.
He was swimming 5 hours a day to burn all he devoured.
But that wouldn’t be enough for you and me to burn this much energy.
There are two reasons why Michael can: First, because Michael is a top performer.
If all of his medals don’t speak for themselves – nobody else in the world can swim like
he does.
And second, it was proved that Michael Phelps is the happy owner of an exceptional physique
– his metabolism is far faster than that of a regular person.
That means he burns a lot more calories than the average person, even when he’s not swimming
as much.
For an ordinary person, anything beyond 2,500 calories per day would lead to gaining excess
weight.
This is how it happens: anything that our body can’t make good use of immediately,
will get put away for later.
This is the natural way to stack energy for a rainy day, kinda like how we save money
in the bank for future use.
Except our bodies don’t accept cash and they use that space right under the skin as
a bank.
Yes, you guessed it, I’m talking about fat.
Every bit of energy, in organic form, that our body can’t burn or reconstruct into
helpful stuff like muscles, will get saved for later in the form of fat.
To be precise, every 3,500 calories that didn’t find good use will transform into 1 pound
of fat.
And since we already know that it’s impossible to eat 100,000 calories, let’s go further
into the crazy land of completely hypothetical situations.
100,000 calories worth of food would be equal to 29 pounds of pure fat.
If this sounds scary, then consider the following: having body fat is only half of the problem,
the real problems begin when around 10% of this fat turns into so-called visceral fat.
This fat can directly affect the work of internal organs.
For example, it can push on the lungs from the inside and cause shortness of breath.
An overweight person is also more likely to have problems with internal balance, sweating,
and most of all – with the heart pumping like it’s going to blow up.
Still, it’s important to remember that we’re all human; and having a little guilty pleasure
with your favorite snack or occasional junk food is just as much a part of being happy
as keeping yourself fit and healthy.
Having some fat is not a reason to worry – your body needs it after all.
And even if you’ve gained a bit too much, you can always make some adjustments and work
it out!
What’s the largest meal you’ve ever eaten in your life?
Let me know down in the comments!
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