- Right guys how much do we think 1000 calories is?
- Well Fraser I reckon it looks a little bit like this.
- Yeah.
- I mean I think yes I've got a salad
but hidden in here, I balance it out,
so I reckon I'm pretty close with my cake as well.
- Are you sure, I think I've got plenty.
- Yeah I think you've gone pretty hard there
on the calories, you've even got a raw haggis there Fraser.
- That's probably more then 1000 calories there.
- Yeah, it does seem--
- Well it goes to show how easy it is to consume
1000 calories, particularly when it's food that you enjoy
but then how easy is it to actually burn off
those 1000 calories?
- Or more specifically what is the quickest way
to burn off 1000 calories.
(tinkling electronic music)
- Right well I'm first to arrive
and having enjoyed our picnic yesterday
and having time to digest it, it's now become
a little bit of a challenge who can burn off
those 1000 calories the fastest.
Now I'm pretty confident here, no offense to the guys
but in classic Mark fashion I am gonna go all out
from the off and just hang on, and actually to add to that
I thought I'd throw a bit of altitude into this
so I brought an altitude mask along,
so I'm gonna be running at 3000 meters.
1000 calories here you come.
- Oh what you doing Mark?
(muffled speaking through mask)
- No I won't talk with that on.
(laughing)
- What's going on here, what are you doing?
- Well, getting ready for this 1000 calorie challenge.
- Yeah, what's the mask all about?
- So, I'm gonna try and make it harder for myself
so I'm gonna be running at 3000 meters.
- What you think that's gonna get it do you?
Well I mean you've got to raise your heart rate
to burn your calories haven't you.
So I mean a slightly easier way of doing it.
- Oh I see what you're doing, right,
so you're gonna get the adrenaline.
- Morning coffee and a few more shots,
you know, gonna just be burning calories
whilst I'm standing here.
- And what's your plan of attack for the actual run?
- Well you know I've got this so I'm gonna be
doing a, flying down the cycle path.
So I'm gonna be adding a bit of resistance
and I'm gonna be doing intervals as well.
- Ah so you think that's gonna work.
- I'm gonna be really working hard,
having a bit of a rest, but my heart rate
will stay high between, and whilst I'm chilling out
between my intervals I'm still gonna be working
as hard as you are.
- Okay alright.
- I missed all that, what's your idea
of burning these calories here?
I mean what is this?
- I've got an altitude mask, I'm gonna run
as hard as I can for as long as I can.
- I'm just sitting drinking coffee Fraser.
- Go on then what are you doing.
- Easy option.
- Look how much clothes I've got on,
I'm gonna be so hot I'm gonna burn these calories,
they're gonna melt off me.
I've got double layer trousers, I've got three tops on.
- How are you going to move Fraser?
- Yeah well--
- He's gonna barely make it a K down the road.
- But I'll burn a lot of calories quickly.
- Scottish man in all these clothes,
good luck mate.
- Yeah you too, and you.
- Thanks.
(upbeat music)
- So before we go any further we better discuss
what a calorie is.
So a calorie is a unit of energy,
and the calorie with a small c represents
the amount of energy required to heat one gram of water
by a temperature of one degree celsius
at a pressure of one atmosphere.
However what you'll usually hear people talking about
are kilocalories and they're 1000 of these small calories,
and it is kilocalories that we will be referring too
throughout this video when we're talking about the fuel
we need to burn which comes from the fats,
carbs and proteins that we eat.
(gentle tinkling music)
- Well guys I mean I think I need to head up the road
because I need a little bit of a head start with this
because I'm a little bit slower.
Women tend to burn calories a little bit slower
then the guys so I'm gonna go and start,
see you in a bit.
- Best of luck. - Good luck.
- You're gonna need it. - See you guys.
- Right now Heather's head off up the road,
probably explain things a little bit here
because as Heather's eluded to we all burn calories
at different rates and women tend to burn calories
at a slightly slower rate then men,
and also Fraser and myself will burn calories
at different rates too.
- Yeah I mean we're all different heights,
weights, maximum heart rates, threshold paces
that we can run and burn those calories at.
So we need to figure out roughly how long
we're all gonna take to do that right.
- Yeah so we've used our threshold paces
as kind of a base, and that's essentially
looking at how many calories we burn
at those threshold paces, and conveniently
Fraser and myself have a very similar threshold pace
so we've taken a recent session we've done
at that threshold pace and projected that
so it works out about 50 minutes for myself
to burn 1000 calories and Fraser around 55 minutes.
Whereas for Heather it will take her roughly around,
an hour and a half to burn those 1000 calories.
So if we were to head off all together
by the time that we'd burnt off those 1000 calories
Heather would only be at around 700 calories.
- So that's why we've sent her off to start with right
isn't it, to make sure she can burn that 300 deficit
that she has on us right.
- Yep so she's gonna head out for 150 calories
and then head back and then we'll all start.
You're gonna have obviously a little bit
of a head start on me as well, so you'll head off and back
but in theory we're all gonna start together
and all be on a level playing field.
- [Fraser] Yep so as Mark eluded to, to make the start fair
I need to head off for an extra five minutes
so we're all approximately at the same
calorie starting point.
- Alright Fraser time has gone.
- Five minutes on you right?
- Yeah, out for two and a half, back for two and a half.
- I'm off right.
- Good luck.
He's gonna struggle.
Well today we are running out and back on a section
of the Bristol to Bath cycle path, why?
Because it's nice and straight, and almost pan flat
with an elevation gain of just 62 meters,
perfect for ensuring we all stick with our own plans,
although we are obviously aware that different methods
work better for different people,
but this is good fun nonetheless.
- Right 300 calories I'm done, well I'm not done
but I'm ready to go.
- 70 calories done.
- That worked out well didn't it.
- Yeah, you've done 300.
- Well in theory we're now at a level playing field
so I think it's time to put our different tactics
to the test.
(suspenseful music)
Alright okay here we go, good luck guys.
- You getting a push.
I'm not sure these guys really understand
how to burn calories quickly and sensibly.
I mean Heather's using coffee, well yeah
that's a good enough idea but it's just gonna
wake her up I don't really think
that's gonna help burn calories over an hour and a half.
Mark he's trying to run at altitude,
Mark's never trained at altitude,
I don't think he realized how hard that is,
he's gonna fall off the edge of a cliff
and then he's just gonna struggle.
Not gonna burn the calories quickly.
I'm just running with lots of clothes on,
that's not fun, that's gonna burn loads of calories
so I'm pretty sure I've got this.
I am melting, really struggling to cope
with all these layers and run at a good pace.
(gentle music)
- So for this video we're all using
the Polar Advantage watches to display our calories
as we're burning them during the run.
Now before this we've all gone into the Polar Flow App
and made sure that our details are correct.
So things like our weight, our height, our age,
our resting heart rate, our maximal heart rate,
and even our maximal oxygen uptake which is our VO2,
and also our gender just to make sure.
And once all that's in there we can then use
the Polar Smart Calorie algorithm which uses
risk based acceleration and our heart rate
to calculate and continually display
that all important calorie usage.
- Back to the race and it appears Fraser is catching me up
on the calorie count and I'm starting to struggle
a little myself, so I think it's time
to change the tactics here.
Started on 300 calories, obviously,
I'm now at 340, this is gonna be a long session.
I've lost a bit of the drag, still got baggy t-shirt
and I don't think there's enough wind,
so for the mental effort that it was taking
having that on my shoulder I don't reckon
it was worth it for the calorie burn.
I'm relying on hard work, coffee and maybe the fact
that I had a couple of drinks last night,
hoping that raised my metabolism.
- I have got this one in the bag, Fraser started
is going to be overheating, he is going to be sweating out
I think he will be lucky if he makes it through
a few K before he's stripping all those clothes off.
- So I've had to jettison my jumper and my hat,
because I was really, really trying to struggle
to hold any sort of pace or actually any type
of run form as well.
- Heather that caffeine's gonna burn out at some point soon
and her heart rate's gonna drop and she's gonna struggle
to burn those calories.
Her interval session, I don't think it's got
anything on me just running hard for literally
the whole entire time, and I can hurt myself,
I will go hard until those 1000 calories are burned.
Yeah I might have bitten off more then I can chew
with this mask idea, 3000 meters, it's quite hard
it would appear.
(upbeat music)
Settling into the race and my method has meant
I've pulled ahead of the others on the road
but still have a little way to go with the calories
after their head starts.
But was we're showing quite clearly we all burn calories
at different rates.
- Well we've already covered the difference
in metabolisms and also physical factors such as height,
age, gender et cetera.
But then there's other factors such as the air temperature,
if it's really hot or if it's really cold.
And then the physical stresses, if you're stressed
or if you've got fear that will also increase
the rate at which you burn calories,
as will altitude, also if you've got an illness
or a certain injury as well as some drugs,
and another factor which gives Mark a bit of an advantage
if you've got an increase in lean body mass
that will also help the rate at which you burn calories.
(upbeat guitar music)
Well I think Fraser's already caught me up
on the calorie count and he's running steady,
it's not really fair.
- I'm currently at 820 inside the last 5th
and I am regretting saying yes I would do this.
(bleep) hot.
- I've just received an update,
Fraser is really struggling, had to ditch
all his kit on the side of the road,
hopefully not all of it, and Heather,
well she's had a bit of a cold,
she's struggling to do those intervals.
So looks like I've got this one sealed up nicely.
Alright end of the line, well kind of,
half way anyway.
Right back we go.
- Well I'm past Mark, I think he was 150 calories
behind me so we could end up being fairly similar
but Fraser when he passed me, he was only like
20 calories behind me.
(speaking off camera)
Oh bugger, excuse my language, oh fuck I've got 182.
- With Fraser extending a lead and Heather and myself
being very close I realized I needed
to up my pace somehow.
If I wanted to beat Fraser to 1000 calories
this was my only way now.
I think my calculations earlier were a little off.
But yeah I think there's some interesting science
behind this because I obviously have been running
for near to an hour, over an hour,
can only hold threshold for so long,
so my heart rates gonna reflect that.
It's not gonna be through the roof
because I need to maintain that,
so yeah I think obviously conserving the calories almost
going at threshold, but it's been a really interesting study
very close to finishing now.
- [Fraser] So at this point in the closing stages
I realized that the extra layers had actually caused
my heart rate to spike to such an extent
that there was no coming back from it,
no matter how much I backed the pace off.
However ironically this seemed to play in my favor
as it actually accelerated my calorie burn rate,
which resulted in my hitting that 1000 calorie marker
sooner then anticipated.
- [Mark] Finally 1000 calories, after running at around
threshold pace for around an hour I was watching
every one of those calories tick by towards the end,
that hurt a lot.
- [Heather] Oh wow, I was relieved for that to end,
it ended up being a total of 13 lots
of one kilometer efforts, and I was really
starting to feel it, that's the biggest run session
I've actually ever done.
- Wow guys that is not something I wanna repeat
anytime soon, again but what was the fastest way
of burning 1000 calories then?
- Well I think we all know who won the challenge,
which tactic won the challenge, come on Fraser.
- I don't feel like I won anything
because that was really hard work but yeah,
layering up definitely meant that I burned calories
quicker then I expected too I think.
- Well out of interest what was your heart rate,
what did you find it sitting at?
- Average heart rate was sitting about 195
which is really-- - Average.
- Yeah, yeah towards the end, so really quite high.
- That doesn't sound healthy.
- No it's not, and I think what happened was,
effectively I was able to run at a good pace
for maybe 15 or 20 minutes, which is fine,
but then the fact that I was wearing all those layers
caught up with me, the heart rate spiked
and then I was never able to drop it back down
even though I did--
- But you didn't need too, that's great for the challenge.
- Yeah, but for-- - That meant that you
had to run for the least amount of time.
- Yeah it did but in a much more uncomfortable state.
- Well it seems like the boxers are on to something then.
For myself yeah, my heart rate spiked at the start
because of the mask but that was just,
as much as I wanted to carry on with the mask
I was spinning out, I felt light headed,
I was at 3000 meters and I'm really unfit at the moment.
So took that off and my heart rate was just steady eddie
and I guess actually on reflection I was running
at threshold, or trying to run as fast as I could
for as long as I could, and that ended up
threshold pace which is something that's sustainable
for about an hour.
So my heart rate reflected that which wasn't anything crazy,
it was around 150.
- Lucky you. - Well yeah.
- Did you notice your calories burning faster
whilst you had the mask on,
or was it just too early to tell?
- No I think it did because then it steadied out
a little bit after that, but yeah it wasn't
what I expected because I really felt like I worked hard
but yeah interesting though.
It's not exact science let's be honest,
but interesting, how about yourself?
- I was disappointed with how long
I had to keep doing these K reps,
and I thought that was gonna burn it quicker,
my calories were moving quicker towards the end
so I think as a result that I'm probably
still burning calories afterwards.
So the training effect and the actual burn effect afterwards
is longer lasting and it's a good session I suppose.
But I think it would be really interesting
if we could go and do all of these actually
with a VO2 test with a mask on,
and actually have a VO2 test and your exact calories
because obviously, as we said, it's not an exact science.
But definitely been interesting, and if you did
purely just want to burn the calories,
then I think Fraser's method works.
- Not recommended to everyone.
- I wouldn't try it at home, definitely not.
- Fraser I'd love to know how much weight you lost,
or how much fluid you lost.
- We drank a lot when we got to the finish for sure.
- Yeah, well guys if you like this video
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- And if you wanna see another presenter challenge
where we actually work together as a team
to conquer the Lanzarote course record
well that is just down here.