> A milkshake is worth an hour's worth of treadmill work.

Not even. The Five Guys base milkshake is 870 calories before adding any mix-ins or whipped cream[1].

An hour on a treadmill at 6 mph for a 150 lb person is 567 calories net (exclusive of basal metabolism), 675 calories total (inclusive of basal metabolism)[2].

[1] http://www.fiveguys.com/-/media/Public-Site/Files/NutritionA...

[2] https://www.runnersworld.com/weight-loss/how-many-calories-a...

A hack I like to do with treadmills is to go 1.5-2 miles per hour and have an incline of 20-30%. You burn 600-800 calories but your going at walking speed. I call it the hiking simulator.

I've never seen a treadmill that goes over 15% grade. 30% is almost a stair stepper.

Ah it is a pretty unique treadmill: https://www.freemotionfitness.com/cardio/incline-trainers

They call it an incline trainer

With stair steppers I found it a lot harder to sustain it for the same nominal calorie count. But going up a %30 incline vs a stair stepper might be the same difference between an elliptical vs running.

And at 9 mph, they will burn over 1,000 kcal.

https://www.runnersworld.com/tools/calories-burned-calculato...

6:40 per mile is a pretty intense pace for most people to keep up for an hour.

Most people don't run much. Just as with hiking, strength straining, gymnastics and other sport, ability grows with training.

Another option is simply running longer. Few people who aren't overweight couldn't train up to 90 minutes. Given that there's overhead in showering and changing clothes, going longer, fewer days per week does have an efficiency of sorts.

Edit: Ideally one avoids having a completely irresponsible diet, however just training can do a lot and can also blunt the appetite after a certain threshold.

Running a 6:40 mile for an hour is outside of what most dedicated runners can achieve.

Don't be ridiculous. Ed Whitlock ran that pace for an entire marathon at the age of 73.

If you're dedicated, under 50, free of serious ailments and anywhere near the weight range this thread used as an example, it's something you can almost definitely achieve for a single hour.

I completely agree about not being able to out work a bad diet. On the other hand, cardio activity actually reduces my appetite and fills me up faster, and thus I believe that cardio helps more in that area relative to the actual burning of calories.

Exercise and a good diet are virtuous cycle. However, as someone who runs a lot (7-14 hours/week), I can tell you that there is such a thing as being rungry. I actually find it easier to lose weight when I'm on the lower end of my mileage range.

Also, it's easy to think "I ran so much, now I can eat more," which is a dangerous trap.

Then how did Courtney Dauwalter recently win the MOAB 240 race in Utah by over eight hours on a diet of nachos, candy and beer? She eats far more calories than a normal human could and is establishing new high marks in performance along the way. Not even the Tarahumara have put up her kind of numbers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8DfjXnIk6c

A single hour on the treadmill will burn over 1,000 kcal for most somewhat fit people. It also increases their insulin sensitivity. The truth is most westerners and especially Americans are far too sedentary.

It is difficult to outwork a bad diet. If you are doing a 238 mile long race, you have very different dietary considerations than most people; and quite likely have a diet designed to maximize caloric intake.

A large chocolate shake from mcdonalds is 850 kcal. By your estimate, this is is 51 minutes of work to burn off. Possible, yes. Useful if you need the calories to run 240 miles, yes. Easier than not having the shake in the first place, no.

I'm not sure what you're getting at. She doesn't eat/drink those things all the time.

Michael Phelps ate an enormous amount of food too for his training too, and he trained very hard. I sincerely doubt him or Courtney devour that many calories when not in training or trying to run for five plus days straight.

Short term gorging yourself for fuel is sometimes necessary, but it's dishonest to propose that means a diet of nachos, candy and beer is somehow healthy. If everyone was doing the MOAB all the time that's a different story.

You're definitely not wrong, but consistent long term training does keep you at a higher metabolic rate.

I run pretty frequently (nothing like a ultra competition like that, though) and I can consistently eat ~3kcal a day and not gain a pound, even when maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of those days don't involve training.

To be fair, I'm still young, and probably have a genetic predisposition to burning a lot of calories, but I still think it's fair to say that consistent training results in a generally higher caloric intake even when not training.

The only thing I was pointing out is that people can, in fact, "outwork a bad diet". It's not easy, but it's not impossible either.

Where did you get that number? Unless you are doing some hardcore HIT, or doing olympic level running, you will never burn 1000 cal in a hour or running. Very few people can maintain 8+ mph for a whole hour.

"Like it or not, running makes for a really great cardio workout: Maintain a six-mile per hour pace, and you'll burn upwards of 557* calories in one hour! And even if running that fast for that long seems like a bit of a stretch, you can still burn an impressive 398 calories per hour by jogging."

I've done it myself, even when out of shape. The heavier you are the slower you need to go to burn that much. If you weigh 100 kilos and run a 10k in an hour, that's over 1,000 kcal. Lighter people burn less per km but we can run faster, too. HIT burns less but can give a nice metabolic boost.

Check runners world or a calculator of your choice.

https://www.runnersworld.com/tools/calories-burned-calculato...

One thing I notice from this Trail Runner article about her win is that "she wouldn't sleep much during the 57 hours she was on course," to the point of hallucination:

http://trailrunnermag.com/people/news/courtney-dauwalter-win...

I gather this was the first year for this event, so the other racers may have been more conservative in that regard.

She doesn't eat that during the race...

> Some diets are more for short term benefit than others, like keto

I've been on keto for ten months, and have lost ~70 pounds. I don't see it as a short-term change; I intend to spend the rest of my life either in ketosis or regularly spending time in that state.