The Big Mac. Love it or hate it, 2.4 million of them are sold EVERY DAY! If you eat one, how long does it take to actually burn it off? Using some well-established science and a power meter to record energy output, Si has been finding out! We also cover two really important things you need to know about calories along the way and one big problem!
Welcome 0:00
How many calories in a Big Mac 1:02
Burning calories 2:13
Measuring the calories you burn 2:43
How fast can we burn calories 4:57
How quickly do pro cyclists burn calories 7:19
The 1 big problem with burning calories 8:40
How long did it take… 10:00
The verdict 10:52
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My heart saves so the Big Mac the granddaddy of fast food love it or hate it 2.4 million of these are sold every day cheap basically devoid of nutrients and packed full of calories but if you eat one how long will it take to burn turn it
Off I’m going to find out using some wellestablished science and a power meter to record my energy output we can see just how long it takes and not just for me but for a pro cyclist for an amateur and for a total beginner but we’ll also cover two really important
Things that you need to know about energy expenditure and exercise and one very big problem with calories let’s start with the eating bit a Big Mac itself contains apparently 493 kilo calories that’s 25% of your daily calorific intake but who eats just a Big Mac with fries that’s another
337 and a coke medium apparently that’s another 170 so in total that’s 1,000 kilo calories just there although intriguingly McDonald say it’s 1,80 or 1,120 depending on which bit of the web page you’re looking At so that is half of your daily calorific intake and 60% of your salt and 120% of your sugar excuse me better get Riding right then let’s see how quickly we can do this the added incentive of course is the fact that it’s raining and the weather is only going to get worse so frankly I wish I’d swapped out the fries for that little side salary thing that no one has ever ordered ever but
Anyway 1,000 calories coming Up now the cool thing about this Wahoo hedging on here is I’ve got calorie counter that works off power and not off heart rate it does go up slowly 23 24 25 literally the definition of calorie counting typically on a smart watch or something similar your heart rate is used as a gauge of how hard you’re trying and then when it’s combined with your age your height your weight and so forth it can calculate an estimation of
Calories burned however it is pretty crap potentially over or underere eaing by as much as 40% on a bike with a diameter you can accurately measure exactly how much energy you are putting into the pedals this measures power in Watts one watt of power is one Jewel of energy per
Second a calorie is also a measurement of energy and is equivalent to 4.18 Jew so 1,080 kilo calories in your Big Mac m means 4514 million jewles how however there is one more thing that we need to factor in and that is that we humans are pretty
Inefficient so for every Jewel of energy that I’m putting through the pedals I’m actually burning four times that amount and most of it it just being given off as heat which to be fair I am quite glad about that’s 100 calories in 4 and 1/2 minutes at one watt then it would take
800 30 hours of cycling to burn the energy contained within a Big Mac meal the Crux of this video then is how many watts of power you can sustain for as long as possible an untrained person might be able to do 100 Watts for an hour a professional over four times that
Basically I just need to try as hard as I can to get the best average power that I can I’m quite hungry now while I’m out on the bike there are two really important points that we need to cover firstly a lot of people think and I certainly did that a well-trained
Really experienced cyclist is like a finely tuned machine with Incredible efficiency and that a beginner cyclist would be the opposite but no a lot of research has shown that the efficiency of the very best cyclist is basically the same as complete beginners untrained people people now this is really
Important because what it means is that a pro cyclist is not burning fewer calories than you because they’re so good no broadly speaking how fast you burn energy is entirely related to how hard you can press on the pedals so the fitter you are the easier and faster you
Can burn calories it’s quite addictive actually looking at this calories per hour data I’ve got to kind of temper it with the reality of what I can actually do for an hour so I’m sat at about 1,300 at a minute which might be a bit optimistic I’ll let you know an untrained normal
Person who’s asked to jump on a bike and ride might be able to produce up to 100 Watts that power would take 2 hours and 24 minutes of continuous cycling to burn off a Big Mac that is a big ask and way more than most people could do in a week
An average cyclist might be able to produce double that power so at 200 wats it would take 1 hour and 12 minutes to burn 1,080 kilo calories it’s easy to see why from this statistic just how hard it is for unfit people to lose weight through exercise and equally just
How hard it is for fit and active people to empathize with that situation now I currently averaging about 340 so at this rate it’s going to take me a little over 40 minutes to complete if I was a pro cyclist well depends how good I am and also depends
How tall the pro Cyprus is cuz there’s a big variety of sizes all are featherweights but some are bigger and more powerful than others however a rider like the Italian filipo Gana who is notoriously powerful having ridden further in one hour than any other human before and astonishing 56.79
2 km if you were wondering averaged 440 Watts for that effort which means that he actually burned off two Big Mac Ms in that hour 10 to Go three 2 one yay there we go well not going to lie that was Bloody good fun I can think of better ride fuel but ah that was good fun now before I give you my results I did say at the beginning that it was one big problem
With calories a very important point to know whilst it might be a meaningful unit of energy when it comes to nutrition it’s absolutely not how many calories were there in this this Big Mac meal well no one actually knows calculating calories in food is an approximation at best secondly research
Has shown time and again that what type of food you’re eating and how that food is prepared dramatically Alters how much energy you can absorb from that food in the case of an ultr processed Big Mac you can bet quite a lot and then also there’s your own microbiome that
Dramatically Alters is how you absorb and process food so whilst you can technically see exactly how long it would take to burn a certain amount of energy through cycling does it have anything to do with a Big Mac you’ve just eaten no the fact is that Ultra
Processed food is designed to taste good and not do you good furthermore we’re increasingly coming to realize that counting calories itself is not an effective way of helping you to lose weight or manage your diet so what did I do well it took me 51 minutes 38 seconds to apparently burn
1,080 kilo calories which is roughly approximate to a Big Mac meal um as for regular viewers of gcn you might be wondering how I ate a Big Mac meal seeing as I’m a Celiac and B vegetarian fortunately we found a stunt person who was willing to have the Big Mac for me
This is gcn stunt man for the day taking one for the team how is it John oh it’s a hard trip it really is one thing we learned is that you can’t buy a Big Mac meal before 11:00 is a Big Mac all what time you starting serving lunch please or
Like I think we’ve just shown our McDonald’s naivity it’s breakfast right so what is the take- home message from this then well after all of that frankly is to forget about about calories counting calories does not work and also those two really important points which is that actually better cyclists do not
Burn fewer calories but it’s all about how much power you can put through those pedals it might be less might be more than you thought now I’d be super interested to know what you think about this video so please get involved in the comment section down below I look
Forward to reading all of those and if you’ve enjoyed it as always please give it a big thumbs up
33 Comments
🍽What food should we try and burn off next?! Let us know 👇
The better idea is to fuel your body with food and not corporate rubbish.
I'd be more concerned about the toxicity of the 'food' than its calorie content!
Just, what’s the answer? Why 15mins video just to say?
This kind of ultra-processed food is designed to not sate your hunger, while still hitting all the dopamine receptors – all so you go back for more. In terms of counting calories, it works because when you're counting you eat more calorie dense food. Try eating 1000 calories of broccoli!
I have lost 40kg just by counting calories and riding my bike! So I would have to disagree with what you just said! Counting calories is really efficient.
So that thing counts kcal or cal?
Counting is usefull mostly to show someone how much calories things have. People have no idea.
But I still like my Big Macs. 😃
Interesting 🤔
I never eat BigMac , 😮
I think an average person can burn a Big Mac in 1.5 hrs .
I'd like to see someone actually eat the Big Mac then jump on a bike and ride it off. I'm guessing the gut cramps would keep the power output lower resulting in much longer time to burn through the calories.
Normally I love GCN videos, but this video is just dumb.. like calories don't matter HUH?
That'll definitely be a controversial statement here "Calorie counting does not work", since many people have come to realise that maintaining calorie deficit is important for weight loss. But you're right from that perspective – what's more important from the perspective of increasing fitness? That'll definitely be nutrients and exercise instead.
I hate losing pounds, I'm poor enough as it is!
Instead I leave them.
I go to were they are, the pantry and fridge open the door and then leave the food and pounds where they are.
Skip the fries and coke and eat two big Mac's! Less calories more satisfying!
As a cyclist for years and years I have no idea how you average those speeds! After a couple of decades of regular cycling at least 5 times a week my average speed is still about 25/27 kph!
I’ve switched over to my fat bike for cycling on snow and ice. The bike is big, weighs a lot, and combined with the fat tires on a soft surface the first month of cycling makes me feel like I’m out of shape even after cycling road and mountain bikes all year.
I’m really curious at how many more calories you burn on a fat bike under those conditions than a road bike. My guess is 4x the amount based on how a 10 km ride feels like 40 on a road bike
But just wild guess. I’m usually out for 90 min to 2.5 hrs with average speed a whopping 10 km/hr. I’m ravenous when I get back and I slowly lose weight all winter (usually).
Counting calories is more about the limit you put yourself on a daily basis than the actual amount of calories you burn each day. Maybe it's not mathematically accurate but the effect of controlling your calorie intake is the beneficial part of the process that actually starts to make results as you progress each day.
Is there any correlation with just distance? Would see that someone of the same weight putting out lower power and traversing the same distance would burn the same calories? It just takes longer?
Isn’t work just force x distance?
Just curious.
Is better bicycles better for burning calories? They are better for competition and going faster, further. But riding worse bicycles will require more energy to ride it. No? Put a driver on different bikes, different surfaces etc for an hour and find out when he spent more energy! Flat route or with hills.
9:50 is absolutely bogus. I think what you meant to say is that everyone responds differently to 'the same' caloric intake and so a diet that works for one person may not necessarily work the same way for another person. However, watching your caloric intake to lose weight ALWAYS works – especially when you track what type of calorie you're eating. If you need proof, just do the opposite. Eat 5,000 calories a day and let me know what happens.
I have about 700 PowerZone rides (min 45 minutes, max 90) under my belt. My FTP is around 240 and my Zone 3 average is around 200 watts. I probably need to retest and think 240 is a little low for me now. Just watching you cruise at 350 watts is mind blowing and am always in awe of the pro's. I feel pretty good getting 700Kw on a 60 minute endurance ride and consider myself to be a fit at-home person. So yeah, probably would take a fit person approx 90 minutes or so to burn that BigMac off.
Great content!!
lol they literally pressurize a chamber and set things on fire to figure out rough calories… and then you take those minimal units, determine the composition of the food and then multiply your macros by the defined amounts ez pz… except no one keeps an active tally of the % fat content of a McDonalds burger… so the %'s could be really off one way or the other.. not to mention protein in and of itself is not actually a general source of energy as it requires calories to process and the fat is stored and not used… so the only actual meaningful interpretation of burning calories is that if you run a rough calorie deficit.. you are likely going to lose weight.. eventually.
This is so helpful as I am trying to be a better fit cyclist. Thank You!
Well a fit rider has to start some where! As long as you’re not in the couch! And I am a fatso!
Hell just from the table to the toilet McDonald’s runs right through you. I usually eat about six eggs before I go riding and maybe a cliff bar and a Gatorade afterwards.
490 in the UK I think a number one in USA is like 1700cal and 21 grams of protein
Its not even the fact that you need to go far, its based off of physical build
so, now you are getting close to my current wormhole…which happened when I listened to Dr. Robert Lustig on the Huberman Labs podcast — in general hitting on highly processed foods but at a core of it is Fructose and Sucrose with Fructose being introduced as enemy #1….so then I think wait, what makes up all these gels I suck down and is this the new "doping" model…we are trading off performance gains now but riders will have long term health issues caused by destroying their gut microbiome, etc….
You can't out exercise your mouth
"Counting calories does not work" is too broad of a statement to make. There's a lot of context going into whether or not it's useful as a tool for aiding in weight loss. However, I agree with the overall sentiment that just crunching the numbers and forgetting about that context altogether, usually isn't very useful. 🙂
My biggest frustration with cycling since picking it up as something to support my running is just how naff it feels for burning calories. At best I will burn 50-60% of what I'd burn from running in the same time. As for the counting calories part, this is exactly what I've been doing for weight loss and whenever I do stick to it (including allowing myself to eat the calories I burn from exercise) I see consistent results.