How many calories does diving burn?

[Ben Prusinski]

It really depends on how much of a surface swim you have to the dive site! Case in point, its not much for most boat dives I've done. However, this weekend, I completed a shore dive to Metridium in cold water Monterey and had a massive 500+ yard surface swim to and from the dive site! I dropped like 3 pounds and 1% bodyfat! So if you have massive surface swim it can burn tons. Otherwise, not much.

 

[Hatul]

It really depends on how much of a surface swim you have to the dive site! Case in point, its not much for most boat dives I've done. However, this weekend, I completed a shore dive to Metridium in cold water Monterey and had a massive 500+ yard surface swim to and from the dive site! I dropped like 3 pounds and 1% bodyfat! So if you have massive surface swim it can burn tons. Otherwise, not much.

You should market this as a weight-loss breakthrough with an infomercial.

 

[Ben Prusinski]

@Hatul,

Yeah thats my next business idea
Scuba diving is addicting and expensive- need way to finance the habit

 

[Thalassamania]

Skindiving, scuba diving, general 8 cal per minute according to FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal, I know that it makes me ravenous! But so does most everything

That sounds about right, I was on a project where I was in the water about 10 hrs. a day and I was eating on the order of 4,000 calories per day, and I still lost a bunch of weight.

 

[reefduffer]

If we're going to discuss this again, please take a look at post #34. For the diving part of it (as distinct from surface swims or a few seconds getting up a ladder) I demonstrated that calorie consumption linearly tracks RMV (SAC rate) until you get to extremely high activity.

I see repeated qualitative comments that it 'depends on activity'. The interesting thing is that most divers are instrumented for O2 consumption, that's how we know our SAC rates. And if you know your SAC rate, you can calculate your calorie consumption, from just that, to a very useful approximation. Again, see post #34, it's all there. Not only qualitative, quantitative.

 

[Hatul]

If we're going to discuss this again, please take a look at post #34. For the diving part of it (as distinct from surface swims or a few seconds getting up a ladder) I demonstrated that calorie consumption linearly tracks RMV (SAC rate) until you get to extremely high activity.

I see repeated qualitative comments that it 'depends on activity'. The interesting thing is that most divers are instrumented for O2 consumption, that's how we know our SAC rates. And if you know your SAC rate, you can calculate your calorie consumption, from just that, to a very useful approximation. Again, see post #34, it's all there. Not only qualitative, quantitative.

Hi, There is a flaw in your reasoning, and in there somewhere you yourself pointed it out. What you need is VO2 and not SAC or RMV whatever you want to call it. There is no constant factor relating these two, and there is no way to get or compute VO2 from an open circuit.

We all know that at times our SAC goes up and we're not doing any more work, it drives the CO2 down but it can stay down. Conversely we can hypoventilate for a long time and drive the CO2 up. Also there is a variation in resting CO2 among different people.

That's why SAC is not a good measure of calorie consumption.

 

[DivemasterDennis]

In the spirit of the 21st century, here is my "anecdotal evidence." I am a 59 year old male, 5'10, 200 lbs. Walking on a treadmill with no incline at a pace of 3.5 mile per hour I burn 7.5 calories per minute. On a cross country skiing trainer, moving arms and legs, at a brisk pace, I burn 15 to 16 calories per minute. Leaving aside individual metabolic difference, body type and age, I can tell you that the times in diving when I am expending more than the calorie burn rate of a brisk walk are when surface swimming in full gear, when climbing onto a boat or pier in full gear, and perhaps donning and removing my or my biddies gear. That's about it. However, being in water colder than body temperature increases the calorie burn , as the body restores lost heat. Diving in 80 degree water off a boat on a calm day, with limited surface swims, I therefor accept the 8 calories a minute generalization presented above, maybe a little more when in colder water.
When training with students in a local 60 degree reservoir, with a lot more movement that I normally have on a recreational dive as we do search and recovery and navigation problems, with lots of surface swims out and back from training platforms, and repeated donning and removal of gear during the day, that number goes up, maybe to 12 calories a minute- about where jogging at a 10 minute mile pace puts me. Scuba to me is at its best when it is like underwater meditation. If I need to burn calories, I'll load and offload tanks on and from the truck or van.
DivemasterDennis

 

[reefduffer]

Hi, There is a flaw in your reasoning, and in there somewhere you yourself pointed it out. What you need is VO2 and not SAC or RMV whatever you want to call it. There is no constant factor relating these two, and there is no way to get or compute VO2 from an open circuit.

There's no flaw at all. I started with the issue that what we want is VO2 and what we have is VE (equivalant to SAC). What was exciting was to find the study that showed how tightly they are linked. To quote a little piece of post #34:

Attempting to chase down the "In most circumstances", I found
Exercise Physiology and the Role of Physiological Testing :

Pulmonary ventilation [VE] is the amount of air moved in and out of the lungs per minute.
... The ventilatory equivalent ratio for oxygen [VE/V02] is equal to the pulmonary ventilation (VE) divided by oxygen consumption (VO2). ... Click here to see the response of the ventilatory equivalent ratios to exercise.

The link is to a graph
CYCLE VO2max PROJECT
that shows VE/VO2 as being about 21 at extreme rest, dropping to about 17 for moderate activity and past the anaerobic threshold, and then up to about 20 at peak limits. It seems reasonable to say that most recreational diving situations could use the value of 17 (or VO2/VE = 5.9%), but if you have a case of extreme underwater exercise, maybe a little higher, up to 20, would be appropriate. See the graph.

I don't want to repeat the entire post, it's right here in this thread to be read. What I think is interesting is that because:
1) The VE/VO2 relationship is so close to linear, and where it diverges at high effort is also understood, and
2) The difference between calories burned per liter of O2 metabolized (VO2) for carbs vs. fat is small,
then it is possible to calculate a pretty accurate value for calories burned knowing just VE.

One that's probably more accurate than "an hour of ballroom dancing by a 200 lb person consumes 250 calories", which seems to be regarded as useful information.

We all know that at times our SAC goes up and we're not doing any more work, it drives the CO2 down but it can stay down. Conversely we can hypoventilate for a long time and drive the CO2 up. Also there is a variation in resting CO2 among different people.

That's why SAC is not a good measure of calorie consumption.

I did hedge on this relationship wrt hyperventilation in the OP, but I think as long as that's understood, the 'normal' case remains very useful.

 

[Griffo]

So there have been a number of scientific posts on this thread to date, so I thought i would add my non scientific opinion.

I've spent the last 12 months on a bit of a health kick. I haven't exercised as much as I could / should have, but I have been eating healthy, cut down the alcohol to almost only weekends, and I do cross-fit 3-4 times a week. During that time my gross weight has't changed all that much (it never really does) but I have slowly lost inches off my waist while gaining muscle bulk. Nothing spectacular, but my general fitness did improve a lot.

I just got back from 3 weeks diving. In that time, I drank beer pretty much every night. Every morning's breakfast was a full breakfast (bacon, eggs, hash brown, toast, roast tomatoes, sausage, ketchup, coffee). Lunch varied, but dinner was always protein + rice pretty much. And lots of it. So pretty much the reverse of modern advice - 2 main meals, massive amounts in each, and daily alcohol. But I dove every day.

I lost 12 pounds in those 3 weeks, and several inches - not sure how much exactly, but pretty much all my pants are now 1-2 sizes too big. And the water was 82-86F, so not even cold. So yeah, I reckon diving burns some calories

 

[arthurmnev]

I was wondering, along with a lot of other people in our boat today...

Does anyone know how many calories, on average, diving burns? Obviously it varies from diver to diver and per environment but someone had to done some research on this?

Anyone have a ball park number per amount of time and temp?

Not many in my experience since the vast majority of divers I have seen are bent out of shape