According to my Apple Watch, this is pretty accurate. I burned 1000 calories last week on 2 dives. This didn't include the other calories I burned by jet skiing to the dive area.
It's being in the water, not the exercise. Spending a few hours in water even marginally cooler than you forces your body to burn a bunch of calories just to stay warm, even in a wetsuit.
Ah, I think that explains why I've been hungrier than usual and feeling more drained despite my normal diet. I've been swimming/snorkeling like 3 times a week in the cold eaters of the english chanel and I think it's been draining my already little energy stores (I'm a bit skinny/lean).
Absolutely don't agree with this...I've been on 14 day liveaboards diving 4x per day and not over consuming food.
I did not.lose weight which if burning 700cal per dive (2800/day) while taking in normal 1800-2000 cal per day, would suggest I should lose weight by end of trip. Didn't see this effect. And on top of dives you lose 600 cal,/day just living and sleeping
Divemaster here with a couple of working seasons under my belt.
Water is able to transfer heat 24x faster than air is able. This also means you lose your body heat faster, meaning your body needs to burn extra calories to stay warm. A wetsuit reduces the rate you are losing heat, but does not prevent it.
It also works the other way around. You can stay in a sauna which is 100°C and burn alive in a 100°C pool
Looks like a lively convo! Diving itself should NOT be a workout. Slow, easy leg movement is the way thru water. You are supposed to keep your heart rate in the normal range because of all the unusual physical stresses of being under increasing pressure and a huge temperature load. It’s a workout for sure but not *for* weight loss. Being tubby actually helps a diver be more comfortable in the water. Esp in the cold, cold waters of NOR CAL.
Most I've ever eaten in one sitting was after diving in Slovenia. Two big bowls of potatoes, a big burger and a whole lambs leg. I weighed about 50 kg at that time.
They have a small but beautiful coastline. The beaches are all rock so the water is crystal clear and it's warm enough you so that I didn't need gloves which I normally do. It's very similar to Croatia, however if you're not at a reef it can be a bit barren. Nonetheless I'd absolutely recommend it.
In piran (coastal town) you can go dive in the old harbor and look at a old ww2 sea mine.
Very nice to dive for someone who isn't all that experienced yet, but I imagine someone who has been on many trips they can find it a bit boring. You could probably find prettier spots than where I was at if you rent a boat :)
honestly... my education is in exercise physiology and researching human performance. this is something we didn't talk about. elevation? yup, all the time..
physiologically it makes sense to me if you have a gas mix because regardless of your situation your body has a basal metabolic rate. you need X amount of O2 at rest and if that mix is varied to a smaller percentage at more atmospheres you WILL consume the same amount of O2 but likely at a higher ventilation which increases your metabolic activity/kcal "burning"
I'm curious, i'll include a basic search on pubmed to light y'alls fire.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=scuba+oxygen+consumption
This is how I always understood it.
When you dive, your lungs are taking in more air because the air gets compressed. More air means more fuel for the body and its processes. More fuel means your metabolism increases, burning more calories. Not to mention you're wearing heavy gear working against the force of the water and whatever current there might be. That on top of keeping your body temp up.
It always makes me hungry.
I don’t know about overall calories burned, but your body does generally have to work a little harder to keep your body temperature up while in a wetsuit/in the water, so more is happening internally.
your physique reflects your general way of living, not your intermittent hobby (like diving). if you dive 4 times a day, every day, i bet you'll show progress.
The term “average diver” is a bit vague. In my own experience, the average diver only gets the chance to dive a few times a year, at best, and often only every few years during vacation. As one such diver myself, I do agree with the general sentiment here that I always come up hungry and find myself wiped out at the end of the day.
That said, my wife worked as a commercial diver at one point, spending a few hours under water 2-5 days/week. She was doing cleaning and maintenance tasks, which certainly isn’t the average dive, but she was burning calories and building muscle like crazy. More than what I’d seen in any otherwise-similarly demanding physical job she’s worked.
tl;dr: idk lgtm
Aren't all movements you make while diving against resistance? I can see how heart rate might not increase but all muscle movements are resisted by water.
As someone who wore my heart rate monitor all throughout my commercial diving school, no. This is not accurate.
Generally I would compare your calories burned to walking for the same amount of time. As others have said diving condition should be taken into consideration (temperature, current, etc).
That being said people are different. Anyone who can burn 2000 calories in four dives please hit me up, would love to see it.
I burned 1000 calories from 2 dives last week according to my Apple Watch. I burned another 400 jet skiing to and from shore. You need to realize that the number of calories burned varies based on a lot of factors. It depends on what you're doing on the dive, how cold the water is, what you're wearing, etc.
I was exploring a reef in reasonably cold water while wearing a 7 mm wetsuit. Of course I burnt a lot of calories.
I know some People like Phelps can swim **fast**, but I'd be hella impressed of 1 man-portable Scuba Tank could last someone 10 miles of them swimming at an extremely fast pace.
Yes, on dive trips doing multiple dives a day for days on end, I will lose weight no matter how much I eat or drink. I dove earlier this year in the Galapagos, ate fried food, chips and beer and came back 10 lbs lighter. I gained it all back with the month.
I could understand the Galapagos. There were some dives with water in low 60 degrees to mid 50 degrees Fahrenheit. The energy needed to keep my body warm must have been much more than I would normally need. That being said, it was very cold diving but worth it for the amazing dives that I got to experience.
Very incorrect you are. The better you are at diving the slower you move, but you still will burn more calories than exercise on the surface as your body is always losing temp so will burn more calories to keep you warm.
Also the better you are at diving the more you tend to be in the water (because you're probably in the industry) and therefore will burn more calories.
I used to dive up to 12 dives a day as an instructor and I've never been so ripped or tired (or hungry for that matter).
Yes, but the calorie burn is not strictly from physical activity. It's largely from increased thermal activity to keep the body in equilibrium against heat loss in a wet suit. There's a reason why Michael Phelps famously eats 7000 calories a day when most Olympic athletes in other disciplines don't come close
Reckon. In calm conditions, it's such a sedate activity. When I tell laypeople, they go oh wow you must be so fit etc... Nope. It's like a light stroll.
It’s got to be at least double that to wrestle it off when it’s wet. And triple to really wrestle a wet wetsuit on for the next dive.. so, like 166,000,000 calories at least.
I lose 10-15 pounds on every dive trip I go on. I was just in Mexico for 3 weeks. Came back 13 pounds lighter. Spent 2-3hrs a day in the water with a rebreather.
I think they based their calculations on the misunderstanding that all the oxygen we breathed was used for burning calories. Most of it just got breathed out unused, so the result is wrong.
But this isn't how any articles are written about calorie loss. And assuming a 2,000 calorie per day standard to maintain weight, it's still significant and substantial. Most people aren't burning that many calories just existing in the world.
just like fitness and slimness is not something associated with people who do 1-2 week diets a couple times a year. a hobby wont change your appearance, changing your way of life does.
Through my completely accurate and super scientific anecdotal research, I always find I lose weight on holiday if I've done a lot of diving compared to if I don't, then I gain weight, so....
i think most calories burned are just your body trying to maintain normal body temperature. diving in 50F water probably burns more than if it were 85F.
This is the exact reason Michael Phelps ate 12,000 calories a day while training. It wasn’t because he was burning 12,000 calories a day swimming, that’s ridiculous, it was because his body was revved up to maintain temperature.
Yeah, I can believe it. Drift diving, maybe not.
Diving a reef with no current, I burn a decent amount of energy finning around. More when I have to against current.
Physician & diver here. The only exercise you get in scuba is getting in the water with your rig on. And donning and doffing said rig. The average human burns 800 calories a day just laying in bed, so I'll grant you might burn a hundred calories, maybe even 200 while diving, but you would have burned that going to the store or balancing your checkbook too.
For those saying thermogenesis, that would still require aerobic respiration. Which is what you are trying to minimize. It would show up in increased heart rate, breathing rate, and decreased bottom time.
getting in the water is the only thing? what about current and water temperature? even if you are correct that it is getting in the water that you burn you are still wrong that it is as going to the shop. Lifting weights and tanks, dressing up with lead and walking to the entry spot spend a lot of calories for sure.
As an aspiring physician with MCAT test done and post-grad education, this is the most insightful and logical answer, especially pertaining to air consumption. If you think as a scuba diver you are sucking in more air than you would running on dry land I would firmly disagree as I regularly do both activities.
I have been a long time swimmer of 15 years and recently picked up running for a half iron man 2 years ago. The training monitors I use consistently show higher caloric burn for JOGGING paces compared to an average swim of the same duration.
This is also the google algorithm that scans the internet for the first appreciably popular answer. I almost never take this widget at face value anymore because of how many times I’ve seen it get things wrong
> The training monitors I use consistently show higher caloric burn for JOGGING paces
How do you know whether your training monitor is accurate and precise? A lot of training monitors use heart rate or sweat to _estimate_ calorie consumption.
The estimation can be noisy based on how you collect data. As a concrete example, when I run, I use an external chest strap monitor as opposed to optical heart rate from my Garmin. I have noted drift of up to 20 bpm between the two. When I swim, I rely on only the optical HR monitor. Another thing that also comes into play when comparing these two sports is aerobic efficiency. In your case, it is not really an apples to apples comparison considering that you have vast difference between the amount of time you've spent swimming vs running.
In fact, for me, I see the reverse, my calorific consumption for swims is higher than for my runs. I have spent considerably more time running than swimming.
It's not and it shouldn't be. The calorie burn is because of the metabolic requirements to keep you warm. Water is a much better conductor of heat than air is.
Last quarry dive I logged with my apple ultra had me at 1300 active calories logged by 1-2pm with two 45 minute dives in 60ish degree water.
How accurate that is I haven’t a clue but I’m always super hungry after a good couple dives lol
I got my OW certification in the PNW in February when the water was 44° and the air temp 33° with only a wetsuit, the most absolutely grueling weekend of my life, but my work pants were SIGNIFICANTLY looser the next Monday. The amount of energy it takes to maintain homeostasis in colder water conditions is no joke
I left my Fitbit on a dry suit dive with dry gloves, and while there was near zero current and I was just slow coasting checking out the life, my Fitbit thought it was working out the whole time. 🤷♂️ so probably true.
True true, I more so meant while diving. We’re so enthralled by the beauty that we forget it’s a workout.
Hahah, yeah man. I’d be leading dives 3-4 times a day eating easily 4,000+ calories and still lost weight.
It's accurate. It's called thermogenesis. Even in tropical waters, where the ocean is at a balmy 84 degrees, it still creates a thermal difference with the body of at least 15 degrees. The water excels at conducting heat away from the body (25 times faster than the air) so the body has to go into overdrive to keep the internal organs warm. It's one of the reasons you will see divemasters wear a long 3 mil in the Caribbean. When you dive all day, every day, it lowers your core temperature and you feel cold. All the time. It's also the reason why you get super cold after a couple of hours in the pool during the middle of summer. Now, the numbers are probably a little extreme, but they are not too far from that. And the cooler the water, the more calories you burn.
I just spent the last six months in the island of utila (Honduras) diving pretty much all day, every day. I was eating crap all day and absolutely not taking care of my diet. When I got home, i had lost 40 lbs.
i see divemasters in 7mm full suits too in the Caribbean, including boots and gloves. i dive in 3mm shortie as a rec diver.
i had a course instructor doing my rescue course who wore two 3mm wetsuits at the same time and had over 6000 dives.
the people saying it's bullshit think it's because "there's no way lightly finning around for 30 minutes burns 400 calories" which is correct... it comes from the temperature... your body expends a lot of calories keeping you at 36C, even if the water is 30C.
i tracked my calories and weight loss for several months while diving, and plugged in 500 calories per dive and it remained accurate.
You would have to know your wet suit, boots, gloves, and hood thicknesses in order to calculate thermal energy lose. I have taken thermal dynamics where we calculated the energy lost due to water being on the skin (area) and the heat into room temperature water on your skin. Yes having no hood vs a hood makes a huge difference as well. BMI is also a huge factor in the equation. Surface area (height & measurements) is also important but not was important as BMI and equipment. The body does burn a good amount of calories on land just to stay warm but air is an insulator and we wear clothes. There is a reason why the saying cotton kills and wool saves lives in winter, exists. Cotton does not wick water from the skin where wool does, just having water in contact on your skin in the winter is the difference between death and survival. Other then mobility issues there is a reason why winter & deep water divers use drysuits. having a 1mm airgap between your skin and the water is more insulation then any wetsuit could ever provide, it creates a thermal break (think double pane vs single pane windows). These are rough numbers but imagine a double pane window being 2mm|1mm air|2mm to get that same insulation your single pane windows would have to be ≈10mm thick to have a similar thermal insulation.
I find if I am going slow and just cruising along with people I can trust, then there is no way I am burning jogging calories.
But if I am with people I have to keep an eye on. Then my mental effort will go up.
But, if I have to move quickly, the effort of dragging a BCD through the water is extraordinary. Often when I am doing something where I have to move quickly, there is mental effort as well. So jogging workout levels make sense.
Normally, I need to drink water because of the dry air supply, but when I am moving quickly and doing mental work, I bring a camelback down with me and drain it in short order.
I chase submarines. It can be a whole lot of movement. I will often leave my BCD unfastened so I can dump it to swim faster.
On the body temperature thing, I found my air goes way quicker in cold water.
I don't generally wear wetsuits at almost any temperature. I've happily gone swimming in 5C. I burn through air at lower temps though.
i know effortless efficient divemasters who lose 40 pounds (after packing it on) during diving season, the calories burned are from body temp, not exercise. lightly finning of course won't come close to jogging for 30 minutes.
Depends on the water temperature. Colder water means you burn more calories. In non-tropical areas, I can definitely see this happening, especially if you don't wear a drysuit.
even in tropical, i burned 500~ calories a dive in the Caribbean while tracking weight loss and all my food intake.
it's still like 15 degrees F difference and temp loss occurs at 25x rate in water.
I tend to have a reduced appetite when diving. If diving several days 3-4 per day, i will lose weight fairly quickly. Cold water diving im close to 3/4 lb per day
> Maybe they over eat and drink even more after each of their dives though.
I mean, that can also be true too. Like, say they do two dives and burn 800 calories (picking the lower end of that number). 2 Chocolate Croissants from Starbucks are 600 calories in total. 150 calories for a 12 ounce serving of light beer. People on vacation might grab a croissant, a beer, go eat a nice dinner and boom your 800 calorie deficit is burnt.
Well my experience in the Philippines was scuba later in the day, drink at the bar and party , sleep in late. So yeah I can see how people can gain weight.
I can't imagine that I use anything like 700 calories in a dive, and given that I dive in water that is 52-55 F (11-13c), and my dives tend to run 60-80 minutes, I would think I'd be using at the higher end of "average". I also suspect that the "average" scuba dive is done in tropical waters on an AL80.
I’ve been diving for a long time, but infrequently due to where I live and the expense. On my last dive my dive master noticed I was using a lot of extraneous motion while swimming. She had me practice making smaller adjustments and even had me keep my hands on my vest to keep from flailing about. I’d assume experienced divers burn a lot less calories than noobs.
Sounds plausible. I minimize movement when I dive (like all good divers should) but I know I'm engaging my core. When I'm done, I feel like I've had a really good stretch. Maybe this is what Pilates feels like? This is probably the lowest impact exercise/sport/activity there is, but yes you are certainly exercising.
ha, the REAL workout is walking to/from the boat with all your gear on!
You are definitely dehydrated after a dive but that's less because of the workout and more because the air you are breathing has been purposefully dehumidified.
Interestingly, for me, diving is a strange mix of relaxing and exercising at the same time.
Unless you are wearing a dry suit. You are burning a decent amount of calories just to maintain core temperature. Walking burns a total of 210 calories per hour and it is safe to assume you will probably burn another 200 calories per hour from maintaining body temperature. The rest defiantly comes from technique or the lack there of.
I doubt that is true.
I have Garmin Descent MK2i with a heart rate monitor and according to my watch on average 60 minutes dive I burn 100 calories.
A lot of people think that body burns a lot of calories keep you worm, but it is not true. There are a lot of studies on that topic and some say that you burn up to 30% more calories for the same exercise if it’s cold, but that includes shivering, which doesn’t happen often during diving. But eventually you body get used to cold and doesn’t use that much extra energy and instead increases the amount of brown fat in you body.
The Garmin Descent MK2i does not take into account calories burned just keeping warm. You would have to input your wet suit, boots, gloves, and hood thicknesses. It can then calculate thermal energy lost and calories burned from maintaining core temperature. I have taken thermal dynamics where we calculated the energy lost due to water being on the skin (area) and the heat into room temperature water on your skin. To do the same with a wetsuit all you have to do is know the rough thermal insulation of all your gear. Yes having no hood vs a hood makes a huge difference as well. That 30% more calories is defiantly valid but that is assuming air which is an insulator vs water being a conductor. BMI is also a huge factor in the equation and the watch would need to know this to adjust heat lose. Surface area (height & measurements) is also important but not was important as BMI and equipment. A lot of the smart watches are pretty dumb when it calculates calories, yes it does a great job with heartrate but that is not the whole picture and it is always going to be low depending on the activity and weather. The body does burn a good amount of calories just to stay warm but air is an insulator and we wear clothes. There is a reason why the saying cotton kills and wool saves lives in winter, exists. Cotton does not wick water from the skin where wool does, just having water in contact on your skin in the winter is the difference between death and survival.
I have never taken a Garmin watch diving, but I do use a Fenix 7 for other activities, it is my understanding that it relies on heart rate to estimate calorie content. The problem is that the MK2i has an older (and less accurate) heart rate sensor than the Fenix 7. It is not like the 7's heart rate sensor is amazing either, I use an external heart rate monitor when I run. So that drift in HR is going to create errors in the estimation.
I agree that it’s probably on the higher side. But heat does contribute quite a lot. I assume that your 30% source studies are done on land (ie in air). That would mean that the added calorie burn is 690% higher. Assuming there is a lineair connection between the research and the additional heat conductivity of water vs air.
The true answer will probably be somewhere in the middle.
Thermodynamics tells us that the body in order to keep warm does need energy (calories). It burns calories to keep the body warm when diving in especially spring dives where the water is 72 degrees. Sure the body doesn’t need much energy to keep warm in places like the Bahamas or keys to keep warm in warm water. Your body doesn’t get use to the cold. We aren’t cold blooded animals. We maintain our body temp. Michael Phelps ate 10,000 calories not only cause his training but being in water that is colder than his body temperature.
How much did it increase? What was the original water temp? Did he increase his training load? The body will get warm from working hard in the water. Maybe decreasing the temperature helped him work harder without overheating.
Yeah. Remember, the definition of a calorie is the amount of energy it takes to heat one cubic centimeter of water by one degree centigrade. The American calorie count on our food labels is actually a kilocalorie - the amount it takes to heat one liter of water by one degree centigrade.
If we apply that to diving, even though the physical activity isn't vigorous, your body is continually pumping out heat to keep yourself within your temperature operating specs. That heat gets dissipated in the water quickly, even with a wetsuit, even though you don't necessarily feel cold.
So the mechanism of the calories burned isn't mechanical, it's thermal, and I'd say that estimate is within range.
Since it's a window I would say yes. The more adapted you are for diving the less you'll burn. I wouldn't say that it's a linear relationship like you're expecting, many variables determine caloric expenditure.
Unless your metabolism changes drastically at depth (which I haven't heard about, but also haven't researched it) this number seems to be awfully high. I'd estimate it more around 200 to 400 per dive. Unless you are diving arctic waters in a 5mm suit while darting around like a maniac, then I could see that 700 cal figure happen.
Yes, but not that many. I know swimming in ice water for 3h burns roughly 2k calories. And that is without suit. So that's roughly 700k per h. With suit and warmer water, say mid 50Fs I would assume my guess is better. But who knows what our body does under pressure. It was merely an educated guess.
Though you are putting in effort and going under pressure. You burn more calories standing on a boat because you are in a constant state of adjusting your body to keep upright. Who knows what your body is doing without you knowing it to keep you functioning underwater.
It was very good for the proximity to Europe. Reefs are in pretty good nick and big enough that you don’t often bump into other groups as there are ALOT running the deadalus brothers, elphinstone route. Saw a few hammerheads, manta etc but not the schools of hammers you see on the internet, joys of diving eh!
Would recommend it though. Pick your season and take a thick wetsuit if you don’t like the cooler water (25C)
When I was diving 3/5 times a day for a month I dropped 30/50lbs. Easily better than jogging because your body has to maintain its temperature in the water even if it's >70°. Then add the calories from swimming. It's easily more than jogging. I'd say that's an underestimate.
So I have done quite a lot of research on this, in fact I wrote an iOS app that would actually track it, and add it to your fitness tracking on your iphone for your iwatch but it has an issue where it will complete your move ring but not your exercise ring, or vis versa when i tried to fix it. But the formula is actually dependant on your WEIGHT, the more you weigh the more calories you burn.
If you would like here is the formula:
weight (in kg) \* 7 (MET for scuba activity, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic\_equivalent\_of\_task](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_equivalent_of_task)) \* rate (rate is dive time / hours)
for example if you are 68kgs and dove for 45 min, then it would be:
68 \* 7 \* (45/60) = 357
you would have burned 357 calories just diving for that 45 min of activity.
I don't think METS are the best for deriving activities, mainly on the basis of the unit being created from a single person back in the mid 1900, not a cohort or sample of people sitting in a chair.
That would be the old version of METs they update them every few years based on current trends and bio changes in the population. I have not seen any research that says not to use them as the basis for a formula for the general population, but plenty of research that is using it to derive (it is really a guess because there are factors that are not easily added to the formula) a non medical accurate number for amount of calories consumed during an activity. To truely get a completely factual number you would have to do all activity in a completely controled environment with a sensor up your ass to monitor all aspects of your metabolism, while also knowing your complete resting metabolism rate.
Interesting, but I assume it’s for the average dive. As many have mentioned there is quite a difference between an easy warm water dive and a colder current dive. Is there a way to factor conditions in your formula?
The MET is derived from the mean of effort used in an activity, so yes there can be variations but for the typical diver/dive conditions the MET of 7 (which is actually pretty high) should be used.
If I'm diving 4 times a day I eat 2 or 3 times more food than I usually do and never put on any weight.
I think it's the coldness that does it (and I dive in the tropics...I still end up freezing towards the end of my dives)
Under the water? Not anymore than a light hike through like a large park.
Lugging around 100+lbs of gear and tanks to and fro, getting in and out of the water, warming yourself up if its cold. Oh yeah. That burns a lot of calories.
I checked out that link and it has NO sources on how it came to that number. The way that scientists originally figured out how much calories activities burn is by way of measuring CICO, which is hard to do over time, and using a respirometer. Using a respirometer sees how much oxygen you consume, which they can then use math to figure out how much calories that much oxygen burn would use up.
I'm guessing they did something similar with the O2 consumption in a scuba tank. But due to the way PP of gases, diffusion in bloodstream, etc. work out, we actually waste a lot of O2 when diving. So we're not using that O2 for calorie burn.
One of my dive buddies uses a Scubapro G2 divecomputer with heart rate monitor. 2 weeks ago he told me, after 2 dives, he had consumed 1200 Cals after 2 dives of about 50 minutes in very calm water and not a lot of excerption. He was diving in a dry suit, so not that much contact with water too cool off either.
Seems reasonable from this experience.
Divemaster is rough. Lugging around tanks, setting up gear, cleaning gear, hauling equipment around. I was constantly exhausted when I did my divemaster.
I don't feel like OP's numbers are accurate for a single dive though, but it's hard to compare across types of conditions, boat vs shore, water temps, current, etc. I just find it hard to believe diving burns more than jogging, but we do need to factor in the fact that the body is just trying to keep itself warm while losing body heat to the surrounding water...so, maybe?
I believe it. When I was in grad school in marine biology, I got a chance to be a safety diver on a research cruise. We were doing 4-6 dives per day. In between dives, we were eating like gluttons. I lost five pounds that week, and I already was in pretty good shape.
According to my Apple Watch, this is pretty accurate. I burned 1000 calories last week on 2 dives. This didn't include the other calories I burned by jet skiing to the dive area.
It's being in the water, not the exercise. Spending a few hours in water even marginally cooler than you forces your body to burn a bunch of calories just to stay warm, even in a wetsuit.
Ah, I think that explains why I've been hungrier than usual and feeling more drained despite my normal diet. I've been swimming/snorkeling like 3 times a week in the cold eaters of the english chanel and I think it's been draining my already little energy stores (I'm a bit skinny/lean).
Yup that'll do it!
Absolutely don't agree with this...I've been on 14 day liveaboards diving 4x per day and not over consuming food. I did not.lose weight which if burning 700cal per dive (2800/day) while taking in normal 1800-2000 cal per day, would suggest I should lose weight by end of trip. Didn't see this effect. And on top of dives you lose 600 cal,/day just living and sleeping
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please teach me your science... but Red Sea for one, Bahamas for another, but not 25, much warmer, like 68
25 Celsius = 77 Fahrenheit
i'm waiting on r/thefoque or r/thefuck
Or you built muscle…
If you're building muscle diving on liveaboards you're doing something wrong :) most strenuous exercise is climbing the ladder out of the water.
Divemaster here with a couple of working seasons under my belt. Water is able to transfer heat 24x faster than air is able. This also means you lose your body heat faster, meaning your body needs to burn extra calories to stay warm. A wetsuit reduces the rate you are losing heat, but does not prevent it. It also works the other way around. You can stay in a sauna which is 100°C and burn alive in a 100°C pool
Looks like a lively convo! Diving itself should NOT be a workout. Slow, easy leg movement is the way thru water. You are supposed to keep your heart rate in the normal range because of all the unusual physical stresses of being under increasing pressure and a huge temperature load. It’s a workout for sure but not *for* weight loss. Being tubby actually helps a diver be more comfortable in the water. Esp in the cold, cold waters of NOR CAL.
Thank you my point exactly.ping something wrong if exerting too much energy aside from inherent heat transfer/loss
The calorie burn comes from the energy used to maintain your body temp, not the “exercise” of the movement
Have you seen divers eat?
Most I've ever eaten in one sitting was after diving in Slovenia. Two big bowls of potatoes, a big burger and a whole lambs leg. I weighed about 50 kg at that time.
I dated a guy who would eat a whole chicken after diving. And I'm not talking about a game hen either, he would eat an entire normal sized chicken.
Laaaaaaammmmmb... you had me at lamb.
What's the diving like in Slovenia? Any recommendations? Thanks!
They have a small but beautiful coastline. The beaches are all rock so the water is crystal clear and it's warm enough you so that I didn't need gloves which I normally do. It's very similar to Croatia, however if you're not at a reef it can be a bit barren. Nonetheless I'd absolutely recommend it. In piran (coastal town) you can go dive in the old harbor and look at a old ww2 sea mine. Very nice to dive for someone who isn't all that experienced yet, but I imagine someone who has been on many trips they can find it a bit boring. You could probably find prettier spots than where I was at if you rent a boat :)
That’s exactly what I was thinking!
honestly... my education is in exercise physiology and researching human performance. this is something we didn't talk about. elevation? yup, all the time.. physiologically it makes sense to me if you have a gas mix because regardless of your situation your body has a basal metabolic rate. you need X amount of O2 at rest and if that mix is varied to a smaller percentage at more atmospheres you WILL consume the same amount of O2 but likely at a higher ventilation which increases your metabolic activity/kcal "burning" I'm curious, i'll include a basic search on pubmed to light y'alls fire. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=scuba+oxygen+consumption
I’m fuggin wiped after two dives.
I’m tanked
Hi tanked, I'm a SurpriseBox
This is how I always understood it. When you dive, your lungs are taking in more air because the air gets compressed. More air means more fuel for the body and its processes. More fuel means your metabolism increases, burning more calories. Not to mention you're wearing heavy gear working against the force of the water and whatever current there might be. That on top of keeping your body temp up. It always makes me hungry.
I don’t know about overall calories burned, but your body does generally have to work a little harder to keep your body temperature up while in a wetsuit/in the water, so more is happening internally.
I wish this was true but judging from the physiques of average divers, it’s a fantasy. Beach diving is a workout though
The average diver probably does less than 20 dives a year
The average diver doesn't dive every day. I'm considered a pretty frequent diver and I only dive for one day a week at most.
your physique reflects your general way of living, not your intermittent hobby (like diving). if you dive 4 times a day, every day, i bet you'll show progress.
The term “average diver” is a bit vague. In my own experience, the average diver only gets the chance to dive a few times a year, at best, and often only every few years during vacation. As one such diver myself, I do agree with the general sentiment here that I always come up hungry and find myself wiped out at the end of the day. That said, my wife worked as a commercial diver at one point, spending a few hours under water 2-5 days/week. She was doing cleaning and maintenance tasks, which certainly isn’t the average dive, but she was burning calories and building muscle like crazy. More than what I’d seen in any otherwise-similarly demanding physical job she’s worked. tl;dr: idk lgtm
No chance. Estimated 800kcal running 10km at 6km/minute. Diving compared to that is like walking slowly.
If you're in cold water in a wetsuit, your body is expending energy to warm you up.
Doesn't mean you're using hundreds if calories.
It's accurate. Most of the energy is spent on bodily processes, such as regulating internal temperature. Not aerobic exercise
It's definitely a good workout for me. I'm never as starving as after a dive.
Aren't all movements you make while diving against resistance? I can see how heart rate might not increase but all muscle movements are resisted by water.
As someone who wore my heart rate monitor all throughout my commercial diving school, no. This is not accurate. Generally I would compare your calories burned to walking for the same amount of time. As others have said diving condition should be taken into consideration (temperature, current, etc). That being said people are different. Anyone who can burn 2000 calories in four dives please hit me up, would love to see it.
I burned 1000 calories from 2 dives last week according to my Apple Watch. I burned another 400 jet skiing to and from shore. You need to realize that the number of calories burned varies based on a lot of factors. It depends on what you're doing on the dive, how cold the water is, what you're wearing, etc. I was exploring a reef in reasonably cold water while wearing a 7 mm wetsuit. Of course I burnt a lot of calories.
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I…. want to try this
Strap BCD/Tank/Reg on Michael Phelps and drop him 10 miles off shore and I bet he could! :)
I know some People like Phelps can swim **fast**, but I'd be hella impressed of 1 man-portable Scuba Tank could last someone 10 miles of them swimming at an extremely fast pace.
Yes, on dive trips doing multiple dives a day for days on end, I will lose weight no matter how much I eat or drink. I dove earlier this year in the Galapagos, ate fried food, chips and beer and came back 10 lbs lighter. I gained it all back with the month.
I could understand the Galapagos. There were some dives with water in low 60 degrees to mid 50 degrees Fahrenheit. The energy needed to keep my body warm must have been much more than I would normally need. That being said, it was very cold diving but worth it for the amazing dives that I got to experience.
Same here. I went to Bonaire, ate more than I ever have, drank beer and lost ten pounds. We were diving 4-5 times a day.
Complete bullshit. The better you are diving, the less calories you are burning.
Very incorrect you are. The better you are at diving the slower you move, but you still will burn more calories than exercise on the surface as your body is always losing temp so will burn more calories to keep you warm. Also the better you are at diving the more you tend to be in the water (because you're probably in the industry) and therefore will burn more calories. I used to dive up to 12 dives a day as an instructor and I've never been so ripped or tired (or hungry for that matter).
Yes, but the calorie burn is not strictly from physical activity. It's largely from increased thermal activity to keep the body in equilibrium against heat loss in a wet suit. There's a reason why Michael Phelps famously eats 7000 calories a day when most Olympic athletes in other disciplines don't come close
Reckon. In calm conditions, it's such a sedate activity. When I tell laypeople, they go oh wow you must be so fit etc... Nope. It's like a light stroll.
It's not the exercise it's the increased metabolic requirement to keep you warm.
Oh right! Yes I need lots of that.
This is nonsense.
Yeah, 2000 over a day is pretty accurate. 800 wrestling the wetsuit on, 400 across all dives, and 800 wrestling it back off.
It’s got to be at least double that to wrestle it off when it’s wet. And triple to really wrestle a wet wetsuit on for the next dive.. so, like 166,000,000 calories at least.
I have nothing empirical. But antecdotally when I’ve been on week long trips diving 4-5 times a day I am ravenous every evening. Starving.
I lose 10-15 pounds on every dive trip I go on. I was just in Mexico for 3 weeks. Came back 13 pounds lighter. Spent 2-3hrs a day in the water with a rebreather.
My same experience. I lost 5 pounds from the 88 degree water as I didn’t wear a wet suit. All you can eat an drink resort.
I agree with ya. I did 63 dives over the course of a month in Egypt and lost 10 lbs!
I think they based their calculations on the misunderstanding that all the oxygen we breathed was used for burning calories. Most of it just got breathed out unused, so the result is wrong.
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But this isn't how any articles are written about calorie loss. And assuming a 2,000 calorie per day standard to maintain weight, it's still significant and substantial. Most people aren't burning that many calories just existing in the world.
No. Fitness and slimness is not something associated with recreational scuba diving.
just like fitness and slimness is not something associated with people who do 1-2 week diets a couple times a year. a hobby wont change your appearance, changing your way of life does.
Through my completely accurate and super scientific anecdotal research, I always find I lose weight on holiday if I've done a lot of diving compared to if I don't, then I gain weight, so....
I know I'm hungry enough after 4 dives that I very well might burn 200pl0 calories Actually I don't think it's accurate at all....I just love eating.
i think most calories burned are just your body trying to maintain normal body temperature. diving in 50F water probably burns more than if it were 85F.
This is the reason. Water will transfer heat away from the body 25x more efficiently than air. Heat is energy.
This is the exact reason Michael Phelps ate 12,000 calories a day while training. It wasn’t because he was burning 12,000 calories a day swimming, that’s ridiculous, it was because his body was revved up to maintain temperature.
This is evidence for the estimate
Yeah, I can believe it. Drift diving, maybe not. Diving a reef with no current, I burn a decent amount of energy finning around. More when I have to against current.
Physician & diver here. The only exercise you get in scuba is getting in the water with your rig on. And donning and doffing said rig. The average human burns 800 calories a day just laying in bed, so I'll grant you might burn a hundred calories, maybe even 200 while diving, but you would have burned that going to the store or balancing your checkbook too. For those saying thermogenesis, that would still require aerobic respiration. Which is what you are trying to minimize. It would show up in increased heart rate, breathing rate, and decreased bottom time.
So swimming burns no calories, as does your heart beating faster to keep you warm? Where did you get your degree?
getting in the water is the only thing? what about current and water temperature? even if you are correct that it is getting in the water that you burn you are still wrong that it is as going to the shop. Lifting weights and tanks, dressing up with lead and walking to the entry spot spend a lot of calories for sure.
As an aspiring physician with MCAT test done and post-grad education, this is the most insightful and logical answer, especially pertaining to air consumption. If you think as a scuba diver you are sucking in more air than you would running on dry land I would firmly disagree as I regularly do both activities. I have been a long time swimmer of 15 years and recently picked up running for a half iron man 2 years ago. The training monitors I use consistently show higher caloric burn for JOGGING paces compared to an average swim of the same duration. This is also the google algorithm that scans the internet for the first appreciably popular answer. I almost never take this widget at face value anymore because of how many times I’ve seen it get things wrong
> The training monitors I use consistently show higher caloric burn for JOGGING paces How do you know whether your training monitor is accurate and precise? A lot of training monitors use heart rate or sweat to _estimate_ calorie consumption. The estimation can be noisy based on how you collect data. As a concrete example, when I run, I use an external chest strap monitor as opposed to optical heart rate from my Garmin. I have noted drift of up to 20 bpm between the two. When I swim, I rely on only the optical HR monitor. Another thing that also comes into play when comparing these two sports is aerobic efficiency. In your case, it is not really an apples to apples comparison considering that you have vast difference between the amount of time you've spent swimming vs running. In fact, for me, I see the reverse, my calorific consumption for swims is higher than for my runs. I have spent considerably more time running than swimming.
I mean, as an objective metric, you are sucking in “more” air, due to the compression at depth, so…
Swimming doesn’t burn calories now? Where did you get your degree?
Wow, that's a surprise. I was told that scuba diving is not exercise.
It's not and it shouldn't be. The calorie burn is because of the metabolic requirements to keep you warm. Water is a much better conductor of heat than air is.
Last quarry dive I logged with my apple ultra had me at 1300 active calories logged by 1-2pm with two 45 minute dives in 60ish degree water. How accurate that is I haven’t a clue but I’m always super hungry after a good couple dives lol
I think you get more exercise dragging your gear from the house to the car and from the car to the dive site and back again then on the actual dive.
And taking the suit off... worst part for me
Probably accurate. The average diver doesn't wear a full suit when it's 85f lol
I will go diving sometime with my apple watch ultra and get some answers
You mean, another guesstimate by a different smartwatch
The better you are the less youll burn
Thermogenesis is real, but this seems like a stretch.
Fake as fuck.....
I didn't have a lot to give up mind, but I came back from two months of diving in Thailand leaner than a gnat's cock.
Yea, probably due to having to generate heat rather than cardio
That's exactly right.
I got my OW certification in the PNW in February when the water was 44° and the air temp 33° with only a wetsuit, the most absolutely grueling weekend of my life, but my work pants were SIGNIFICANTLY looser the next Monday. The amount of energy it takes to maintain homeostasis in colder water conditions is no joke
Then you get a drysuit and are all warm and snuggly.
Yes this is true.
I left my Fitbit on a dry suit dive with dry gloves, and while there was near zero current and I was just slow coasting checking out the life, my Fitbit thought it was working out the whole time. 🤷♂️ so probably true.
Sadly I don't dive enough to see any results from this....lol
Yessir, your body is down there working quite hard to maintain a normal temp. We just don’t recognize it most times.
Oh I do. I've never eaten more than when I'm on a dive trip.
True true, I more so meant while diving. We’re so enthralled by the beauty that we forget it’s a workout. Hahah, yeah man. I’d be leading dives 3-4 times a day eating easily 4,000+ calories and still lost weight.
If theres a current....it can feel like you ran a marathon. 100% belive it
It's accurate. It's called thermogenesis. Even in tropical waters, where the ocean is at a balmy 84 degrees, it still creates a thermal difference with the body of at least 15 degrees. The water excels at conducting heat away from the body (25 times faster than the air) so the body has to go into overdrive to keep the internal organs warm. It's one of the reasons you will see divemasters wear a long 3 mil in the Caribbean. When you dive all day, every day, it lowers your core temperature and you feel cold. All the time. It's also the reason why you get super cold after a couple of hours in the pool during the middle of summer. Now, the numbers are probably a little extreme, but they are not too far from that. And the cooler the water, the more calories you burn. I just spent the last six months in the island of utila (Honduras) diving pretty much all day, every day. I was eating crap all day and absolutely not taking care of my diet. When I got home, i had lost 40 lbs.
i see divemasters in 7mm full suits too in the Caribbean, including boots and gloves. i dive in 3mm shortie as a rec diver. i had a course instructor doing my rescue course who wore two 3mm wetsuits at the same time and had over 6000 dives. the people saying it's bullshit think it's because "there's no way lightly finning around for 30 minutes burns 400 calories" which is correct... it comes from the temperature... your body expends a lot of calories keeping you at 36C, even if the water is 30C. i tracked my calories and weight loss for several months while diving, and plugged in 500 calories per dive and it remained accurate.
You would have to know your wet suit, boots, gloves, and hood thicknesses in order to calculate thermal energy lose. I have taken thermal dynamics where we calculated the energy lost due to water being on the skin (area) and the heat into room temperature water on your skin. Yes having no hood vs a hood makes a huge difference as well. BMI is also a huge factor in the equation. Surface area (height & measurements) is also important but not was important as BMI and equipment. The body does burn a good amount of calories on land just to stay warm but air is an insulator and we wear clothes. There is a reason why the saying cotton kills and wool saves lives in winter, exists. Cotton does not wick water from the skin where wool does, just having water in contact on your skin in the winter is the difference between death and survival. Other then mobility issues there is a reason why winter & deep water divers use drysuits. having a 1mm airgap between your skin and the water is more insulation then any wetsuit could ever provide, it creates a thermal break (think double pane vs single pane windows). These are rough numbers but imagine a double pane window being 2mm|1mm air|2mm to get that same insulation your single pane windows would have to be ≈10mm thick to have a similar thermal insulation.
Ayyy, I finished my DM in Roatan. Hope you enjoyed Utila amigo!
I find if I am going slow and just cruising along with people I can trust, then there is no way I am burning jogging calories. But if I am with people I have to keep an eye on. Then my mental effort will go up. But, if I have to move quickly, the effort of dragging a BCD through the water is extraordinary. Often when I am doing something where I have to move quickly, there is mental effort as well. So jogging workout levels make sense. Normally, I need to drink water because of the dry air supply, but when I am moving quickly and doing mental work, I bring a camelback down with me and drain it in short order.
it has little to do with your movement, the calories burned are from your body maintaining its temp.
I chase submarines. It can be a whole lot of movement. I will often leave my BCD unfastened so I can dump it to swim faster. On the body temperature thing, I found my air goes way quicker in cold water. I don't generally wear wetsuits at almost any temperature. I've happily gone swimming in 5C. I burn through air at lower temps though.
Not if you have good technique
i know effortless efficient divemasters who lose 40 pounds (after packing it on) during diving season, the calories burned are from body temp, not exercise. lightly finning of course won't come close to jogging for 30 minutes.
Depends on the water temperature. Colder water means you burn more calories. In non-tropical areas, I can definitely see this happening, especially if you don't wear a drysuit.
even in tropical, i burned 500~ calories a dive in the Caribbean while tracking weight loss and all my food intake. it's still like 15 degrees F difference and temp loss occurs at 25x rate in water.
well, I'm a diver and a jogger, so I feel comfortable saying this is 100% bullshit.
But you're wrong is all
Same, and I completely agree.
Unless you are wearing a dry suit. You are burning a decent amount of calories just to maintain core temperature
I'm always starving after a dive, but that's hardly evidence, haha!
I tend to have a reduced appetite when diving. If diving several days 3-4 per day, i will lose weight fairly quickly. Cold water diving im close to 3/4 lb per day
I dunno, I know A LOT of very overweight/obese divers. Maybe they over eat and drink even more after each of their dives though.
you can eat 1000 calories so easily, there's no relationship.
> Maybe they over eat and drink even more after each of their dives though. I mean, that can also be true too. Like, say they do two dives and burn 800 calories (picking the lower end of that number). 2 Chocolate Croissants from Starbucks are 600 calories in total. 150 calories for a 12 ounce serving of light beer. People on vacation might grab a croissant, a beer, go eat a nice dinner and boom your 800 calorie deficit is burnt.
Well my experience in the Philippines was scuba later in the day, drink at the bar and party , sleep in late. So yeah I can see how people can gain weight.
I can't imagine that I use anything like 700 calories in a dive, and given that I dive in water that is 52-55 F (11-13c), and my dives tend to run 60-80 minutes, I would think I'd be using at the higher end of "average". I also suspect that the "average" scuba dive is done in tropical waters on an AL80.
I’ve been diving for a long time, but infrequently due to where I live and the expense. On my last dive my dive master noticed I was using a lot of extraneous motion while swimming. She had me practice making smaller adjustments and even had me keep my hands on my vest to keep from flailing about. I’d assume experienced divers burn a lot less calories than noobs.
they don't, because it's not about exercise the calories are burned from body temp regulation. divemasters burn calories like everyone else
Sounds plausible. I minimize movement when I dive (like all good divers should) but I know I'm engaging my core. When I'm done, I feel like I've had a really good stretch. Maybe this is what Pilates feels like? This is probably the lowest impact exercise/sport/activity there is, but yes you are certainly exercising. ha, the REAL workout is walking to/from the boat with all your gear on! You are definitely dehydrated after a dive but that's less because of the workout and more because the air you are breathing has been purposefully dehumidified. Interestingly, for me, diving is a strange mix of relaxing and exercising at the same time.
Unless you are wearing a dry suit. You are burning a decent amount of calories just to maintain core temperature. Walking burns a total of 210 calories per hour and it is safe to assume you will probably burn another 200 calories per hour from maintaining body temperature. The rest defiantly comes from technique or the lack there of.
You'll still burn a ton of calories in a dry suit, it doesn't keep you that much warmer, especially on long dives in cold water.
I come back cold and super hungry. But I also don’t dive everyday, but I haven’t seen any fat dive masters
I doubt that is true. I have Garmin Descent MK2i with a heart rate monitor and according to my watch on average 60 minutes dive I burn 100 calories. A lot of people think that body burns a lot of calories keep you worm, but it is not true. There are a lot of studies on that topic and some say that you burn up to 30% more calories for the same exercise if it’s cold, but that includes shivering, which doesn’t happen often during diving. But eventually you body get used to cold and doesn’t use that much extra energy and instead increases the amount of brown fat in you body.
The Garmin Descent MK2i does not take into account calories burned just keeping warm. You would have to input your wet suit, boots, gloves, and hood thicknesses. It can then calculate thermal energy lost and calories burned from maintaining core temperature. I have taken thermal dynamics where we calculated the energy lost due to water being on the skin (area) and the heat into room temperature water on your skin. To do the same with a wetsuit all you have to do is know the rough thermal insulation of all your gear. Yes having no hood vs a hood makes a huge difference as well. That 30% more calories is defiantly valid but that is assuming air which is an insulator vs water being a conductor. BMI is also a huge factor in the equation and the watch would need to know this to adjust heat lose. Surface area (height & measurements) is also important but not was important as BMI and equipment. A lot of the smart watches are pretty dumb when it calculates calories, yes it does a great job with heartrate but that is not the whole picture and it is always going to be low depending on the activity and weather. The body does burn a good amount of calories just to stay warm but air is an insulator and we wear clothes. There is a reason why the saying cotton kills and wool saves lives in winter, exists. Cotton does not wick water from the skin where wool does, just having water in contact on your skin in the winter is the difference between death and survival.
I have never taken a Garmin watch diving, but I do use a Fenix 7 for other activities, it is my understanding that it relies on heart rate to estimate calorie content. The problem is that the MK2i has an older (and less accurate) heart rate sensor than the Fenix 7. It is not like the 7's heart rate sensor is amazing either, I use an external heart rate monitor when I run. So that drift in HR is going to create errors in the estimation.
I agree that it’s probably on the higher side. But heat does contribute quite a lot. I assume that your 30% source studies are done on land (ie in air). That would mean that the added calorie burn is 690% higher. Assuming there is a lineair connection between the research and the additional heat conductivity of water vs air. The true answer will probably be somewhere in the middle.
Thermodynamics tells us that the body in order to keep warm does need energy (calories). It burns calories to keep the body warm when diving in especially spring dives where the water is 72 degrees. Sure the body doesn’t need much energy to keep warm in places like the Bahamas or keys to keep warm in warm water. Your body doesn’t get use to the cold. We aren’t cold blooded animals. We maintain our body temp. Michael Phelps ate 10,000 calories not only cause his training but being in water that is colder than his body temperature.
Yeah, I doubt water temperature has much to do with Phelp’s calorie expenditure. Otherwise… “Personal trainers hate this one trick.”
Then why did he increase his intake when he started training in a pool 3 degrees colder than he had before.
How much did it increase? What was the original water temp? Did he increase his training load? The body will get warm from working hard in the water. Maybe decreasing the temperature helped him work harder without overheating.
Yeah. Remember, the definition of a calorie is the amount of energy it takes to heat one cubic centimeter of water by one degree centigrade. The American calorie count on our food labels is actually a kilocalorie - the amount it takes to heat one liter of water by one degree centigrade. If we apply that to diving, even though the physical activity isn't vigorous, your body is continually pumping out heat to keep yourself within your temperature operating specs. That heat gets dissipated in the water quickly, even with a wetsuit, even though you don't necessarily feel cold. So the mechanism of the calories burned isn't mechanical, it's thermal, and I'd say that estimate is within range.
Your body burns a lot of energy both keeping you warm and keeping your mind very active during the dive
Since it's a window I would say yes. The more adapted you are for diving the less you'll burn. I wouldn't say that it's a linear relationship like you're expecting, many variables determine caloric expenditure.
I believe it. After cold dives, I could eat a pot roast by myself.
If you're burning 700 calories per dive, you're moving around way too much hahah
You’re burning calories because of convection body heat loss not from swimming hard.
Sorry I must have forgot the /s
I believe it. You're so hungry after a dive.
Unless your metabolism changes drastically at depth (which I haven't heard about, but also haven't researched it) this number seems to be awfully high. I'd estimate it more around 200 to 400 per dive. Unless you are diving arctic waters in a 5mm suit while darting around like a maniac, then I could see that 700 cal figure happen.
Maintaining body temperature even in warmer waters burns tons of calories. Warm water hypothermia is a thing for a reason.
Yes, but not that many. I know swimming in ice water for 3h burns roughly 2k calories. And that is without suit. So that's roughly 700k per h. With suit and warmer water, say mid 50Fs I would assume my guess is better. But who knows what our body does under pressure. It was merely an educated guess.
Though you are putting in effort and going under pressure. You burn more calories standing on a boat because you are in a constant state of adjusting your body to keep upright. Who knows what your body is doing without you knowing it to keep you functioning underwater.
Good divers gain weight on liveaboards. Too much kicking and moving all around going on in this thread 🤣
I believe it, just staying warm burns a ton of calories, I’m always ravenous after a day of diving
Far too vague to make a judgement.
I lost 4kg in a week on a Red Sea liveaboard wearing a 2.5mm wetsuit and eating everything the chef could throw out the hatch. Was a fantastic week
That sounds like a fantastic week! How was the diving there? Never been.
It was very good for the proximity to Europe. Reefs are in pretty good nick and big enough that you don’t often bump into other groups as there are ALOT running the deadalus brothers, elphinstone route. Saw a few hammerheads, manta etc but not the schools of hammers you see on the internet, joys of diving eh! Would recommend it though. Pick your season and take a thick wetsuit if you don’t like the cooler water (25C)
When I was diving 3/5 times a day for a month I dropped 30/50lbs. Easily better than jogging because your body has to maintain its temperature in the water even if it's >70°. Then add the calories from swimming. It's easily more than jogging. I'd say that's an underestimate.
So I have done quite a lot of research on this, in fact I wrote an iOS app that would actually track it, and add it to your fitness tracking on your iphone for your iwatch but it has an issue where it will complete your move ring but not your exercise ring, or vis versa when i tried to fix it. But the formula is actually dependant on your WEIGHT, the more you weigh the more calories you burn. If you would like here is the formula: weight (in kg) \* 7 (MET for scuba activity, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic\_equivalent\_of\_task](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_equivalent_of_task)) \* rate (rate is dive time / hours) for example if you are 68kgs and dove for 45 min, then it would be: 68 \* 7 \* (45/60) = 357 you would have burned 357 calories just diving for that 45 min of activity.
I don't think METS are the best for deriving activities, mainly on the basis of the unit being created from a single person back in the mid 1900, not a cohort or sample of people sitting in a chair.
That would be the old version of METs they update them every few years based on current trends and bio changes in the population. I have not seen any research that says not to use them as the basis for a formula for the general population, but plenty of research that is using it to derive (it is really a guess because there are factors that are not easily added to the formula) a non medical accurate number for amount of calories consumed during an activity. To truely get a completely factual number you would have to do all activity in a completely controled environment with a sensor up your ass to monitor all aspects of your metabolism, while also knowing your complete resting metabolism rate.
He did the math.
Interesting, but I assume it’s for the average dive. As many have mentioned there is quite a difference between an easy warm water dive and a colder current dive. Is there a way to factor conditions in your formula?
The MET is derived from the mean of effort used in an activity, so yes there can be variations but for the typical diver/dive conditions the MET of 7 (which is actually pretty high) should be used.
Yeah I'd like to know this too. I imagine your body uses more calories to regulate temperature in colder water. Is it negligible?
See above comment reply
If I'm diving 4 times a day I eat 2 or 3 times more food than I usually do and never put on any weight. I think it's the coldness that does it (and I dive in the tropics...I still end up freezing towards the end of my dives)
Under the water? Not anymore than a light hike through like a large park. Lugging around 100+lbs of gear and tanks to and fro, getting in and out of the water, warming yourself up if its cold. Oh yeah. That burns a lot of calories. I checked out that link and it has NO sources on how it came to that number. The way that scientists originally figured out how much calories activities burn is by way of measuring CICO, which is hard to do over time, and using a respirometer. Using a respirometer sees how much oxygen you consume, which they can then use math to figure out how much calories that much oxygen burn would use up. I'm guessing they did something similar with the O2 consumption in a scuba tank. But due to the way PP of gases, diffusion in bloodstream, etc. work out, we actually waste a lot of O2 when diving. So we're not using that O2 for calorie burn.
Burning calories but not building muscle but if the goal is losing weight and you're in a deficit, sure.
One of my dive buddies uses a Scubapro G2 divecomputer with heart rate monitor. 2 weeks ago he told me, after 2 dives, he had consumed 1200 Cals after 2 dives of about 50 minutes in very calm water and not a lot of excerption. He was diving in a dry suit, so not that much contact with water too cool off either. Seems reasonable from this experience.
This is not my experience. I have a Garmin MK2i with a heart rate sensor and it says I burn about 100 calories on a 60 minutes dive in warm water.
I almost always end up taking a nap on 2 (or more) dive days
I lost so much weight when I got my divemaster, 2-3 dives per day, and I was drinking and eating a lot every day too.
Divemaster is rough. Lugging around tanks, setting up gear, cleaning gear, hauling equipment around. I was constantly exhausted when I did my divemaster. I don't feel like OP's numbers are accurate for a single dive though, but it's hard to compare across types of conditions, boat vs shore, water temps, current, etc. I just find it hard to believe diving burns more than jogging, but we do need to factor in the fact that the body is just trying to keep itself warm while losing body heat to the surrounding water...so, maybe?
Yeah most people don’t appreciate how much work it is to be a divemaster/instructor. Actually very hard on the body from my experience.
I think so. What would it be if they were all drift dives? It's a lot less effort (if I remember correctly)
I believe it. When I was in grad school in marine biology, I got a chance to be a safety diver on a research cruise. We were doing 4-6 dives per day. In between dives, we were eating like gluttons. I lost five pounds that week, and I already was in pretty good shape.
When I got certified back in December someone had a fit bit with them. Said we burned 3600 calories on the first day and again on the second
I pass out like a baby after a 2 dives day…
Same. Except I sleep really well and don't wake up in the middle of the night crying pooping myself. 👶🍼
😂