Please check my diet-plan.

[brimstoneSalad]

Why do you write that (diminishing returns)? Isn't number of calories burned in a day completely positively correlated with number of heart beats in one day?

Burning more calories is not necessarily a desirable goal in itself. It's much better to eat fewer calories, with higher nutrient to calorie ratio.

Eating more to work more means burning the candle at both ends, from a biological perspective -- look into "calorie restriction with adequate nutrition". The more you eat, the sooner you die, from any number of causes (this is true for pretty much all species except fruit flies). I'm not saying we should restrict calories to that extreme degree (since it has side effects), but over-eating does the opposite in terms of general metabolic damage to the body (free radicals, etc.) that results in ageing and cancer.

Eating more calories just so you can burn them -- doing cardio exercise beyond the minimum that benefits health -- is going to have a negative health outcome in the long run.

You want a moderate amount of physical activity to keep you in shape to prevent injury, and optimize heart health. Beyond that, the contributions to your health are minimal or ultimately negative. "Too much of a good thing."

Perhaps you mean that too much training will lead to injury? Or do you mean that too much cardio is catabolic in case his goals are to gain muscle?

These are also true, but in regard to diminishing returns, I was just talking about optimal health.

[Jebus]

Eating more to work more means burning the candle at both ends, from a biological perspective -- look into "calorie restriction with adequate nutrition". The more you eat, the sooner you die, from any number of causes (this is true for pretty much all species except fruit flies).

I did look into this. Most of what came up during the Google search seemed to contradict this theory, such as this article: http://healthland.time.com/2012/08/29/w ... striction/

Eating more calories just so you can burn them

Perhaps I am misunderstanding you because that sounds absurd. People who eat too much do so because they like eating, not because they want to have more calories to burn.

You want a moderate amount of physical activity to keep you in shape to prevent injury, and optimize heart health. Beyond that, the contributions to your health are minimal or ultimately negative. "Too much of a good thing."

Let's not overlook the other reasons people exercise vigorously, such as stronger athletic performance, more attractive physique etc. I agree that there are diminishing returns regarding life longevity once someone gets into frequent and vigorous exercise, but the research seems to suggest that more is still better.

Risk Ratios (95% CI) of Cardiovascular Disease Associated With Exercise Intensity and MET-Hours Per Week

MET-hours/week Low moderate (average intensity 3–4.4 METs) High moderate (average intensity 4.5– 5.9 METs) Low vigorous (average intensity 6–7.4 METs) High vigorous (average intensity >7.5 METs)
<6 1.00 0.86 (0.71–1.04) 0.84 (0.63–1.11) 1.16 (0.57–2.35)
6–15 0.98 (0.86–1.11) 1.04 (0.89–1.21) 0.87 (0.70–1.08) 0.65 (0.38–1.11)
>15 0.84 (0.74–0.94) 0.83 (0.73–0.93) 0.82 (0.71–0.95) 0.75 (0.63–0.90)

from http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/718017

[brimstoneSalad]

I did look into this. Most of what came up during the Google search seemed to contradict this theory, such as this article: http://healthland.time.com/2012/08/29/w ... striction/

Interesting to see a newer study. It's challenging to do these on primates, since their life spans are so long.

Wound healing is an important consideration as a side effect. Very low calorie diets are associated with shutdown of bodily systems. There's probably a middle ground somewhere there, but keep in mind that in that newer study the controls were also probably on that middle ground (since they were eating well planned and moderated diets).

My concern is based primarily on mechanism of action, rather than observation of close relatives. That is, the damage done by metabolism and just the overall operation and maintenance of the body.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding you because that sounds absurd. People who eat too much do so because they like eating, not because they want to have more calories to burn.

A few do, though I meant more along the lines of that; people eating more calories only to turn around and burn them to make up for it isn't necessarily a good thing.

Let's not overlook the other reasons people exercise vigorously, such as stronger athletic performance, more attractive physique etc.

Those are all good points. And while it's ultimately a little unhealthy to engage in body building or marathon running, for example, it may still be useful as vegan outreach to show people that vegans can be strong. It's a self sacrifice for the greater good.

I agree that there are diminishing returns regarding life longevity once someone gets into frequent and vigorous exercise, but the research seems to suggest that more is still better.

Vigorous exercise is probably correlated with improved diet, and reduced obesity, so we'd need to control for those factors to see if this still holds. I doubt it would as strongly.

Another issue, however, is that this is dealing with heart disease, while the risk to the body from eating more/burning more is along the lines of other age related diseases and cancer.

That's a good chart that starts to highlight the diminishing returns of both more vigorous and more prolonged less vigorous activity.
I think it's something we need more data on, and with better controls, to make more precise recommendations.

Chomistek said that approximately 2.5 hours per week of moderate to vigorous physical activity has been shown to lower the risk of cardiovascular disease, but the dose-response curve is not well defined.

from the article http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/718017

Since the reduction in risk to heart disease is only moderate in that study, and it's not clear how many confounding variables there might be, I would be hesitant to recommend more than half an hour of moderate to vigorous activity a day. And for reasons of potential injury, running wouldn't be my first choice -- but that's another matter aside from the caloric consumption.

This is something I'd be excited to see more on.