Inflated Numbers

I'm participating in something called Fitlinxx at the YMCA. Basically, it helps you keep track of your cardio work-outs and your weight training and creates milestones for you to reach. You can also compare yourself to other participants at your location or all around the country. I'm tops in my gender/age group at my facility, thanks almost entirely to 2-hour basketball sessions each week (because burning over 1000 calories in a single workout when it would normally take me three sessions on the elipitcal to do the same is fun, and everyone else is probably doing it the hard way).

I decided to check my ratings against the rest of the country (not even ranked. d'oh!) and found that the top person has supposedly burned 222,838 calories this month. 222,838 calories in 18 days. That's approximately 12,380 calories a day. Assuming this person worked out during all but the eight hours they theoretically slept each day, that's 773.75 calories an hour. A pound of fat is about 3500 calories. So this person should have lost 3.5 pounds a day, assuming their body didn't also start consuming muscle in it's desperate attempt to support this work-out regimine. So far this month, they should have lost about 63 pounds. Impressive. But I'm thinking they need to see a doctor. Or a mathematician. Those decimal points can be tricky.