this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2025
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You can burn calories without oxygen (anaerobic metabolism), but it mainly occurs during really intense exercise or loss of blood flow. I think it ends up averaging out in the long run, but I'm not really finding answers at my reading level. At mild exertion levels, the o2-calorie relationship is basically 1:1.
The "true" answer would be a whole-room calorimeter,
but thats a much more significant investment of time and resources.
Even with anaerobic metabolism, the process produces lactate and pyruvate as a byproduct that the body needs to clear that out, which generally involves oxygen consumption. So the energy expenditure might spike in that moment without a corresponding spike in oxygen in that moment, but the amount over time should increase to where the overall amount should still correlate with total calori expenditure.
That's kinda what I assumed, but again: don't read good. What's the time scale to make up the difference?