Eating & Burning 10,000kcal In 48 Hours

24 hours of eating 10,000 kcal

At the stroke of midnight, Joe tucked into a large takeaway pizza and cookie dessert. 1,906 calories under his belt before going to bed. Start as you mean to go on.

And for breakfast, Joe helped himself to a big bowl of chocolate cereal with milk and three pancake wraps with chocolate hazelnut spread. Another 2,409 calories. Easy work so far.

Before he knew it, it was lunchtime. Joe was in the mood for fast food. 20 nuggets, two large fries, and one caramel soft serve ice cream. It was a lot of food, but Joe got it down easily, topping him up with another 1,648 calories.

Although he was more than halfway to his goal, there was no time to waste. He picked up some snacks that would add another 1,100 calories. By this point, the challenge was becoming more of a slog. “I feel like I’m gonna be sick”, Joe said as he passed 8,000 calories.

And then he peaked, falling into a deep sleep with a very full tummy. Thankfully Joe doesn’t live alone, and his housemate was able to wake him up and let him know he had just one hour left to complete the remaining 2,000 calories.

It was full steam ahead. A quick trip to the shops secured a big bag of nacho cheese tortilla chips, then to the drive-through for a portion of large fries and two more ice creams. Joe drove to the gym and knuckled down to eat the remaining calories in the time he had left. And with two minutes to go he hit 10,000 calories. Success.

But the challenge was far from over. Far from it. The worst was yet to come.

24 hours of burning 10,000kcal

You might be wondering why Joe decided to consume his final 2,000 calories at the gym. And the answer’s simple: as soon as he finished one challenge, he began the next one.

As soon as the clock ticked beyond midnight, Joe hit the cross-trainer, treadmill, and rowing machine. It was 2am, and he’d already burned 1,017 calories. He was exhausted and got a strong nine hours on the back of it. 1,082 calories burned overnight made for a productive sleep. But as soon as Joe woke up, he was straight back to it. He got in a 5km run and burned 600 calories.

After that, there was no time to rest. He met up with Nathaniel Massiah for an intense upper-body workout, burning 1,471 calories.

He followed this with a boxing session, skipping, and battle ropes to burn another 823 calories. He was slowly but surely making his way towards his goal.

And as much as Joe wanted to curl up and chill out, he carried on. He hopped on his bike, cycled to the lake for a freshwater swim and then back home. That was another 1,018 calories.

At this point it was a race against the clock. Two hours to go, and he still had 4,000 calories left to burn. It was going to be tight, but Joe was determined to give it everything he had left.

For the final two hours Joe went hard — running, battle ropes, weights, farmer's walk, cross-trainer. He’s not a quitter and went non-stop until the clock struck 12. And then the results. After a full day of basically non-stop exercise, Joe had burned a total of 6,861 calories. Maybe burning 10,000 calories in a day really is impossible after all.

Take home message

The mental and physical toll the challenge had on Joe was clear. He was exhausted and deflated but not beaten. 48 hours of putting his body through impossible challenges. By the end he was ready for bed. And so am I just from watching.