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Huh? Where are the historic sedentary men eating over 5000 calories on a daily basis?
It's going to be hard for me to dig that up. It was on X and was based on records of courtiers in some European country.
Not the same, but here's the best I could do with 3 minutes of Perplexity: Trench soldiers eating 4600 kCals per day during WWI. Obviously, they were very active, but also must have weighed an average of like 140 pounds.
https://medicalmuseum.health.mil/micrograph/index.cfm/posts/2023/beef_bread_and_coffee_food_innovations_during_world_war_I
Even assuming extreme activity, this should only burn less than 3200 kCals per day: https://tdeecalculator.net/result.php?s=imperial&g=male&age=19&lbs=140&in=69&act=1.9&f=1
I've seen many other records of historical people eating large amounts of calories. Maybe they're dubious, I'm not sure.
These guys were probably fat. I can definitely buy a sedentary fat man eating five thousand calories a day.
It's pretty believable that trench warfare has higher caloric demands than athletic training. Athletes stop training once they are in danger of overexerting themselves, while the infantry has no such luxury.
That trench soldiers maintained weight on 4600 calories a day should make us extremely skeptical of sedentary, normal BMI people eating 5kcal day in, day out unless they have some kind of metabolic disease, let alone this happening often.
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All but one were eaten by Henry VIII.
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