OR HOW MANY CALORIES DOES A STAND-UP COMEDY SHOW BURN?
Stella Graham wanted to find out, so she wore a Polar heart rate monitor and Polar FT4 watch during her hour long stand-up comedy show, A Pint of Stella.
She wore the heart monitor for 30 minutes before the show, and stopped the clock after her 60 minute show had finished. Here are the results:
Duration: 1:32:35
Calories: 568 kcal
Average heart rate: 117bpm
Maximum heart rate: 158bpm
Time spent in the “fat burning zone”: 00:24:36
In the 30 minutes prior to the show, Stella’s heart rate started at around 110bpm. Normally, her resting heart rate is around 78-82. No strenuous activity was done during this time, apart from a few simple set up tasks, such as moving a few chairs.
Some of Stella’s show involves physical comedy, which may help to explain the statistics.
When not at the Fringe, Stella maintains a healthy diet and exercise programme. Her diet is based on the principles of the Paleo Diet. She has also been intermittent fasting, eating between 2pm and 8pm as well as dabbling with the recently popular 5:2 diet; Mondays and Thursdays, she would only consume 500-600 calories.
For exercise, Stella normally completes a 3 day split workout at the gym, focusing on resistance training and targeting different areas for each day. Day 1 for Chest, Triceps and Abdominal muscles, Day 2 for Back and Biceps and Day 3 for Shoulders, Legs and Abdominal muscles.
During the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, all diet and exercise disciplines have been all but abandoned, so far the only exercise of note that she has completed was to hike to the top of Arthur’s Seat.
These statistics include the walk to and from Arthur’s Seat, not just the hike itself.
Duration: 2:07:43
Calories: 803kcal
Average heart rate: 119bpm
Maximum heart rate: 167bpm
Time spent in the “fat burning zone”: 00:40:45
Sadly the salads have been outweighed by the falafel wraps and occasional kebab. Her alcohol consumption is higher than normal too.
It is encouraging to see how many calories are burned during a show, despite the bad diet and lack of a proper exercise routine. So far all of Stella’s clothes still fit, so maybe stand-up comedy can be viewed as an effective method of burning calories?
It is interesting to note that a pint of Stella Artois contains around 256 calories. If you’d like to see Stella burn more calories than 2 pints of Stella, then head along to watch A Pint of Stella at Jekyll and Hyde, 4pm every day until Aug 25th.
STELLA GRAHAM – A PINT OF STELLA
Title of Show: A Pint of Stella
Time: 4pm
Dates: 1-14, 16-25 August
Venue: The Jekyll and Hyde, 112 Hanover Street EH2 1DR
Bookings: Free Entry. Non ticketed
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
