In an October 2001 issue of Transfusion Medicine, an article notes that one unit of blood reflects about 600 calories of food intake. The American Red Cross states that people in good health who weigh at least 110 pounds can donate a unit of blood as often as every eight weeks. That means you can donate about 6 times per year. Since one pound of body weight equals 3500 calories, you can donate the maximum safe quantity of blood, and you'll lose roughly one pound per year.

I don't know how accurate that is, but at least there might be another healthy reason to give blood.

The Blood Transfusion Service in the UK recommends that you only donate 3 or 4 times per year, rather than every 8 weeks.
However, think of what you are donating.....

Iron and Protein.

Your red blood cells have a lifespan of about 120 days, then they get broken down, and the constituents remade into new RBCs. If you are bleeding too often, the loss will be out of proportion to the notional amount of calories you might use up.
Seems a fairly extreme (and misguided) way of losing weight.

HOWEVER...............

I can't recommend blood transfusion highly enough. It's vital that there are adequate stocks of blood and blood components for hospital use. Only last night the use for a fair amount of that precious resource stopped a patient for popping his clogs.

You never want to need blood, but when you need blood, you are usually very needful of it.

Andrew.

Yeah, as far as i know you will not lose any weight by donating blood on a consistent basis, like andrew M said new red blood cells will be made, think about it ,every time someone gets a cut or donates some blood, if it was never recovered maybe over time maybe ud lose weight but ud also be getting weaker etc and eventually you would not have enough blood to function, anyway im kinda of veering off topic and thats an extreme example, but another way to look at it is blood doping that distance runners used to do (or maybe still do), where they have some blood extracted by a transfusion, then they let there body make new red blood cells, and then they re-inject the blood they took out, which means more blood cells then before and easier process of oxygen or something like that and honest distance runners train in high altitude to produce this same effect, anyway in a word donating blood often for a pound of weight loss a year, first of all i doubt if u lost a pound a year it would be from the blood secondly if it as possible, why bother, just do cardio weights and eat clean......but i know you were just brining up an articleand this is the off topic forum, anyway i hope i didnt come off as an a*$%hole :mad: , i was just giving my two cents

but i know you were just brining up an articleand this is the off topic forum, anyway i hope i didnt come off as an a*$%hole :mad: , i was just giving my two cents
Oh no problem at all. Yeh, I know that article made me crack up. In the theoretical sense, you might lose a pound, but it wouldn't matter because the rbc's replenish themselves.

You could also lose about 20-30 lbs by cutting off your arm.

You could also lose about 20-30 lbs by cutting off your arm.unless you were a starfish.

unless you were a starfish.

LMAO :claplow:

unless you were a starfish.
Wouldn't the starfish actually lose the weight too, unless it eats a lot more than it used to afterwards? As I see it, this would bring a whole new meaning to the word "cutting", and think of the amazing bulking periods he could have...

Amputation - the fastest and most reliable way to lose weight.

Wouldn't the starfish actually lose the weight too, unless it eats a lot more than it used to afterwards? well it would, but after you cut them off, the damn things grow back.

well it would, but after you cut them off, the damn things grow back.
As long as it feeds properly, right? That was my comment, if he (mr Starfish) goes on maintenance level he won't get it back (the little bastard...).

My fat kinda grows back after I cut it too...what does that make me?

i started to read the post and then i was like, "wait a minute, we're talking about starfishes on maintenance levels."

i started to read the post and then i was like, "wait a minute, we're talking about starfishes on maintenance levels."
Yeah. So what's your point? This is "off-topic", isn't it?

By the way, in order to get on-topic, I'm not really sure that the 1 pound/year weight loss from giving blood matters that much. I like giving blood though, you get really cool tshirts, and you can pretend that you're doing it to be good, and not just to get the tshirts...