I am a former adult cross country marathon athlete, now with less marathon and more glorious dad bod. So eating healthy ultraprocessed “junk” over 3000-4000 calories a day was my life, for years (the 90s was a thing). You do not eat mcdonalds if you are a health conscious athlete. it is NOT calories in/out. Soo much crap for the body to process, there is nothing nutritious for mcds, even the salad is bad for you.

I ONCE had mcd’s night before a race and felt like shit during the race, which was followed up by, yes you guessed it, had the SHITS while i powered through it and ran my race. Post race, i would have thought I had the flu based on how bad i felt. This is in the 90s of course, when Mcds was going through their “our hamburgers are 100% beef” stage. It tasted great, until it didn’t.

So yes, we can burn through those calories, but your stomach/asshole be damned.