What happens to the extra fat you eat?

Leonidas_meets_Spartacus

I just want to put a disclaimer before I go in to any detail that this may or may not apply to your body. I did an experiment for 2 weeks. eating surplus of around 1500 cals on average every day for 2 weeks. My Protein and carb level stayed similar to my regular diet and most of the surplus calories came from fat. If you believe in calorie in and calorie out mambo jumbo, I should have gained anywhere from 6-9 lbs. After two weeks I compared my bod pod results and the fat gain was 0.9 lbs and body mass gain was around 1.6 lbs. I was surprised because I would gain weight on a 2500 cal Standard American Diet. I think Human body is not a steam engine where you measure energy consumption and energy expenditure using a formula. There are lot of hormones which behave differently based on the food I eat. Its also a good reminder to me that I should stick to this lifestyle because it gives me more margin for error. Eating around 4000 cals a day was not easy, I felt stuffed all the time.

Dragonwolf

I don't have references offhand, but I've seen a couple of theories mentioned over the course of my readings, which I assume all contribute to it (ie - it's not one thing, but a combination of all that are correct):

1. Your metabolism adjusts to the surplus. More dietary fuel to burn = more freedom to do so. Makes sense to me, given that the opposite is generally touted as true (caloric deficit slows metabolism, though the surplus side may or may not only be a temporary thing).

2. Some of the fat, particularly if there's not much fiber in the diet, is used to...ahem...lubricate things. If it's not absorbed, then it can't be stored ("it's not what you eat, it's what you absorb that matters").

3. #2 opens the door to the possibility that it's just excreted, which could be the case especially if the body doesn't sense impending famine (ie - you haven't been restricting calories lately).

4. Less insulin means less prompting to store excesses right away. Some of that fat surplus may show up in your bloodwork as slightly elevated serum cholesterol, between ingesting and your body figuring out what to do with it.

And I agree with your conclusions that we're not a steam engine (or as one article I found put it "we are not a bomb calorimeter"). The calorie balance thing is a gross oversimplification. Yes, they technically matter (after all, you did gain weight, technically), but the fact that you didn't gain anywhere near projected, and that many of us who do some variation of LC/HF do so because the SAD/CICO methods weren't working and see results on the same number of calories (or even more), should be ample evidence that it's not as simple as "eat less, body burns fat to make up the difference; eat more, body stores all excess."

SnowFlinga

I just want to put a disclaimer before I go in to any detail that this may or may not apply to your body. I did an experiment for 2 weeks. eating surplus of around 1500 cals on average every day for 2 weeks. My Protein and carb level stayed similar to my regular diet and most of the surplus calories came from fat. If you believe in calorie in and calorie out mambo jumbo, I should have gained anywhere from 6-9 lbs. After two weeks I compared my bod pod results and the fat gain was 0.9 lbs and body mass gain was around 1.6 lbs. I was surprised because I would gain weight on a 2500 cal Standard American Diet. I think Human body is not a steam engine where you measure energy consumption and energy expenditure using a formula. There are lot of hormones which behave differently based on the food I eat. Its also a good reminder to me that I should stick to this lifestyle because it gives me more margin for error. Eating around 4000 cals a day was not easy, I felt stuffed all the time.

Hah - you're clearly a J. Stanton reader on gnolls.org. I just read his 8 part "treatise" on " A Calorie isn't a Calorie". What an absolute tour de force he put together there.

Caeyla

I think Human body is not a steam engine where you measure energy consumption and energy expenditure using a formula.

I think you are absolutely right about that, and that so many people fail to comprehend that is astounding.

Leonidas_meets_Spartacus

I don't have references offhand, but I've seen a couple of theories mentioned over the course of my readings, which I assume all contribute to it (ie - it's not one thing, but a combination of all that are correct):

1. Your metabolism adjusts to the surplus. More dietary fuel to burn = more freedom to do so. Makes sense to me, given that the opposite is generally touted as true (caloric deficit slows metabolism, though the surplus side may or may not only be a temporary thing).

2. Some of the fat, particularly if there's not much fiber in the diet, is used to...ahem...lubricate things. If it's not absorbed, then it can't be stored ("it's not what you eat, it's what you absorb that matters").

3. #2 opens the door to the possibility that it's just excreted, which could be the case especially if the body doesn't sense impending famine (ie - you haven't been restricting calories lately).

4. Less insulin means less prompting to store excesses right away. Some of that fat surplus may show up in your bloodwork as slightly elevated serum cholesterol, between ingesting and your body figuring out what to do with it.

And I agree with your conclusions that we're not a steam engine (or as one article I found put it "we are not a bomb calorimeter"). The calorie balance thing is a gross oversimplification. Yes, they technically matter (after all, you did gain weight, technically), but the fact that you didn't gain anywhere near projected, and that many of us who do some variation of LC/HF do so because the SAD/CICO methods weren't working and see results on the same number of calories (or even more), should be ample evidence that it's not as simple as "eat less, body burns fat to make up the difference; eat more, body stores all excess."

I think, most of my fat was getting flushed out through ketones in my urine. My blood strips didn't show much off a spike in ketone levels but Urine strips were pretty dark. My cholesterol and other stuff in blood panel didn't change much in the 2 weeks.