When is a pound lost and where does it go?

IMYarnCraz33

It may take 3500 calories burned for one pound weight lost, BUT you won't lose 1 pound all at once.
Just like previous posts....
you don't use up all the gas in your car all at once and you can't use all the power in a battery all at once.
Just think of it slowly melting away as it [energy] is being used up.

Silvergamma

When you lose a pound it either sneaks out the window, or uses the mail slot. Obviously.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWNlecBsD08

katkins3

Mine goes to my ex-boyfriend's daughter's hips. I have willed it so!

MercuryBlue

Thanks for the great response.

It makes me feel better about the response I, jokingly, give to family members when they comment that I've lost weight. When they ask 'where did it all go?' I will respond with: "Poop, mostly."

beesareyellow

The fat just...walks away.

Jujubee710

I have two questions that have been bugging me. So I hear you lose a pound of fat for every 3500 calories. This being the case, when does that pound actually drop off? Theoretically, if I were to eat my maintenance calories and burn 3500 calories through exercise would I lose a pound the moment I reached that calorie burn or does it take a day or two to remove itself?


This second part of the question sounds ridiculous, I'll admit, but where exactly does that pound of fat go? I get that it's converted into energy but I have a hard time getting my head around the idea that something that occupies a certain space (the pound of fat) can essentially disappear into something which no longer occupies space.


The second problem is something that confuses me when it comes up in any context. I just can't quite understand how something can become nothing. Any thoughts welcome.

I've always wondered this myself...honestly

YukonJoy

well you can stay at maintainance at burn 500 cals a day n you will lose a pound every week.
2nd ques when you are burning fat look for when thing when you go to toilet to pee you will notice something white in your pee is like chicken fat thats how some of your fat comes out n some as a sweat. because when i did a diet few years back when the white thing came in pee i got scared that its something serious but found out its nothing just fat so a doctor knows best.

This is the most amazing response I have ever read.

This has just GOT to be a joke.

YukonJoy

When you burn fat, you break it down into ketones that you can use as energy. Those ketones are used pretty fast and they eventually will be turned into CO2 that you breath off or pee out has HCO3. That's how a pound of fat disappears

Thank you, for the only actual response in this entire thread.

MercenaryNoetic26

When you put gas in your car and drive around all week, where does it go?

LOL

soccerella

The original poster asked some interesting questions, and I like the way she thinks.

A "heat engine" takes in heat and converts a portion of it into mechanical work. When nutrient molecules in the body are combined with oxygen ("burned"), that's an exothermic reaction; it produces heat. Muscle cells use that heat energy to do work. The whole human body can be usefully regarded as a heat engine.

And yes, calories *are* energy, rigorously and exactly. A calorie is the amount of heat energy required to increase the temperature of a gram of water by a Celsius degree. (A nutritional calorie -- the sort we all talk about here -- is 1000 calories, as defined. It is also equal to 4186 joules, which is the work done by one newton of force over a parallel displacement of 4186 meters. A "typical" person weighs about 667 newtons, and can be lifted a little over six meters, straight up, by a nutritional calorie of mechanical work.)

A pound is lost when a pound of stored nutrients in the body (hopefully, fat) has been converted to ... well, not just energy. If an entire pound of fat were all converted to energy (according to E = mc^2), a dieter would be like an atomic bomb. But, as another commenter pointed out, chemical bonds in the pound of fat are broken, some of it is oxidized, heat is produced by that reaction; most of the rest of the broken-down nutrient molecules become waste and are eliminated in the same way as any food waste. The energy required by your body is supplied by the food you eat; if you don't eat "enough," you're in a calorie-deficit situation, and some stored body fat is internally "eaten" as well. As the OP said, about 3500 cal of deficit is equivalent to a pound of fat; as for WHEN this happens: as soon as your body requires a single calorie more than you've eaten, 1/3500 of a pound gets burned. When your cumulative deficit reaches 3500 cal, a full pound will have been used. (For the elimination of the unburned waste, I suppose there's a time delay measured in hours.)

But, in any case, that pound of fat didn't turn into nothing. A very small fraction of it is turned into heat and used by your muscles; the vast majority is turned into feces and urine, and returns to nature in the usual ways.

People ask me from time to time how much weight I've lost. Of course, I tell them that "lost" is probably too strong a term. I pretty much know where all of it is. Most of it's at the grocery store; quite a bit is at Burger King and Taco Bell and so on. I could go pick it up at any time. So, it's not really lost; it's more like "misplaced." I hope to leave it that way.

ok... now that i have picked myself back up off of the floor... **wipes away tears**

the question about burning calories IS a good one. and without getting too scientific (i'm a writer, Jim, not a science officer) i can break it down this way:

when you start a fire in your fire pit, barbeque or fireplace, you stack in fuel. this fuel can be logs or charcoal. then you light the fire. the logs and charcoal burn - technically calories, funny but true - and break down into gases, smoke, ash and i'm sure a lot of other things that i was asleep in chem when they explained. the energy is used to make the fire burn, and anything that is NOT that energy, is broken down to waste.

your body isn't that different. but it's your metabolic rate rather than a lighter that gets the fire going. you actually ARE expending heat energy - this is why your core temp goes up and you sweat and all the other stuff that happens when you're hot. Your body uses the stored energy by burning it. anything that is not needed to keep the fire going, is converted into waste - sweat, exhaled breath, poop and yeah, even some urine.

i hope that worked for you.

These are fantastic responses, thank you!

agreed, and I actually AM a scientist

one of the reasons you are having trouble comprehending it may the 1st law of thermodynamics, or what you may have heard as " matter cannot be created or destroyed" So yea, it seems puzzling to where the extra 100 pounds goes when someone goes from 250 to 150. It obviously cant disappear, even though it seems like it does...but you have to remember the second part of this law which is "it can only be converted from one form to another" and these two posts do a pretty good job of explaining how fat is converted to energy or expelled as waste....its like with water- when an icecube melts and then eventually evaporates, it doenst disappear, its converted to a different form

dmpizza

The fat breaks down to release chemical energy. Your body metabolises and passes the remainder.

pdworkman

If you have a particular kind of fish, or too much oil for your body to handle, you might poop fat out. My son did this when he ate an entire can of cashews in one sitting. Bright orange oil floating in the toilet - very disconcerting!

Pam

AdAstra47

Sigh. You are all SO misguided. Poor heathens.

Fatness is a punishment from the Divine Flying Spaghetti Monster. We have all displeased him in some way. And the only way to lose weight is to perform the appropriate rituals of repentance. In his Infinite Wisdom, our deity has provided several different rituals for those of different temperaments. You could practice the Treading of the Mill, or the Holy Contortions of Yoga, or submit yourself to the Torturers (sometimes called "Aerobics Instructors") at one of his Sacred Temples (also known as "gyms").

If your Ritual Humiliations have found favor with His Noodly Goodness, he shall visit you in your sleep and shave the pounds from your body with his Holy Cheese Grater.

I hope this has enlightened you all. May the Sauce be with you. RAmen.

kassandracat

You're fat cells shrink, lol. I think that's what happens.

JamieSK

When you put gas in your car and drive around all week, where does it go?

It goes out the rear end!! :laugh: Sorry I couldn't resist!!

HollieDoodles

Sigh. You are all SO misguided. Poor heathens.

Fatness is a punishment from the Divine Flying Spaghetti Monster. We have all displeased him in some way. And the only way to lose weight is to perform the appropriate rituals of repentance. In his Infinite Wisdom, our deity has provided several different rituals for those of different temperaments. You could practice the Treading of the Mill, or the Holy Contortions of Yoga, or submit yourself to the Torturers (sometimes called "Aerobics Instructors") at one of his Sacred Temples (also known as "gyms").

If your Ritual Humiliations have found favor with His Noodly Goodness, he shall visit you in your sleep and shave the pounds from your body with his Holy Cheese Grater.

I hope this has enlightened you all. May the Sauce be with you. RAmen.

You are quite wise.... Also, for those who are "noodle intolerant" I think the Parmesan Fairy sprinkles a little into your potty so that you TOO can see the fat leaving your system.

LuckyLeprechaun

Sigh. You are all SO misguided. Poor heathens.

Fatness is a punishment from the Divine Flying Spaghetti Monster. We have all displeased him in some way. And the only way to lose weight is to perform the appropriate rituals of repentance. In his Infinite Wisdom, our deity has provided several different rituals for those of different temperaments. You could practice the Treading of the Mill, or the Holy Contortions of Yoga, or submit yourself to the Torturers (sometimes called "Aerobics Instructors") at one of his Sacred Temples (also known as "gyms").

If your Ritual Humiliations have found favor with His Noodly Goodness, he shall visit you in your sleep and shave the pounds from your body with his Holy Cheese Grater.

I hope this has enlightened you all. May the Sauce be with you. RAmen.

snorted out loud @ holy cheese grater

tinksmommy2006

I have a theory on this...For every pound I lose someone else has to find it. The earth has to stay balanced, so If I lose a pound someone has to get it otherwise the world would like spin backwards or something...lmao

plzlbsbegone

I have a theory on this...For every pound I lose someone else has to find it. The earth has to stay balanced, so If I lose a pound someone has to get it otherwise the world would like spin backwards or something...lmao

Lol, so thats why America has to be overweight....huh, if we were all to lose weight, the earth would be thrown off it's axis and all hell would break loose. Now THAT is scientific! :laugh: