When is a pound lost and where does it go?

bigsisterdice

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

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

You beat me to it! :laugh:

*Whovian love*

georgieb23

I thought every pound you lost was converted into a pound coin and that's how the tooth fairy did her work?

Are you telling me this is lies?! :frown:

gypsyrose64

This might have been mentioned before (didn't read entire thread), but I read once that fat cells NEVER GO AWAY.

The cells themselves just shrink (or expand) for storage of fat, but the structure remains.

I believe we're born with a genetic default number of fat cells. As we mature, we accumulate fat along the way(some more than others). As the fat cells fill up, they began to divide when they hit some limit to what they can hold. This process continues throughout life, so every time a fat cell hits that point where it can't expand further.. it divides.

Going with this explanation, a person who got up to 300 lbs and then dropped to 150 lbs, will probably have twice as many fat "cells" as a person that never gained above 150. Barring lipo or surgery, the fat cells shrink, but are always there, eagerly waiting to be refilled.

That is why we REGAIN weight at a much faster rate, once we've lost.

Too busy to find material on the internet to back that, but I've read it more than once.

MzManiak

BUMP

Resurrecting the "chicken fat in my pee" thread... :laugh: :laugh:

rich347

The fat that is lost when exercising and dieting goes to the negative zone where Annihilus lives

Juliejustsaying

Ok, I HAVE TO SAY THIS. I'm hoping it's already been addressed, but in case it hasn't, I'm a science teacher and this just has me HORRIFIED.

Fats and Carbohydrates are very long chains of carbon oxygen and hydrogen. When you burn fats or carbohydrates for energy, the energy that is release comes from breaking down those chains in to individual links (the atoms). The atoms are then recombind into WATER and CARBON DIOXIDE. So the short answer, you exhale/pee that weight out.

Protien also has C H and O but you can add in a lot of Nitrogen as well, so in addition to carbon dioxide and water, you also get ammonia. Since ammonia is toxic in large doses, this gets chemically rearranged into the salts that compose your urine and sweat. To really gross out my students I then explain how this basically means that sweat is just a very dilute form of urine.

There, rant over.

I you....

IN for science nerds!!!! (says a science nerd)

CapnGordo

The fat that is lost when exercising and dieting goes to the negative zone where Annihilus lives

Excellent geeky answer!

Juliejustsaying

the fat goes to Modor....

born2drum

My sweat isnt sweat, it's my fat crying. Fat is excreted via sweat, poop, and urine. Nothing crazy. It's mind-boggling though

ladylego1

thank you so much for making my night... I literally have tears from laughing so hard... How have i never seen this before!

Eirene80

Too bad pounds lost don't go to your worst enemy.. :-D Ha!:devil:

It does. Unfortunately I'm my own worst enemy...

DesdemonaRose

This! Both for the informative answers and the funny ones. I'm sticking with the FSM explination.

2aycocks

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.

Extraneous adipose tissue (fat) is flushed out through the kidneys in urine.

Then it goes to Heaven!

cwolfman13

Holy thread resurrection batman....

2aycocks

When your body converts fat into accessible energy, the process generates heat that is used to regulate body temperature, according to MayoClinic.com. Once stored fat is converted to energy, your body uses it to fuel activity and metabolic functions in much the same way it uses immediate energy from food. MayoClinic.com notes that waste material produced during the conversion of body fat into energy, specifically water and carbon dioxide, leaves your body through urine, sweat and exhaling.

Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/325306-how-does-fat-leave-your-body-when-you-lose-weight/#ixzz2bz7YFJ3g

hararayne

It goes to the Land of Misfit Pounds

I you. lol

Kaylee_law_123

Hopefully to all those skinny *****es that have pissed me off over the years!!

MyaPapaya75

hopefully my pounds go on my sister

MoreBean13

Finally, a zombie thread full of hilarity.


A Classic.

MoreBean13

hopefully my pounds go on my sister

I like you.

ZoeLifts

OMG, it's like a trip down memory lane!! This is one of my top favorite threads of all time!!!

LiftAllThePizzas

Didn't read the thread. Did anyone mention that the body does not use nuclear fusion or fission and does not convert mass into energy?

donyellemoniquex3

Oh so in

Doone33

Love this thread! Enjoyed the read!

ryry_

You have to put it under your pillow and the fat fairy takes it away. You also get a shiny nickel

brianc410

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

This is a really good analogy... CO2 and H2O; the products of combustion. Fat is fuel just like gas.

Alluminati

A few years ago, a friend of mine wondered how fax machines worked. She wondered if little bits of paper flew through through the air. She was dead serious. She was also 30 at the time.

This thread reminds me of her. Unintentionally hilarious.

Agate69

I am a medical science person so I really do get the tru answer of how fat is lost, and that all weight loss is not fat! But it still boggles my mind that after gastric bypass, for a short period of time,I could weigh my self just before slipping into bed and wake up a half pound lighter every morning!

lj8576

its all in my meat freezer in my garage waiting to be cooked and eaten by us bwahahahahahahahahah

tootoop224

Like a lot of others, this is my new favorite thread. But not for the same reasons.

My reason is because it proves my theory that "the stupidest people in the world are the ones who think everyone else is stupid.

Let me explain. There are 10 pages (and counting!!) in this thread and roughly 2/3rds are ragging on this post:

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.

Then along comes this guy:

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.

Who basically says she, and her Dr., are very probably correct, meaning all of the people who who have been poking fun at her, are doing so in error, because of their own lack of knowledge.

Now, don't get me wrong, I am not saying anyone who posted on this thread is stupid (although there is a good chance some of us are). It's just that a little open mindedness can go a long way. When someone puts some information out there that you don't agree with, if you ask respectful questions, rather than just piling on with ridicule, YOU might just learn something.

I'll get off my soapbox now and everyone can continue.