When is a pound lost and where does it go?

deksgrl

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:

It also explains global warming. Yep, it's all our fault. MFP-ers and dieters are creating too much heat by burning all this fat, and now the ice caps are melting.

r1ghtpath

i'm sure this has been said over and over during this 6 pg thread, but your number of fat cells don't reduce, just the SIZE of them does! so, as you burn off that fat for energy, the cell size gets smaller. so, if you have 100 fat cells at 200 lbs you will still have 100 fat cells at 100 lbs, they have just shrunk a whole heck of a lot!

and to the girl who thinks you pee out the fat.... if you really do have white bits coming out in your pee, you need to see a doctor. we do excrete waste via urine and poop, and some people might notice fatty or greasy poop, but this is not the fat you are breaking down and expelling. this is fat your body is not able to DIGEST when you consume it........ it's often a sign of a metabolic or digestive disorder.........

Francesca3162

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.

Very interesting and knowledgeable response.

But not nearly as entertaining!!! Ha !!!!! :laugh:

Francesca3162

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.

OK, I am sitting here at work and laughing outloud at some of these reponses... Burning even more calories, I might add.. and hopefully not getting fired......:laugh:

ZoeLifts

I always thought I was sneezing out my fat when my sinuses were acting up.......

Excellent, then!! My sinuses have been driving me crazy, lately!! Bikini season, here I come!! :laugh:

hazelsmrf

Wondering if the "white stuff" she sees in the toilet might be cervical mucus... lovely stuff. Yum!

chelseachelsea1991

bump! this is too funny!

laynunugawa

I think every pound you lost in December was found by my thighs.

ROFLMAO

sttrinians

Personally I prefer the Dr Who version. Your fat leaves your body as an Adipose a new baby life form and is beamed to another planet to grow and mature.

Anyone who doesn't watch Dr Who google Adipose they are so cute.

kazhowe

Personally I prefer the Dr Who version. Your fat leaves your body as an Adipose a new baby life form and is beamed to another planet to grow and mature.

Anyone who doesn't watch Dr Who google Adipose they are so cute.

Googled and you are right - they are cute .... I just love the thought of peeing all those l'il ole adipose out!!! :laugh:

MisterTEZ

posts like this make me laugh! So many "experts" out there on the Internet. Just because it's on the Internet, or google, doesn't mean it's real. White in pee. Yes, consult physician!!

If you have white **** coming out with your urine, see a doc. It ain't fat!

I think it was a physician who told her that :ohwell:

Does that mean if I drink tons and tons of water all the fat will come out in my pee? :bigsmile:

MsAprilNurse

To whoever said you PEE it out:

"Ketonuria is a medical condition in which ketone bodies are present in the urine.
It is seen in conditions in which the body produces excess ketones as an alternative source of energy. It is seen during starvation or more commonly in type I diabetes mellitus. Production of ketone bodies is a normal response to a shortage of glucose, meant to provide an alternate source of fuel from fatty acids."

Note where it said DURING STARVATION or in Diabetics...

This is not a "common" type of "where does my fat go?". It is not something to strive for or be pleased to see. It is actually bad.

Some no carb diets teach dieters to test their urine for ketones with the test strips. This is how they know if they are doing the diet properly. I agree - not good.

sttrinians

Personally I prefer the Dr Who version. Your fat leaves your body as an Adipose a new baby life form and is beamed to another planet to grow and mature.

Anyone who doesn't watch Dr Who google Adipose they are so cute.

Googled and you are right - they are cute .... I just love the thought of peeing all those l'il ole adipose out!!! :laugh:

It just comes out of you like in alien, and toddles off to be collected by the Adipose collectors it's so funny.

mariasotera

Bump!

kris102088

To whoever said you PEE it out:

"Ketonuria is a medical condition in which ketone bodies are present in the urine.
It is seen in conditions in which the body produces excess ketones as an alternative source of energy. It is seen during starvation or more commonly in type I diabetes mellitus. Production of ketone bodies is a normal response to a shortage of glucose, meant to provide an alternate source of fuel from fatty acids."

Note where it said DURING STARVATION or in Diabetics...

This is not a "common" type of "where does my fat go?". It is not something to strive for or be pleased to see. It is actually bad.

You cannot see Ketones... however you can smell them. So the white in her urine would not be ketones. Ketones are the result of fats being broken down. This means that the body is usig fat for energy.

madamepsychosis

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.

So THIS is why drinking water helps you lose weight...the more water you drink, the more you pee, so the more fat can leave your body...good to know :huh:

Seriously, you'd think that with all the resources we have available to us, people would not be THIS misinformed. And that doctor...how did he/she ever get a license to practice medicine?! :grumble:

The doctor was this guy:

emmamcblain

Some of these answers are just spot on, hahahaha.

sugasweetie520

hahaha these posts made my day 10,000x better.

JuliaWallaceGal

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

Hey, I like the analogy!!