How long does it take for carbohydrates to become fats

lemurcat12 wrote: »

jpoehls9025 wrote: »

Yes calories in calories out but its not always that simple...

It is that simple in that you must fuel the activity you do. You will lose and not gain if you take in less than you burn (unless you have a narrow deficit, adequate protein, and a good strength program and manage to lose fat and gain enough muscle to offset it, which can happen, but who would complain?).

Peoples bodies break down the Macro's differently.

People who are insulin resistant cannot use carbs as well. What that means is that they have a harder time using them for energy OR storing them as fat and don't get the satiety signal that most do when insulin removes sugar from the blood (put overly simplistically). So they have difficulty not overeating in many cases and perhaps a slight decline in NEAT compared with following a different diet as their body is not effectively getting the energy from the carbs compared to others. They do not, however, manage to fuel activity other than from their food and their body fat, as that is impossible, so they don't turn carbs into fat in a deficit (when liver glycogen will not be full, and again they probably have a harder time adding fat from carbs than healthy people, although everyone can add fat from fat, of course, in a surplus) and would always use more body fat than they add in a deficit.

People misunderstand what it means that carbs get stored as fat all the time. They don't get that you still won't be storing net fat at a deficit and they (oddly) seem to think we can't store fat as fat when of course that's even easier and less costly (in terms of calories burned) for our bodies.

JohannVII wrote: »

This study, (in conjunction with previous studies it cites) suggests that de novo lipogenesis (production of body fat from excess dietary carbohydrates) begins within six hours. The actual rate is related to dietary macronutrient balance, with a greater amount occurring in people with very low-fat diets (this was not examined directly by the linked study, but cited in previous research). The study found that even in the subjects who were overfed with sucrose or glucose by 50% energy expenditure, most of the carbohydrates were oxidized i.e. burned for fuel, with the dietary fats accounting for most of the excess calorie storage. Rate of lipogenesis ranged from 2g/day in the subjects on a (control) energy-balanced diet (they were burning stored body fat to some degree and replacing it with converted carbs and dietary fat) to 10g/day in the subjects overfed by 50% on sucrose or glucose (though most of their excess energy storage was still storage of dietary fats directly rather than carbohydrate conversion).

The takeaway is that while carbs are converted to body fat, and at a higher rate in diets with excess calories or a higher proportion of carbohydrates (or both), most of the effect they have on body fat storage is in displacing dietary fats as a primary energy source, leading to increased storage of dietary fats as body fat, especially for people following a typical Western diet with a relatively high proportion of dietary fats. As noted above, there was a fair amount of individual variation, which was suspected to be related to genetic factors.

http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/74/6/737.full

lemurcat12 wrote: »

jpoehls9025 wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

jpoehls9025 wrote: »

Yes calories in calories out but its not always that simple...

It is that simple in that you must fuel the activity you do. You will lose and not gain if you take in less than you burn (unless you have a narrow deficit, adequate protein, and a good strength program and manage to lose fat and gain enough muscle to offset it, which can happen, but who would complain?).

Peoples bodies break down the Macro's differently.

People who are insulin resistant cannot use carbs as well. What that means is that they have a harder time using them for energy OR storing them as fat and don't get the satiety signal that most do when insulin removes sugar from the blood (put overly simplistically). So they have difficulty not overeating in many cases and perhaps a slight decline in NEAT compared with following a different diet as their body is not effectively getting the energy from the carbs compared to others. They do not, however, manage to fuel activity other than from their food and their body fat, as that is impossible, so they don't turn carbs into fat in a deficit (when liver glycogen will not be full, and again they probably have a harder time adding fat from carbs than healthy people, although everyone can add fat from fat, of course, in a surplus) and would always use more body fat than they add in a deficit.

People misunderstand what it means that carbs get stored as fat all the time. They don't get that you still won't be storing net fat at a deficit and they (oddly) seem to think we can't store fat as fat when of course that's even easier and less costly (in terms of calories burned) for our bodies.

So, say someone is highly insulin resistant and basically cant use carbs at all pre-diabetic possibly. Those carbs are stored as fat to remove it from the blood sense it cannot be broken down as energy right? in which case doesn't that mean someone could get fat way easier eating carbs or have troubles loosing weight from carbs even at a deficit if they have a predominately carb based diet?

Not really. Their cells are resistant to insulin, which would make it harder for them to store sugar (all carbs are broken down to sugar, of course) as fat, as well as hardly for them to effectively use the sugar as energy. But they'd still need to fuel their activity from somewhere, as they can't not fuel it (nice as that would be, making energy out of nothing), so ultimately either use it, just less easily/efficiently or burn body fat for fuel.

The problem, and why I think low carb (or moderate and balanced carb with plenty of fiber) is best for people with IR, is that not being able to use food you eat as fuel effectively causes continued hunger and lower energy, so moving less, eating more, plus possibly a decline in overall metabolism some. And, related, most healthy people will experience satiety as a side effect of insulin doing its job and moving sugar (and protein, for that matter) where it should go, and people who are IR won't get this. That's why I think many who are IR report cravings and increased hunger connected with eating too many carbs (especially fast carbs).

Related to the possible decrease in metabolism, it does seem as if more IR people lose a bit more weight (all else equal) in the same amount of time on a lower carb diet and non IR people have the opposite effect and lose a bit more on a low fat diet. (Good discussion of some studies here, there are more: http://caloriesproper.com/insulin-resistance-is-a-spectrum/)

But this doesn't mean that an IR person won't lose weight with a calorie deficit, regardless of carbs, or that she or he will put on fat in a deficit.

I think this is all fascinating.