In theory could you do this after eating cake?
elisa123gal
Posts: 4,324 Member
For you exercise experts. I know that intense cardio burns off the sugar circulating in you system. In theory, if you ate a piece of cake for desert, which put you over your calories for the day; could you jump on the elliptical and do an intense workout and burn off all the sugar in your system before those cake calories convert to fat?
Also... could you go to bed.. then exercise it off it in the morning.. or would those calories already converted to fat stores.
Also... could you go to bed.. then exercise it off it in the morning.. or would those calories already converted to fat stores.
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Replies
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Cake sugar is very very unlikely to convert to fat. If you were over calories, depending by how much, you probably were still under maintenance, so that's no fat gain at all. If you were over by a lot, there may be a very small net gain that means nearly nothing in the grand scheme of things.
Doing an intense workout to "burn sugar" is not healthy. It's a slippery slope to disordered eating. Some people are more active on days they know they will be eating more than usual, but they don't do it out of panic to burn sugar.16 -
The total calorie excess is the issue, not what caused it. If you ate 300 extra calories that day, the cake and the chicken breast and the broccoli were all equally contributory.
Energy is fungible and your body is storing and releasing fat over the course of the day. You can't avoid a specific thing being processed by your body except by not eating it in the first place. It's like depositing cash into a bank and then later getting cash out of an ATM. You don't get the same bills back but you do get an equivalent value.23 -
That's not how it works.14
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Yeah, be careful of that mindset--I used to compulsively overexercise and it was a form of bulimia. If it's a piece of cake, just do your usual workouts. By all means, hop on the elliptical if you feel like it for a bit in the evening, but don't do it because you feel like you have to 'erase' the cake. Longterm, it's consistency that's key.12
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The total calorie excess is the issue, not what caused it. If you ate 300 extra calories that day, the cake and the chicken breast and the broccoli were all equally contributory.
Energy is fungible and your body is storing and releasing fat over the course of the day. You can't avoid a specific thing being processed by your body except by not eating it in the first place. It's like depositing cash into a bank and then later getting cash out of an ATM. You don't get the same bills back but you do get an equivalent value.
nothing useful to add - I just wanted to say that I am always impressed when people manage to work "fungible" into everyday conversation20 -
Exercise is neither punishment for what you ate nor an eraser for your body if you ate something you feel like you shouldn't have "in theory". This type of game playing with your food is indicative of disordered eating. If you're actually interested in how your body breaks down various macronutrients for fuel there are places for you to look that information up.
Unfortunately, that's not what you seem to be interested in - you're looking for a way to make the piece of cake somehow not "count" or to get it out of your system before it's digested. In which case, you've got pretty much one option open to you - bulimia. (And even that's not perfect as sugar begins to break down in your mouth before it ever reaches your stomach). I highly recommend against bulimia. Throwing up sucks.
If you're going to eat the cake, eat it and work it in to your daily calorie budget. If you want to increase your overall budget, do some kind of exercise that you enjoy and isn't going to make you miserable. If you enjoy intense workouts on the elliptical, have fun - you'll certainly help your heart and lungs as well as your overall endurance.5 -
If you eat cake and do not go over your maintenance calories for the day then you would not gain weight. It is the calories that matter, not the sugar.
If you get on the elliptical after eating cake (or before, or the next day, etc) then you raise your maintenance calories for the day. If you raise them enough that you are at a calorie deficit even after the cake, then you wouldn't gain weight.
If you eat over your maintenance calories one day but below your maintenance calories the next day then you'd see a net fat loss over those two days with or without cake involved.3 -
Huh??3
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If I tried to do intense exercise after overconsuming, I'd barf. So in that way, it would stop me from gaining.
This type of thinking concerns me.13 -
Calories don't magically convert to fat just because it's cake vs broccoli. Eating too many calories is what makes you gain weight, whether they come from chicken, broccoli, cheese, or cake.
But yeah, you can hop on the treadmill to burn an extra 400 calories if you want to. Heck, after 5 years, what motivates me to exercise is still being able to eat more, lol.2 -
Ummm just cause it’s “circulating” in your system does not mean you’ll burn it off.....
The body works at a larger scale. Sure you can lessen the damage by running afterwards, but I could eat 1000 calories of cake or 1000 calories of chicken and broccoli and they will still illicit the same effect in terms body composition/ weight. Also, this is kinda a form of purging...exercise to burn off the cake you just ate. Not the best mentality6 -
Doesn't matter what you eat, only matters how much you eat. Too many calories (from ANY food source) is the cause of fat gain, and even then one day over wouldn't see you gain weight.
Your better off fitting the slice of cake into your daily allowance than punishing yourself with intense exercise every time you eat cake.
I eat ice cream 2-3 times a week, I never pass up on a biscuit and drink wine 1-2 nights a week and keep in a calorie deficit. Life is too short to see food as a source of guilt.
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I am guilty of "eraser syndrome" sometimes; well often. My primary exercise is paddling SUP. I usually go 2 - 3 times a week. I paddle with others who usually like to do 3-5 miles. Sometimes I will start early or stay late to tack on another 8 miles or so because I have gone over a few days in a row. I don't really care much for indoor exercise, don't have a gym membership and don't live in HI or FL, so I have a problem...
Winter is coming.
At least my upper body is in really great shape now.2 -
Thanks everyone.. I don't have an eating disorder. .I eat six meals a day with carbs, vegetables, lean meats, and fruits. I'm 5 10 and weigh 150...smack dab in the middle upper of my BMI.
I've always read that diabetics need to exercise to burn off the circulating sugar in their systems to keep blood sugar even. I always wondered if it works for that..why wouldn't it work for eating sweets in general.4 -
I'd be cautious about making that kind of generalization.elisa123gal wrote: »Thanks everyone.. I don't have an eating disorder. .I eat six meals a day with carbs, vegetables, lean meats, and fruits. I'm 5 10 and weigh 150...smack dab in the middle upper of my BMI.
I've always read that diabetics need to exercise to burn off the circulating sugar in their systems to keep blood sugar even. I always wondered if it works for that..why wouldn't it work for eating sweets in general.
Sugar works very differently in the system of diabetics than it does in the systems of non-diabetics - that's a big part of the definition of "diabetic."
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elisa123gal wrote: »Thanks everyone.. I don't have an eating disorder. .I eat six meals a day with carbs, vegetables, lean meats, and fruits. I'm 5 10 and weigh 150...smack dab in the middle upper of my BMI.
I've always read that diabetics need to exercise to burn off the circulating sugar in their systems to keep blood sugar even. I always wondered if it works for that..why wouldn't it work for eating sweets in general.
You're talking about glycogen, not fat. Intense exercise burns muscle and liver glycogen (which is what sugar is stored as). My personal experience with high blood sugar is that it stayed the same or got worse after intense exercise. It wasn't the exercise the "burned" my blood sugar, it was my body response to less glycogen after a few hours of exercise (my blood sugar often remained elevated for at least 2 hours after exercise). However that works, it had nothing to do with fat storage or burn other than increasing my energy expenditure for that day.0 -
elisa123gal wrote: »Thanks everyone.. I don't have an eating disorder. .I eat six meals a day with carbs, vegetables, lean meats, and fruits. I'm 5 10 and weigh 150...smack dab in the middle upper of my BMI.
I've always read that diabetics need to exercise to burn off the circulating sugar in their systems to keep blood sugar even. I always wondered if it works for that..why wouldn't it work for eating sweets in general.
That's not how that works, either. For you to "burn off" calories, the sugar needs to get into your cells where it can be used for various bodily functions, and getting sugar out of the blood and into the cells is the precise problem that diabetics have.2 -
I know that intense cardio burns off the sugar circulating in you system.
No you don't know that. You burn a combination of carbs and fat in varying proportions 99.9% of the time you are exercising.
The vast majority of the "sugar" in your body isn't circulating - its stored in your liver and muscles as glycogen.
In theory, if you ate a piece of cake for desert, which put you over your calories for the day; could you jump on the elliptical and do an intense workout and burn off all the sugar in your system before those cake calories convert to fat?
Dreadful and unhealthy theory. Think much, much more long term.
You also store enough "sugar" in your body to almost run a marathon and you really want to avoid using it all up. Crushing fatigue, mental confusion, loss of coordination would result. Unless you are doing endurance cardio you really don't need to think about what fuels you use.
Conversion of carbs to fat (DNL) is actually very rare, your body will preferentially store dietary fat as it can do that very efficiently. But for fat loss over time it's an irrelevance - work on your calorie balance and don't over-think it.
Also... could you go to bed.. then exercise it off it in the morning.. or would those calories already converted to fat stores.
Well I guess that's thinking slightly longer term!
Your fat stores are constantly being added to and used up - it's not static. Your fat stores also fuel (virtually) all your bodily functions, not just exercise.
A lot of people work to a weekly calorie goal to give more flexibility.
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elisa123gal wrote: »Thanks everyone.. I don't have an eating disorder. .I eat six meals a day with carbs, vegetables, lean meats, and fruits. I'm 5 10 and weigh 150...smack dab in the middle upper of my BMI.
I've always read that diabetics need to exercise to burn off the circulating sugar in their systems to keep blood sugar even. I always wondered if it works for that..why wouldn't it work for eating sweets in general.
Exercise can help the pancreas use insulin more effectively. Insulin acts as a key that unlocks the body's cells so glucose can enter them. With insulin resistance, some of those keys don't work, and that 'locked out' glucose builds up in the bloodstream. I don't think that excess glucose can be burned off, as it has to be in the cells for that to happen. What helps keep blood glucose stable is eating roughly the same amount of carbs at each meal, eating regularly, some exercise, and reducing consumption of free/added sugars which are not naturally present in food.0
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