calorie question

Do you mean if you eat too much one day can you exercise more the next day or more during the week to make up for it?
I dont know the answer but i'd like to.

Do you mean if you binge on Friday and Saturday night, but work your butt of exercising all week, will you still lose weight? I do.:bigsmile:

Good news!!!
:bigsmile: :bigsmile: :bigsmile: :bigsmile: :bigsmile:

Or are you referring to your goals? Because my goals that MFP gives me are: 630cals burned per week. Which is just really low! I don't know where it gets that number... lol.

this isn't really a yes or no question. A couple of us "old timers" on here did some research on this. And this is what we came up with (I wish songbyrdsweet was responding these days, she knows this in better detail then me, but I'll do my best).

So it's true that the human body doesn't run on any kind of a set clock, think of it more like a continuously burning fire, a lot like the engine of an old, coal burning furnace, except with the ability to store extra fuel as fat. It can take up to 48 hours to convert certain food types into useable energy, but it can take as little as 5 minutes to convert other types.

SO, the big question is, what types of food are you eating.

the other thing you must remember is this, just because you go over the number MFP gives you, doesn't mean you're eating "too much", remember, MFP gives you a deficit, as long as you stay around or below your maintenance, you're not hampering your efforts, you're just maybe slightly slowing them down a little for the day. And it takes weeks for the body to change it's burning patterns, so if you go over a day or two, but stay under or at maintenance, and go back to your normal calories after a day or so, you're fine, your body won't even notice the change.

As to the 24 hour thing, that time period is more for us as a convenience thing then anything else.
We say 24 hours because it's an easily traceable segment of time. Really what you should look at is the type of food you are eating, if it's simple carb heavy or sucrose (table sugar) heavy, then you're going to metabolize that food very fast, within an hour or two usually, if it's protein it can take up to 12 hours to completely digest, if it's fats, likewise it can take a while (usually fats take the longest). Complex carbs can take a few hours to digest as well. Fiber in fruit and veggies also lengthens the time it takes to digest it.

So to answer your question, sugary foods, and foods with white or processed flour or sugar will digest very fast, other things, like whole grains and whole wheats can take a few hours, lean meats like chicken breast will take up to 12 hours to digest, but remember, they START digesting in a few minutes, it just takes a long time for the protein to get from the stomach to the colon, and then a while for the protein and amino acids to get from the colon to the liver and then out to the cells and bloodstream.

Other things of note, some sugar is absorbed directly through the stomach walls, also alcohol is metabolized the minute it hits your mouth, and most of it never get's past the stomach, and yes, alcohol has calories, it replaces carbs and sugar as the main fuel source in the body while it's present, and will increase fat storage and depress the metabolism while it's there.

So my advice to you is, try to work your calories the day you eat food, but don't panic if you go over, depending on what you ate, and how much over you went, you can potentially work it off the next day, but if you're eating a burger on a regular bun with fries (lots of carbs and sugar), you're going to need to do something quickly about it. It'll turn to fat within 2 to 3 hours of consumption (or some of it will at least).
hope this helps.


-Banks

You HAD to bring up In and Out??? Cruel, just cruel. Native San Diegan stuck in Kansas..:sad:

But in response to your post, I looked at my calories over a week. I aimed for an average of 1700 calories a day, despite what I earned working out, and it worked for me. Somedays I would eat 1400 and others close to 2000, trying to have my big exercise days on or near my big calorie days. Some days I would burn 250 calories working out and some days I burned 1000. Lost about a pound and a half a week consistently, so for me at least, it was doable. Good luck!