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Maximum Calories

  • 04-07-2007 11:34am
    #1
    ScumLord
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 28,789 ✭✭✭✭


    Is there a maximum amount of calories the body can take in, or is every single calorie you take in either used or stored?


Comments

  • #2
    rubadub
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,386 ✭✭✭✭rubadub


    Calories for food & fuel (e.g. wood, petrol, alcohol) are calculated in labs under controlled conditions.
    They usually burn the fuel/food and heat up a set amount of water. The amount of energy to raise 1kg of water by 1C is a known fixed amount.

    So if you burn 100g of chicken it might raise the water from 20-30C, a 10C difference (or 10K for the scientists).

    If you burn 100g of vegetable oil, it might raise the same water from 20-100C, a 80C change, and hence 8 time the calories of chicken per weight.

    So calories are really only an estimate of the energy they will give to your body. In studies they had groups on steady diets supplemented with alcohol or sugar drinks, each drink had the same calories, but the sugar drinkers put on more weight/fat. This could be due to many reasons, metabolic effects of each on the body, and just the fact that the body does not burn fuel like in a lab so the body might get more use from the sugar.

    Also if you took laxitives, or had the runs, food might pass through only partially digested, not giving time to get all the calories out of it.

    There are other factors like GI, that I dont know a lot about, low GI means slow release of energy so I think you dont get insulin spikes.

    Excess calories are usually used up by the body to create stores of fat, some calories from certain foods might make this easier to happen. With less calories the body uses the fat stores to give energy.


  • #3
    ScumLord
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 28,789 ✭✭✭✭ScumLord


    I was just wondering. The body seems to reach a saturation point on most of it's requirements and just passes on the excess, but when it comes to storing fat there just isn't enough hours in the day. :mad:

    I was just thinking that if you spent the day at a party eating and drinking, that instead of saying I've had enough towards the end of the day and sitting in the corner with a puss on ya, you could safely say I've gone overboard the damage is done anything I take into me at this stage is just going to go straight through me and I can enjoy it.

    I'm assuming it doesn't work like that and you will create fat out everything you take in.


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