3500 calories = 1 pound?

I first read "if you eat 3500 extra calories you'll gain a pound" at least
35 years ago, so this notion has been around quite a long time. I'm
wondering what the research was that proved this.

According to Fitday, a pound of lard has 4,091 calories. So if you eat the
exact number of calories needed to maintain your weight then eat a pound of
lard, you'll put on 1.17 pounds. How can this be? How can your addition in
body weight be greater than the weight of what you ate?

Not to mention of course that your body needs to digest that lard, which
causes you to burn some calories.

I tried googling on this, but all I got was a lot of web sites that mention
the 3500 calorie rule. One site did have a reference to an article in
Science magazine that said this: "The body does not store excess energy
with 100 per cent efficiency, however. Hill's team estimated that for every
100 extra calories consumed, at least 50 would be stored as fat."

So where did that 3500 calorie number come from?

Anny

On 6/7/2004 12:38 PM, Anny Middon wrote:
I first read "if you eat 3500 extra calories you'll gain a pound" at least
35 years ago, so this notion has been around quite a long time. I'm
wondering what the research was that proved this.

According to Fitday, a pound of lard has 4,091 calories. So if you eat the
exact number of calories needed to maintain your weight then eat a pound of
lard, you'll put on 1.17 pounds. How can this be? How can your addition in
body weight be greater than the weight of what you ate?

Not to mention of course that your body needs to digest that lard, which
causes you to burn some calories.

I tried googling on this, but all I got was a lot of web sites that mention
the 3500 calorie rule. One site did have a reference to an article in
Science magazine that said this: "The body does not store excess energy
with 100 per cent efficiency, however. Hill's team estimated that for every
100 extra calories consumed, at least 50 would be stored as fat."

So where did that 3500 calorie number come from?

Anny


http://www.hhp.ufl.edu/keepingfit/AR...atcalories.HTM

--
jmk in NC

"jmk" wrote in message
...
http://www.hhp.ufl.edu/keepingfit/AR...atcalories.HTM


Now I'm really confused. Here's the whole article for those who don't want
to click through:

Q. In books on nutrition, I'm told that to lose one pound of fat it's
necessary either to reduce my food intake by 3500 calories or to exercise so
that 3500 calories are burned. How is the value of 3500 determined? If fat
contains 9 calories per gram, and there are 454 grams in a pound, then there
should be 4086 calories in a pound of fat-- not 3500.

A. The nutrition books are correct-- 3500 calories per pound of fat is not
an absolute amount, but it's very close. However, your math is correct, too.
Here is the story.

When we burn fat, or other nutrients, heat is produced, which is measured in
calories. As you note, each gram of fat generates 9 calories, and 454 grams
equals one pound. But a pound of fat is not all fat. It's about 10% water.
All of our body tissues--fat, muscle, bone, skin--contain some water. And
water has zero calories.

In addition, not all the nutrients we eat are completely absorbed from the
digestive tract to meet metabolic needs. In the case of fat, roughly 5% is
eliminated in the feces. This 10% water content and 5% non-absorbed fat
accounts for the 15% difference between your calculated 4086 calories and
the actual 3500 calories in a pound of fat.

Two other minor points: The calories can be reduced when the meal is high in
fiber. Fiber speeds the movement of food through the digestive system, there
is less time for the nutrients to be absorbed before they are eliminated. So
the non-absorbed fat could be a bit higher. Also, the amount of heat
generated from fat differs a little for various foods (depending on fatty
acid content). For example, there are 9.50 calories in one gram of meat
compared with 9.30 calories for vegetables and fruits and 9.25 calories for
dairy products.

-----end quoted material--------

Suppose you eat the exact number of calories required to maintain your
weight. Then you drink 1 pound of vegetable oil, which contains no water.
The vegetable oil has 4010 calories.

Ignoring the laxative effect such a snack would have, the article says that
5% is eliminated in the feces. That means the oil has about 3810 calories
and weighs 15.2 ounces. All of this is going to body fat, which also has
10% water.

15.2 ounces plus 10% water equals 16.72 ounces of body fat, or about 1.05
pounds. So 3810 extra calories eaten results in 1.05 pounds of fat, and 1
pound of fat = 3629 calories, not 3500.

And again we're ignoring whatever calories were expended in digesting that
vegetable oil and whatever ancillary metabolic effect digestion has.

Anny

Anny Middon wrote:

According to Fitday, a pound of lard has 4,091 calories. So if you eat the
exact number of calories needed to maintain your weight then eat a pound of
lard, you'll put on 1.17 pounds. How can this be?

A human being needs 3500 extra calories to create a pound of human fat.

That does not mean that the fat butchered from another animal has 3500
calories.




Steve
http://www.geocities.com/beforewisdom/

"The great American thought trap: It is not real unless it can be seen
on television or bought in a shopping mall"

"jayjay" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 07 Jun 2004 18:47:58 GMT, "Anny Middon"
wrote:



Suppose you eat the exact number of calories required to maintain your
weight. Then you drink 1 pound of vegetable oil, which contains no
water.

Your confusion is in your last sentence there. Just because you
have 1 pound of vegetable oil, doesn't mean it contains no water.

The vegetable oil itself does contain about 10% water.

Our bodies are about 30% water. But if you cut open a body its not
like you are going to see water spill out. But the water molecules
are trapped within other features of our body.

I may be missing something here.. but isn't our body more more like 82%
water?


Likewise, a tablespoon (or a pound) of oil will contain about 10%
water, but you won't see the water in the substances, as the small
molecules are trapped in within the oil itself.

"Cp" wrote in message
rs.com...

"jayjay" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 07 Jun 2004 18:47:58 GMT, "Anny Middon"
wrote:



Suppose you eat the exact number of calories required to maintain your
weight. Then you drink 1 pound of vegetable oil, which contains no
water.

Your confusion is in your last sentence there. Just because you
have 1 pound of vegetable oil, doesn't mean it contains no water.

The vegetable oil itself does contain about 10% water.

Our bodies are about 30% water. But if you cut open a body its not
like you are going to see water spill out. But the water molecules
are trapped within other features of our body.

I may be missing something here.. but isn't our body more more like 82%
water?



http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives...8306.An.r.html

Likewise, a tablespoon (or a pound) of oil will contain about 10%
water, but you won't see the water in the substances, as the small
molecules are trapped in within the oil itself.

Anny Middon wrote:

So where did that 3500 calorie number come from?

The standard numbers per gram are fat/9, protein/4, carb/4.
Of course those are approximations because everything is a
little different.

9 calories/gram times 454 grams/pound = 4086 calories/pound.

If you look at that it's clear it has to be an approximation
but note that fitday's listing for lard matches it well.
Maybe most fat isn't quite as dense. Anyways the 3500-4000
range works well.

"Cp" wrote in message
rs.com...

I may be missing something here.. but isn't our body more more like 82%
water?

my bad, maybe... for some reason I was thinking we were 1/3rd water. But
either way - the point is still the same - even more so if we are 75% or
more water... when we are cut open, its not like we see water gushing out.
No, we see other things. The water molecules are stored in the tissues of
the body, not as a substances that is noticeable.

"jayjay" wrote in message
...

"Cp" wrote in message
rs.com...

I may be missing something here.. but isn't our body more more like 82%
water?

my bad, maybe... for some reason I was thinking we were 1/3rd water.
But
either way - the point is still the same - even more so if we are 75% or
more water... when we are cut open, its not like we see water gushing
out.
No, we see other things. The water molecules are stored in the tissues
of
the body, not as a substances that is noticeable.

Any hey, it may mean nothing to you and your family, but it freaks me out
thinking that ignorant is behind every post in asd. Total freak.

Martha

"MH" wrote in message
...

"jayjay" wrote in message
...

"Cp" wrote in message
rs.com...

I may be missing something here.. but isn't our body more more like
82%
water?

my bad, maybe... for some reason I was thinking we were 1/3rd water.
But
either way - the point is still the same - even more so if we are 75% or
more water... when we are cut open, its not like we see water gushing
out.
No, we see other things. The water molecules are stored in the tissues
of
the body, not as a substances that is noticeable.

Any hey, it may mean nothing to you and your family, but it freaks me out
thinking that ignorant is behind every post in asd. Total freak.


I'm sorry, I do not understand that post. So, I didn't look up the true
balance of water in the human body before posting, that does not make me
ignorant. The point of my post wasn't to discuss the balance of water in
the human body, it was to illustrate that water molecules do not have to be
seen to be in foods.