Well, I guess we’ve reached an impass regarding the definition of the question. Even Kel isn’t still posting in the thread, and I personally think he misunderstood the question in the first place, but since we cannot bring in the asker personally, I guess we’ll never know. Anyway, it’s certainly true on a practical level because my plan would have required:
A. Glucagon drips and I guess exercise to exhaustion and a diabetic coma
B. Eating solid lard
C. But only about 50 grams of lard for maybe a 100 gram weight gain
You are a test subject on a strictly controlled diet that allows you to maintain a constant weight. One day, you add 1lb of lard to your regimen, then continue eating normally thereafter. Given the data in this thread, it is possible for you to gain (as permanent additional mass) over 1lb as a result of eating the lard. I this sense, it is possible to gain weight in excess of the weight of the item eaten.
It really all boils down to the meaning of “gain weight”. If you take it to mean, weigh yourself 1min before then 1min after eating, then you will not gain over 1lb, or less than 1lb, ever. If you take it to mean how much additional permanent mass is added to your frame (given otherwise typical eating habits) as a result of eating X, then you can theoretically gain over 1lb.
I stayed out of this, thinking it would be resolved early. I apologize if I missed someone saying this in an earlier post
The premise is flawed: you can’t absorb or digest 1 lb of food without chemically binding significant amounts of water to the primary chemicals in the food. I’m not talking about using water to dissolving things, or help break foods up mechanically [though those are also important). I mean that your body must (for example) break every protein molecule into typically hundreds or thousands of amino acids, or a complex starch into dozens or hundreds of simple sugars before it can be absorbed, and it breaks those bonds by chemically adding one water molecule to the food for every single amino acid or sugar molecule. This is called hydrolysis
Many of you know enough physiology or biochemistry that I’m certain I must have missed some key screenful of posts. Even in “health class”, we’re usually taught that we can’t absorb intact proteins or starches. They must be broken down into amino acids and simple sugars to pass through the intestinal wall (okay, maybe a few disaccharides and 2-3 aa blocks get absorbed, too, but the principle is sound) No added water [i.e. chemically bound] no absorption. Your gut may use the body’s surplus water to do this, but the key point is: the atoms in that water are now part of the molecules that make up the "weight’ in all subsequent reactions.
Fats do not have to be completely broken down to be absorbed (They are still hydrolyzed into subunits for biochemical pathways or storage, but that’s done in the liver after absorption, instead of in the intestine) Still, the average person can’t absorb anything remotely approaching a pound of fat at once. The rest "just passes through. Perhaps some people or ethnic groups have trained their guts to absorb huge amounts of fat by repeated high exposure, but for most humans a pint of olive oil or a pound of lard will lead to a messy greasy evening in the bathroom.
So, yes: you can gain more than 1 lb of weight from 1 lb of food. In fact, that is the expected outcome of eating and absorbing 1 lb of dry high-protein or -starch food. The weight gain from 1 lb of dry simple sugars (like fructose or glucose) or disaccharides (like table sugar) would actually be less than that from protein or starch, and the weight gain from pure fats might be least of all
How do you like them apples?
Of course, it’s almost impossible to choke down 1 lb of dry starch or protein, but it’s comparatively easy to swallow pure fats and oils (which don’t contain much water by their nature), so the results of eating normal foods is quite different. Don’t try this at home kiddies.
It might be the expected outcome of eating and absorbing 1 lb of high-protein or -starch food and some additional quantity of water, but that’s not what was asked.
A person found to weigh x who eats and/or drinks something weighing y will never weigh more than x+y until they eat and or drink some additional food or water.
These two sentences aren’t necessarily equivalent, due to your restriction on not taking in water. As Cheesesteak said, it boils down to what you and your friend mean by gain weight.
Kel Varnsen - Latex Division, to make this analogous to your OP, imagine you also are carrying a glass with a pound of water (about a pint), and in a half hour, you’re going to pour the water out on the ground. You pick up a 3/4 pound rock, crush it, and mix it with 1/4 pound of water to make a lump of moist clay that weighs a pound. When you dump the water out, you’re only dumping out 3/4 pounds. If you hadn’t picked up the rock, when you dumped the water out, you would have poured a whole pound of water out, so you (including what you’re carrying) weigh 1 pound more than if you hadn’t picked up the rock.
If by “gain weight” you and your friend mean the long term weight gain or loss, then you’ve gained a pound by picking up the 3/4 pond rock. If you prefer, you can think of it as gaining 3/4 pound, and retaining 1/4 pound when you dump the water out.
That last, “and retaining 1/4 pound when you dump the water out.”, is key. You don’t get to count the water twice. Besides, some of the water will evaporate (sweat) and some of the rock will squish out between your fingers and fall (poop), leaving you with a small net loss.
And KP was doing great till he/she summarized. everything in the reply said “no” until the summary. If the water involved in utilization of his molecules is already in the body it doesn’t add, if it’s taken in from outside the body it does add.
Nice explanation, though.
This is true from a physics standpoint (conservation of matter and all) however it is completely meaningless from a nutritional standpoint. It would make a pound of high calorie food exactly equivalent to a pound of water, and what kind of value does that type of comparison have? It also assumes that one does not eat a thing after eating the high calorie food, as if a normal person will begin a starvation diet after eating the meal in question.
From a nutritional standpoint, eating a pound of high calorie food causes more long term weight gain than eating a pound of water. That long term weight gain can be greater than a pound, depending on the type of food consumed.
If you’re talking about weight gain from eating, I think the long term nutritional view of things trumps the short term physical view.
I hate to ask this, b/c i think it has been answered but i’m not realizing it. If i eat only 3/4 lbs of food per day, will i lose 1/4 lbs everyday as well? Or am i mixing apples and oranges and this question is totally irrelevant. . . .
I see from your profile that you work in a hospital. You should walk over to the dieticians office and ask this very same question. There’s no polite way to answer it here.
You’re not pulling our legs, are you?
No i’m not joking at all. But all this talk about weight vs. calories and gaining/losing poundage is making me think that i burn so many thousands of calories per day. So if i burn the 4800 calories in pizza, but only eat 3/4 of a pound of pizza, i’d ultimately lose the extra 1/4 lbs? I’ve never been this confused on the boards before.
Let’s be clear, the whole 1 pound thing is just a convenient measurement, it has nothing to do with how much food a person needs per day. Suffice to say, if you need 2000 calories per day to maintain your weight, eating 1500 calories a day will result in weight loss. That weight loss will correspond to the amount of body mass needed to provide 500 calories, roughly. If you eat 2500 calories a day, and convert the extra to body mass, you will add weight based on 500 extra calories, again roughly.
The one pound mentioned here could easily be one ounce and the discussion is the same
No, Slick. If over a week or so you take in 3800 cal less than you use up, you’ll lose a pound or so. But if oner the same period you take in 3800 cal more than you use, you’ll gain a pound or so. The weight of the food or the time period really make little difference. It’s the calories.
It’s not quite that simple, but that’s the idea.
