food burning

Question
How long after eating does the body complety burn the carlories/far from the meal?  In other words for example if I at the cake two days ago and still maintained my weight can I still gain weight from that cake?  I hope this makes sense.

Answer
Steven,
After eating the cake, it has to be digested. This could be fast, if the cake was all you ate all day, and be done in 3-4 hours. If you ate the cake after eating a big dinner and a big lunch, it could take about 24 hours to digest the cake. Let's say that you really overinduged-you ate a big dinner (1,500 calories) then ate your cake (500 extra calories). You had plenty of calories at dinner to supply your normal calorie needs, so the extra calories from the cake will unfortunately be stored as fat. How much fat have you gained? The conversion is 3,500 calories equal one pound of fat, so you have gained 2 ounces.

BUT, most regular bathroom scales are only accurate to 1 or 2 pounds-meaning any weight change less than 2 pounds could be completely meaningless, and no weight change could actually mean you lost or gained 2 pounds. Your 2 ounce weight gain just won't show up unless you have a NASA-accurate bathroom scale. Plus, most people's weight changes by about 2-3 pounds with their water and salt intake, so that 2 ounces will be completely hidden by your water weight change.

So even if your scale says you're in the clear, you aren't. Without skipping any meals, cut calories by about 250 calories per day for as many days as it takes to make up for however much cake was eaten! If you eat a whole Sara Lee frozen cheesecake at one sitting, plan on cutting calories by 250/day for a couple of weeks!

Melissa

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