About this episode
No one food item can make or break your diet, just as it is pretty difficult to undo a month’s worth of hard work in a day or two. You may end up doing a little damage if you push it too far, but it’s probably not anything that will derail you completely or that can’t be fixed. Traditional wisdom claims it takes 3,500 calories extra to gain a pound of fat, but you won’t necessarily gain one pound of fat in a day, it usually takes multiple days of excessive intake to increase body fat storage. You will however, likely see the numbers on the scale go up and feel more bloated due to water weight. Water weight vs. fat gain *Water weight usually comes on fast and rapidly - your cells are able to absorb excess water under a variety of circumstances including lack of sleep, high sugar or salt intake, hormones, and even the weather ( 2 , 3 ) *Fat gain usually happens slowly over time - When you gain fat or muscle, your body has to capture, store and utilize nutrients accordingly - it is not always a simple process and can take days or even weeks. The TYPES of food matter - Research suggests eating more protein and “clean” foods may not cause as much weight gain, specifically body fat gain. In a study looking at thermic effect of processed foods, participants burned twice as many calories digesting more whole foods compared to highly processed options ( 8 ). Also, some studies show saturated fat and sugar promote more fat storage than unsaturated fats and complex carbohydrates from whole foods ( 11 ). Thermic effect of food - higher protein tends to store less fat because it burns more calories and has the highest thermic effect of food. Carbs have the next highest and fats have nearly no thermic effect with digestion. Math Breakdown of Calories/Storing Fat - The human body can store up to about 400-500g of carbs in our muscles/liver at one time (and they usually aren’t super depleted all the time) This is about 2000 calories from JUST carbs. Higher muscle content = higher ability to store. Our body has essentially an unlimited store of fat though. Ex: Say you are currently in a slight calorie deficit, and are somewhat carb depleted - so you will efficiently store most of the carbs consumed (80%) as energy in muscle/liver. And if you don’t have too much weight to lose, the science tells us about 60% of weight gain would be body-fat vs. muscle development. So if you truly over-consumed by 3500 calories (which would be like 5000 calories for some people), and the macro breakdown was about: 60% carbs (al *** CONNECT 🚀 Work With Us - Healthy Gut & Happy Hormones Program 🖇️ Liz on Instagram / Facebook / TikTok 🔗 Becca on Instagram / Facebook / TikTok 🇺🇸 Join FITMOM™️society ▶️ Watch the podcast on YouTube *** SAY THANKS 💟 Leave a review on Apple Podcasts ✳️ Leave a rating on Spotify *** Produced by 📣 brandhard