Re: ???GAINING weight from CYCLING?? How can this be?

frkrygow@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
RonSonic wrote:

The "gas tank" theory of weight gain and loss is abjectly oversimplified. Yes,
at some level it is effective, but those points are at the extremes, not in that
broad range in which most of us live.


I've wondered about that oversimplification.

I was once told that food calorie values were obtained by burning the
food in a bomb calorimeter and measuring the number of BTUs (or
calories) given off. Recently, I read that it's no longer done that
way, that they just separate and get the mass of protiens, fats &
carbos, then multiply each by an appropriate number of calories per
gram.

It is also not as simple as the food labels would have you think.
Carbs and protein are not 4.0000 calories but some non integer value.
I have never found an exact reference but you just know it isn't that exact. Alcohol, BTW, is about 6 calories per gram, and while it looks like a carbohydrate it isn't.

But how do they take into account the calories excreted? Surely that
stuff has some caloric value, and the amount must vary with the type of
food consumed. Aren't different food digested with different
effiiciencies?

Short answer is yes. Carbs, especially sugar are absorbed the best, fats probably the next, and proteins take some breaking down. As for food out, it does have some energy left over, as when dried it will burn. This came to me by accident when I learned one of the reasons cows are sacred in India. Their droppings make good cooking fires in a country where wood is almost non-existent.
Bill Baka

I'm just curious. But not curious enough to start measuring my
calories "out."

- Frank Krygowski

.

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