Horizan last night got me thinking about fatty foods

[natalie_1982]

After watching Horizon last night it got me thinking .... there are lots of examples on TV of how if you overeat you will put on weight, just off the top of my head in the past week I can think of Horizon: Why are thin people not fat?, Supersize vs. Superskinny and that Gok Wan thing on 4. So we can all assume that if you increase your calorie intake by eating, as demonstrated in the said programmes, burgers, chips, full milkshakes, chocolate, pasta, etc etc you will gain weight and fat will collect around your organs.

What would happen to your body if you doubled your calorie intake (like in last night's show) but did it by only eating calorific healthy food like nuts, seeds, pineapple, avocado, mango, melon, etc? I know you are still taking on the same amount of calories but would it collect around your organs in the same way as, say, butter or cream would?

[WoWo]

Yes....

In simple terms the relation between eating fatty food and getting fat is simply pound for pound there are more calories in fat than there would be say in a stick of celery. So eating a 1 pound hamburger will contain more calories than 1 pound of celery*

There is the added issue in the way the body is able to break down certain foods but that's a side issue to the underlying one that calorie intake and expenditure have the major impact.

*279 calories in an average hamburger (100g) and 19 in the same amount of celery, so you would need to eat a kg and a half of celery for the same calorie in take as one small hamburger.

[natalie_1982]

Thanks WoWo, I am not talking about the same weight but the same volume in calories.

For example, a chocolate bar = 200cals and a banana, an apple and an orange = 200cals. Do they stick to your organs in the same way?

[R1Geezer]

yes all excess calories are converted to fat and stored, regardless of source. However it is much harder to eat the equivalent in say carrots as say cholcolate cake.

eg 100gms of Mars bar = 452 Kcal
100gms of carrots = 22 so to get the same qamount of calories you'd have to eat 2.26Kg of carrots.