Why do excessive calories lead to weight gain?

Question

The Calorie is a unit of energy, and since our bodies aren't nuclear reactors, this energy can't be directly converted into mass. So why are Calories used to inform diets?

Answer 1

You are right, we do not store calories, we store specific substances, e.g. fat or glycogen. “Extra calories” is more of a slang than a precise scientific term, but it is not totally meaningless.
If we consume more energy-rich nutrients than we use, we can accumulate them. Various substances (e.g. fats and sugars) could be eventually converted into short-term energy storage compounds (e.g. ATP) to support our organism. Importantly, there are biochemical ways how our body interconverts these substances, e.g. making fats out of sugars. If there are enough short-term energy carriers (regardless of the way they were obtained), our body starts storing longer-term storage molecules (glycogen in the liver, fats throughout the body). After a small depot in the liver is full, storage (fat) goes to adipose and any excessive sugar will become fat, making us heavier. Therefore, for the weight gain, it becomes less important in what form does the extra nutrient comes in, for as long as we already exceeded the necessary calorie uptake to support our activities. That is why total calories matter for the weight gain.

Answer 2

Calories is a unit of measuring the energy content of food. The foods we eat is fuel for our bodies. We eat food to give us energy to do things we need to do. It use to be that people ate to live, now....people live to eat. As a result, the over-indulgence has led to the over-consumption, or over-intake of food.

If we take in more fuel than we can use, our bodies sore it up as fat. It is a survival mechanism. Unfortunately, now it's just a mechanism that people abuse and are tormented by. Our land-of-plenty gives us food-stuffs that aren't necessarily good for us. So, as we 'feed' we succumb to the lazy lifestyles we have adopted. We then pay the price for it as well.........excess fat.

So, if we can regulate the amount of potential energy in our foods, we can regulate the degree of fat we will store when we are slurpiong up 'biggie' sodas, filled with sugar and 5-layer stacker burgers loaded with sodium and fats.

Answer 3

Excessive calories mean that you're not using up all of the energy that you've taken in with the food you've eaten. That extra potential energy is then stored in the form of fat or glycogen in fat cells or liver cells.

Answer 4

Food doesn't actually contain "calories". A "calorie" is the amount of heat released when the food is oxidized (burned). If your body takes in more mass in the form of food then what it oxidizes, then the extra mass has to go somewhere -- it does not just disappear.

Answer 5

If the daily intake is not used... the body stores it as 6 or 12 chained fats....its the body's way of storing for later use of energy, or worst storing because it has no other choice.....if it is not burned off it has to store.....

Answer 6

Your body has a built in survival instinct to store excess calories as fat, just incase there is a period of famine.

Answer 7

nicely i do no longer understand what you propose by ability of "intense" yet there is style of 60-70 energy in an oz. of vodka. upload to that even if you're blending with it... then you definately do the maths. Now there is yet another subject. in case you're rather abusing alcohol and it rather is affecting your liver, you will start to work out fluid build-up and retention because of the fact the liver isn't removing the pollutants as this is going to. i'm hoping you haven't any longer gotten to that factor.

Answer 8

3500 calories equal one pound of fat!

If your body does not use all of the 3500 calories...the remaining calories will be converted and stored as fat.