by Zena » Thu Jun 21, 2018 6:03 pm Hi Jeff!
I feel like I should already know the answer to this but find myself going around in circles. My understanding is that to lose a pound of fat, one needs to burn 3500 calories. In contrast, if someone eats an excess of 3500 calories they would gain a pound of fat.
So my question is does it matter where the 3500 calories were coming from? For example, if all the calories were to come from the lower calorie dense foods such as vegetables, fruit and whole starches, would one still gain a pound of fat?
I understand we typically store 2-3 pounds of glycogen in our liver and muscles and have heard Dr. McDougall say any excess carbohydrates we ate beyond what we’d store would be burned off as heat. But does that mean that if one continually overate an excess amount of calories from whole starches, fruit and veg, they wouldn’t gain any fat? That doesn’t seem logical to me and would seem to indicate to gain fat, the excess 3500 calories would need to come from fat.
Hope this makes some sense and that you can clarify!
