This might be a stupid question, I might indeed be stupid. But what is the actual process going on inside my body at 290lbs when I go hiking for example?
In: 5
Your body needs energy to do things.
When you go on a hike, fibers made of muscle cells must expand and contract. Where do they get the energy to do this?
That energy is bound up as chemical bonds between atoms in various molecules in your cells. The main energy source for much of your body are sugars, particularly glucose. Every cell in your body is capable of performing a complicated process of breaking glucose down to make use of the energy stored in its chemical bonds. This reaction is, fundamentally, no different from burning any organic material. You’re taking some complicated molecule and breaking it down into water and CO2 while releasing the energy stored in all the bonds you broke.
Other molecules sitting in your cells, such as fats and proteins, also contain energy in their bonds and can be burnt or broken down to release energy. Fats, among other uses, serve as a long-term energy storage system when you have much more energy than you need. When you start running out of sugar to burn, your cells will start breaking down this excess fat.
The food you eat (and store as fat) are made of hydrocarbons. Chemicals made primarily of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen.
When you breathe, you inhale oxygen (O2) and exhale carbon dioxide (CO2). The oxygen is like a little magnet when you hold it near those hydrocarbons (in your food and fat) it grabs onto the carbon (creating carbon dioxide) and hydrogen (creating water), releasing energy.
So you literally exhale the carbon and urinate/sweat the hydrogen and oxygen from those hydrocarbons.
And the opposite is true for plants. Their plant matter is made based on carbon they breathe in from the air.
Saw a cool study that showed you lose weight via exhaled CO2. It is the by product of the fat “burning”.
When your insulin levels are intermediate, your body burns fat to sustain most organs and use glucose for the brain and the muscles.
When your insulin levels are low, your body convert proteins to glucose and fat to ketone bodies. Glucose and ketone bodies are used for your brain and muscles, while regular fat is used for your other organs.
When your insulin levels are high, your body convert glucose to fat and use glucose to support all organs. Your fat is not used, it’s being stored.
To use fat, your cells transform it into acylCoA like they do for glucose which then enter the Krebs cycle.
https://open.oregonstate.education/aandp/chapter/24-3-lipid-metabolism/
The carbon of the fat (or glucose too) ends up being linked to oxygen in CO2 and the hydrogen ends up in H2O (water). You get rid of the CO2 by breathing out. You get rid of the H2O by breathing out, peeing and sweating mostly, though you actually need more water for those process than you get from burning fat so you need to drink water too.
If you want to lose fat, it’s best to avoid being in high insulin situation by eating low glycemic load food. You don’t want to eat fructose or fat bearing food either since the fructose will be converted into fat by the liver no matter your blood glucose level and the fat will be stored as fat. It’s best to eat proteins and carbonhdrates that are converted in glucose (like starch) all day long but in smaller portions to avoid getting a high blood glucose level.
Your body gets energy breaking things, when certain molecules break, they release energy that your body uses to move your muscles for example. Fat is just a reserve of those molecules. So when you need a lot of energy, and don’t have any in that moment, like hiking, you break down fat to gain energy. You can also break down protein (muscles) but they give less energy, so that’s why fat is used first.
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Remember the mitochondria, power house of the cell? Well mitochondria take in fat, break in down into chemicals you can burn as energy and then uses them for energy.
However fat is long term energy storage, your body prefers to burn carbs and will only burn fat when it needs to. If you go on a 10 minute hike your muscles will primarily run on carbs, longer duration exercise (like a 30+ minute hike) will tend to be better at burning fat as you will begin to run low on carbs but any amount of exercise is better than none and even 10 min/day will have noticeable effects on health. However most important is diet, if you still eat a massive calorie surplus and/or a lot of simple carbs (sugar, white bread) you will end up converting excess energy into fat for long term storage.
When you burn fat, your body is breaking down stored fat molecules into smaller molecules, such as fatty acids and glycerol. This process is called lipolysis, and it occurs in the mitochondria of your cells. The mitochondria are the “powerhouses” of your cells, and they are responsible for generating energy for your body.
During lipolysis, the enzymes in your mitochondria break down the fat molecules into fatty acids and glycerol. The fatty acids are then transported into your cells, where they are combined with oxygen to produce energy. This process is called cellular respiration, and it generates the energy your body needs to function.
When you go hiking, your body uses energy to fuel your muscles as they move and contract. If you are carrying excess fat on your body, your body will use some of this fat as a source of energy to power your muscles. As a result, you will burn fat and lose weight as you hike.
Overall, burning fat is a complex process that involves the breakdown of stored fat molecules in your cells and the generation of energy through cellular respiration. When you go hiking, your body uses this process to convert fat into energy, which helps you burn fat and lose weight.
[Here’s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGKLpYtZ19Q) an interesting TED talk on the chemistry of weight loss.
You are excercising, and warming your body from within.
([Generally this isn’t kindergarten but I have some students more advanced in some areas….]Generating energy, with your heart, while it’s pumping blood, the blood flow is producing friction or rubbing molecules/cells, which generates heat in your arms and legs, and torso, and warms everything up.)
You are sweating.
So your fat can turn into liquid on your skin, to cool your body from the exercise.
So you don’t over heat like a cell phone and power down.
Because high fevers can hurt your brain really bad, St. Joe’s and Local Medical center don’t want me to discuss that.
For a less biologically expressed explanation with physical science, ask a a grown up if they can help you with this experiment, go grab a bottle of water, one with grooves, not a flat surfaced one, and make sure it’s a disposable or recyclable one, cheapest ones usually, whatever.
Open the lid, now drink the whole bottle.
Now take that bottle to the sink, and fill it ALL THE WAY UP no space, and as little air as possible. Put the lid on it VERY tightly. Put it in the freezer. Wait 3-6 hours, no peeking, or 6-9 hours if you want to watch it expand as time goes on. Now. Grab a bowl from your cabinet and set the now expanded water bottle standing up within it, on your couter and come back to it in 6-12 hours. The results are a very basic explanation with physical science as to how we biologically process and store fat.
You can substitute butter or lard in similar exercises with the fridge and not the freezer, but the expansion and then shrinking of the tightly closed water bottle will actually explain how sweating affects your weight.
If you want tea, you can freeze 4/5ths of a gallon jug of water(without the lid and avoid milk jugs with loose seals), and keep the lid off until noted, boil about 2 cups of water then add 5 single cup tea bags, and about a .25-.5 cup of sugar, once removed from heat source(but not cooled down), and stir until sugar is desolved, once that occurs, you want to use a funnel to safely pour the water into the jug of ice with adult supervision the entire time, and then have the adult firmly replace the lid, as tight as necessary for nonair to escape. Now leav the tea jug on a big dinner plate or in a glass baking dish, on your counter for 4-6 hours. Not the jugs size changes. And the condensation gathered in the dish below it?
How? Here’s a convoluted explanation because I can’t teach you an entire degree at the moment:
Condensation, or biologically stated as perspiration. You are converting “coagulated [like scabs or blood clotting]” sugars and fat by warming them up and then sweating them out. This is why you can tell by a person’s sweat scent, if you can smell well enough, and don’t try and cover your ability to smell it all by EXCESSIVE tooth brushing, whether they are eating too much sugar, or drinking too much onion juice, or have liver issues etc. This is also how service dogs(and cats, really any animal trained from youth that doesn’t have processed foods and brush its teeth to dampen its ability to smell these things) are more effective as service animals than most care giving humans, because the animals can smell the endorphins and hormones your sweat glands release during seizures, high stress situations, and cardiac/respiratory issues. Except birds. Birds beaks don’t have the keen scent abilities as mammals but their feathers help them hear, and they are actually not just “parots” as science shows crows and their murders to be effective in community development and advancement. Even reptiles can be trained as support animals. Maybe I should do that. Just kidding I’m a great mom and would prefer to stay one by getting shit done with the help I actually need so my City and State don’t ruin more lives of my own and of children’s.
I OVER EXPLAIN BECAUSE I WAS THAT KID THAT PISSED ALL THE TEACHERS OFF WITH INFINITE WHY AND HOW QUESTIONS. KTHANKSBAI.
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