If to gain 1 pound (450 grams) you need to eat 3500 calories over your maintenance, how does it make sense that eating 400 grams of straight oil (which is 3536 calories) leads to a 450g gain which is more than the weight of excess food Where does the roughly 50 extra grams come from?

Question

If to gain 1 pound (450 grams) you need to eat 3500 calories over your maintenance, how does it make sense that eating 400 grams of straight oil (which is 3536 calories) leads to a 450g gain which is more than the weight of excess food Where does the roughly 50 extra grams come from?

In: Biology

Answer 1

Water

The fats you eat (lipids) are basically straight oils which makes them very dense. When your body goes to pack them away in adipose tissue(fat cells) it stores them in a matrix with some water which is how you can gain more weight than just the raw grams of food that you eat.