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I was just wondering how efficient is the human body when it comes to consuming calories? Do we use up every calorie we take in or is some lost? 90%? 99%?
It's funny that I never really thought about this until I watched some show about elephants and how poorly they really digest their food (well its mostly roughage anyways).
I think if we started to debate about it, companies would use it to sell some type of crap.
I'm guessing maybe 90% while on a deficit? Then i think it changes drastically if on a surplus.
"buy this and make your body digest less and lose weight!"
I can see it already lol
[QUOTE=mingo3403;447155591]I think if we started to debate about it, companies would use it to sell some type of crap.
I'm guessing maybe 90% while on a deficit? Then i think it changes drastically if on a surplus.
"buy this and make your body digest less and lose weight!"
I can see it already lol[/QUOTE]
they already have those, there called fat blockers and carb blockers, or both.
and id say on a deficit, the body is extremely efficient. probably close to 100% efficiency, but if you randomly go out and eat 10,000 calories, then the body just doesnt have the necessary digestive enzymes to absorb all of that, and efficiency would be very low. for a typical bulk, id say the body is 90-95% efficient
[QUOTE=CutMeUp562;447146221]I was just wondering how efficient is the human body when it comes to consuming calories? Do we use up every calorie we take in or is some lost? 90%? 99%?
It's funny that I never really thought about this until I watched some show about elephants and how poorly they really digest their food (well its mostly roughage anyways).[/QUOTE]
There are definitely losses from the second something goes into your mouth that will vary depending upon the food in question. What's left after accounting for digestive losses is the metabolizable energy. And then you can further knock off heat of fermentation, obligatory and non-obligatory thermogenesis to get to what is actually left as usable by your body. For fiber it can be down to 0 - 2 kcal/g, protein down to 3 kcal/g, etc...
Heat of combustion / gross energy -> digestible energy -> metabolizable energy -> net metabolizable energy -> net energy
It would vary from person to person, we are all different and it would also depend on the health of their digestive system.