Do you ever wonder what happen to the food after we eat?

We have three major food groups: carbohydrate, fat and protein. They all are essential to our body. Thus, “no carbohydrate diet”, “no fat diet” and “no protein diet” are not advisable for any safe effective weight loss plan.

Each food group has its own destiny in different way. They all generate ATP energy molecules for the body to use through the different pathway.

Let briefly talk about how do they breakdown (degrade).

Carbohydrate breaks down to

                     1. glucose for instant energy 

                     2. glycogen for energy reserve to maintain blood glucose level in between the meals.

Glycogen is stored in liver and muscle, store up to 800 kcal. Glycogen store is constantly replenishing as soon as we utilize it. During the starvation, brain can use this glycogen storage for few days.

Fat breaks down to free fatty acid (commonly oleate). The free fatty acid bind with albumin in the blood, are transported to the cells, and oxides for the energy (ATP). But the free fatty acid cannot be utilized by the brain and the RBC.

Liver can metabolize the free fatty acid into ketone bodies. The ketone bodies are utilized by the muscle for energy and the brain during starvation.

Different kinds of Fat get differently degraded too. There is the three different kinds of body fat.

                   1. Satuated fat,

                   2. Unsatuated fat

                   3. Polyunsatuated fat (detail explanantion coming soon!)

Protein breaks down to amino acid. Amino acid is building blocks of the body protein and precursors for many other physiologically important compounds: eg: neurotransmitters, hormones, etc. protein is not a major source of the energy like glucose and fat. It is mainly used as energy to bridge in between the gap of carbohydrate energy and fat energy. Body takes approximately takes 2 weeks to start utilizing the fat as major energy source after depleting the energy source from carbohydrate. If we have the sufficien energy from the carbohydrate and fat, the protein is mainly utilize for the repair and the making of the body protien (eg: hormones, enzymes, etc.)