Ok, I probably shouldn't post this because It will let you all know how crazy I am but I am going to do it anyway.

Yesterday at work, a fellow dieting co-worker and I were having a conversation. I determined that if we ate about 175 pints of Ben and Jerry's, we would gain thirty pounds. So the question is, if you could somehow manage to eat all 175 pints in one day (and sometimes I think I could), would you be able to see yourself getting fatter? Would your skin start to stretch in front of your eyes or would it take a few days?

Curious, that's all.

No. I mean, my opinion is no.

It takes time for your body to turn excess calories into stored fat...just as it takes time to burn stored fat when you create a deficit. Just like sometimes I overeat and "lose" weight the next day...these calories "transactions" are not immediate...I'll likely see the gain later that week.

You'd definitely be bloated though!

You would never be able to consume that much ice cream in one day. Your body doesn't have enough lactase, the enzyme that degrades the sugar in milk, and you'd probably wind up either vomiting the excess up, or have it take a very quick trip through your digestive tract. Either way, it would not be pleasant...

Even if you were able to consume that much of any food without the digestive consequences, I have a feeling that there's a limit to how many excess calories your body can convert to fat at any given time, since there's a finite amount of metabolic machinery present.

So, short answer, I don't think you could get to the point where you could see your skin stretching. But it's definitely fun to think about!

Hehe what a question. Well.... the human stomach capacity is around 1.5 liters. And 175 pints of Ben & Jerry's is 82.8 liters. So I don't think you'd be able to chow down on that much ice cream in one day just due to anatomical constraints. But IF you could....

Physiologically, I think you would have some issues too. Your body has a limited number of fat uptake and carbohydrate uptake transporters to move nutrients into your muscles and fat into your adipose cells. Under normal circumstances, you have a vast surplus of transporters, but I think if you flooded your system with that sheer amount of food, it would be impossible for your body to process all of it - so you wouldn't see yourself getting fat.

I actually have some personal experience with this. And it's not pretty, so if you don't want to hear about this, don't read on.

Right before I entered into binge eating disorder treatment, I went on a massive bender and was consuming 10,000+ calories a day for 5 days. My body couldn't store that much energy, so I ended up "only" gaining 3 pounds. If I stored every extra calorie, I would have gained 10 pounds in less than a week.

The body will eliminate a portion of the extra calories through waste (TMI, I know). I had extremely high blood sugar during that time and I am certain I was urinating sugar. (Yikes!) Also, I think my metabolism became very fast to deal with all that food.

No, you won't gain 30 pounds by eating 175 pints of ice cream, but you might perforate your stomach, go into diabetic shock, and likely die. But you won't look fat by doing so. Bloated yes, fat no.

So, kids, don't try this at home.

[And just so that you know, I went into treatment April 2008 and am doing much better]

It's interesting that you mention this because I think the fact that the body only lets of gain weight gradually is why it's so easy not to see weight gain over a long period of time until you wake up one morning and think... "OMG. I'M FAT!" (at least that's what I did). Blah! Why can't our minds and bodies just work perfectly in sync?

I just love this site for all the open admissions, the truth, the information, mostly for the feeling of not being alone in so many things. I recently ate a container of ice cream (1.75 quarts) in four days and was thinking about when that would show up on the scale, so it's funny to read that other people think about even more extreme things, thanks for posting, it really made me smile!