The exact amount of the active ingredient of cannabis that remains in your system depends to a large extent on the amount of fat that you have on your body. If, as you stated, you work out pretty often, you should be pretty much good to go as far as the drug test goes because you would have burned out the amount of fat that still has the cannabinoid in it. This is however not absolute, and small amounts can remain and be detected if the fat in your body is not metabolized.
Cannabis contains a huge number of chemicals but the most important one of these is called tetrahydrocanabinol or THC. THC is mainly a psychoactive drug within cannabis. THC is absorbed into the body through the cannabis smoke. It then goes through two more stages of breakdown by oxidation and hydrolysis until it is finally broken down completely in the liver and excreted in the feces or in the urine.
Curiously, the only remnant of THC left at this stage is glucuronic acid of which 55% is expelled in the feces and just about 20% in urine. The remaining amount ends up being stored in the fat of the adipose tissues and gets removed from the system as the fat is used up. What this means is that there is a window of opportunity available to remove the active drug from the system before your drug testing. This can be done by ensuring that your body is burning up fat. Fat is a secondary fuel source that the body uses when there is no glucose in the body. When the body senses low glucose levels and a fall in the amount of insulin in the body, a process called ketogenesis occurs. This is the conversion of fat that is stored in the body into ketone bodies that can be used by all the tissues of the body as a source of fuel. This is what keeps us alive for at least three days in intense starvation. After this protein tissue is then broken down if further starvation occurs.
Fat metabolism is at its peak when you feel hungry. This is probably also the ideal time to start indulging in exercise. Skip lunch and get as much daytime exercise that you can and ensure that you have a hearty and fulfilling meal at night after that to replace lost nutrition.
Submitted by N S on January 14, 2010 at 08:22