Seems to be a few of those on the LR.

This is denying most of the existing research. You're fantasy-engineering rather than dealing with reality.

Savage.

If you want to seriously assert that the laws of thermodynamics don't apply to humans, then we don't have enough common ground to debate. Next it will be eternal motion machines on late night infomercials.

Re. being an engineer. I came out of school as a mechanical engineer, but I've never worked in the field.

---

Books @ Amazon
"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

The human body is more complex than this IMO. Over the years I have learned that if I REALLY NEED a cheeseburger it means I’m low on iron. I can either eat a ton of cheeseburgers and broccoli or take an iron pill for a few days and the craving will go away. Two very caloric different solutions to my body needing something (I usually have one cheeseburger and pop a few days of iron pills). But, I will keep getting the I NEED a cheeseburger message until I deal with it. If I’m trying to cut calories knowing this and taking an iron pill is going to be a lot easier than not knowing it and being distracted for days craving a cheeseburger.

If the body is not getting what it needs it will keep signaling you. This is why I think it’s a harder battle to cut calories on low quality food- you body is going to fight you harder.

Curious to get your opinion on this paper?


https://nutritionj.biomedcentral.com/...0.1186/1475-2891-3-9

Interesting. I salute you for going looking for something authoritative.


Bottom line. 1) Your paper is terrible and mine is perfect. 2) Thermogenesis is a wuss compared to the satiation effect of protein. 3) I accede to your point that my "a calorie is a calorie" argument isn't perfect. It seems likely that we can eat a few more calories of protein because of the metabolic cost to burn it. But apparently the significance of the issue is small enough that empirical studies struggle to reach a consensus. You forced me to go do some reading to back up my blithe assertions. I salute you for that too.


The abstract of the Feinman paper sucks. The paper's attempt to use Entropy to assert "no violation of Thermodynamics" is weak-sauce. The paper's discussion of "the body burns fats and proteins inefficiently" is interesting, but insufficiently supported to be compelling.


The paper is attacking the idea that simple calorie counting accurately predicts weight loss. It makes 2 separate attacks, w/o really making it clear that the 2 points are entirely separate.


First attack: 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. The paper gets the idea of Entropy right and posits that the higher Entropy associated with the chemical reaction of turning protein into energy accounts for appreciable calories. They're probably right. But what they fail to show is that it's significant. If the increase in entropy is .0001% of the caloric value, then it's not worth considering.


The paragraph mentions a delta G as 4kcal/g (which is a big #), maybe hoping that the nutritionist target audience will see that # and attribute significance to the Entropy argument. But Gibbs free energy isn't Entropy, it's Entropy+Enthalpy+Heat.


Second attack: Thermogenisis. This is the idea that the body metabolizes carbs more efficiently. Therefore if the body has to work hard to digest proteins, there's energy losses there. That is to say, if it costs 10kcal to metabolize 100kcal of protein, then you can eat 110cal. The #'s in your paper all track nicely with the math with my paper in the below link.


I'd argue that the 1) diet induced thermogenesis issue is still contraversial and 2) to the extent that protein is widely available in junk food, the thermogenesis argument doesn't matter.


Issue is still contraversial. This study says a) Diet induced Thermogenesis is an attractive and plausible theory, yet there's lots of problems in the research. b) The empirical experiments don't match the math.


The study says that when you do the math, protein is burned at an inefficiency of 20-30%, alcohol at 10-30% inefficiency, carbs 5-10% inefficiency, and fats at 0-3%. It says that our bodies aren't adhering to the math because our metabolism can't be precisely duplicated by burning food in a petri dish and measuring the heat output. The study found that protein results in weight loss not by it's inherent inefficiency, but by the feeling of satiation it creates. Explaining away the thermogenesis affect of alcohol was particularly imaginative. The study suggested that maybe people who drank alchohol are more active.


https://nutritionandmetabolism.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1743-7075-1-5

---

Books @ Amazon
"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

Speaking of...

Fucked.

---

The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

If they admit their kids are fat then they'll have to admit they are obese. You cannot exactly put your kid on a diet without him asking, "If I have to diet, why don't you? You're fatter than I am!"

How are parents supposed to see it in their kids when they can't even recognize it in themselves? I bet most people who are obese, but not morbidly so, wouldn't say they are obese but 'heavy' or something like that.

---

Long Chile was a silly place.

I guess for me the question is is the range of variability in absorbing calories going to be meaningful compared to the range of variability in what you eat and what you use through physical activity?

I think most likely you're talking a very thin layer of icing on the cake, and the cake has two very thick layers: the # of calories you put in your mouth and the # of calories your metabolism uses.