Yeah this “thermodynamics” thing is so stupid, there’s enough energy in a sugar cube to power my home for months.
I also probably have the genetics to “keep warm” which helps if you want to lose weight, and as a male I don’t get the hormonal changes at a certain age that makes you gain weight, etc. etc. etc.
Then we have those who just expertly state “eat less”, yeah man who would have thought eh.
On a more reasonable scale, things like ditching sugar (including fruit, corn, cooked carrots etc) make wonders, probably because dropping that addiction (which is hard) makes it easier to eat less.
Sport in itself cannot outrun the spoon,but it might fire up desires to be in good shape, and lose weight might be part of that, and that’s really something, IMO.
No no no you see some people have the E=mc^2 gene which lets them metabolise mass directly into energy and so scientifically can never be held accountable for their weight.
I know you’re sort of joking, but metabolism is extremely badly understood (most is not understood at all), and different people extract different amounts of ATP from food than others, that’s just a verifiable fact. And eating less will make you lose weight, but how much less depends on, you guessed it, metabolism… So just saying “eat less” isn’t very helpful IMO.
And it has not really anything close to do with thermodynamic laws, or you Had to have the emc2-gene for it to matter, thats all.
It’s like relativity physics and car driving, it does intersect, but really not in any meaningful way.
My point is people get too hung up on “how much less depends on, you guessed it, metabolism… So just saying “eat less” isn’t very helpful IMO.” That they forget “And eating less will make you lose weight”
That’s my whole point. You gotta eat less if you want to lose weight and you can dig around in the science and semantics of it all you want but the bottom line doesn’t change.
Sure, but it’s not like people don’t know that, right? My take is sport, ditching sugar and so on will help you to eat less. Another thing is that the body reacts differently when you eat fat and sugar at the same time versus eating sugars, then later eating the fat. You are not wrong but there are many ways to get to the “eat less” IMO.
Nope, there’s just even more energy in a lump of coal.
I believe their point is that it’s a bit silly to sit around focusing too much in thermodynamics beyond the raw limits, when there’s a lot of factors that weigh in to how much of the theoretical maximum is available or used. Beyond just the basic chemistry involved, there’s hormones that influence how it’s used, and peoples urges to consume.
The average home in the US uses 10,000 kWH per year; let’s be generous and call that 500 kWH per month, or 2e9J.
A sugar cube is 5g. To power a home for a month, it would therefore need a specific energy of 2e9J/5g = 0.4e9 J/g. Normally specific energy is given in MJ/kg, so we get a minimum needed of 400,000 MJ/kg.
Coal, per Wikipedia, comes in at 26-33 MJ/kg. Liquid hydrogen gets over 140, and that’s the most efficient fuel on the list.
I didn’t bother to look up the specific energy of sugar, but somehow I doubt it laps coal by orders of magnitude. The only possible way it could have that much energy is if we could convert its mass directly to energy, but neither technology nor biology can do that right now so it’s a bit silly to even mention.
neither technology nor biology can do that right now
Yes, that was the point. If we focus purely on the math to the exclusion of reality you get results that don’t apply to reality.
If you only look at thermodynamics when discussing weight loss you get the best possible weight loss advice: “eat less”.
It happens to ignore the reality of biology, how the body reacts to changing nutrition, or how it reacts towards changing your desires when nutrition changes, but it is technically correct.
Just like it’s technically correct to say that a sugar cube has enough energy to power your home for a long time. It may be a useless observation, but it’s technically true.
Yup. Good habits come first. Every 12 pack of pop is roughly a marathon, give or take.
The simple act of cutting pop for water saves a massive amount of calories, but can be really hard if you’re not used to liquid not being strongly flavored.
Excercise, beyond being a bit self fulfilling (“I want to be in shape so it sucks less when I excercise”), does also increase your baseline metabolic rate once you get in the groove. Once you start moving your body becomes more free with burning energy when you’re just sitting around, and you’ll passively burn 3-6 cans of pop more than you would before.
But 100% to your main point. If you don’t have your diet under control it doesn’t matter how much you excercise, the medieval peasant that lives in your endocrine system will make it very hard to resist putting the calories right back in.
Yeah this “thermodynamics” thing is so stupid, there’s enough energy in a sugar cube to power my home for months.
I also probably have the genetics to “keep warm” which helps if you want to lose weight, and as a male I don’t get the hormonal changes at a certain age that makes you gain weight, etc. etc. etc.
Then we have those who just expertly state “eat less”, yeah man who would have thought eh.
On a more reasonable scale, things like ditching sugar (including fruit, corn, cooked carrots etc) make wonders, probably because dropping that addiction (which is hard) makes it easier to eat less.
Sport in itself cannot outrun the spoon,but it might fire up desires to be in good shape, and lose weight might be part of that, and that’s really something, IMO.
Good luck with your long term goals everyone!
…what? If that were close to true we’d be burning sugar instead of coal
No no no you see some people have the E=mc^2 gene which lets them metabolise mass directly into energy and so scientifically can never be held accountable for their weight.
I know you’re sort of joking, but metabolism is extremely badly understood (most is not understood at all), and different people extract different amounts of ATP from food than others, that’s just a verifiable fact. And eating less will make you lose weight, but how much less depends on, you guessed it, metabolism… So just saying “eat less” isn’t very helpful IMO.
And it has not really anything close to do with thermodynamic laws, or you Had to have the emc2-gene for it to matter, thats all.
It’s like relativity physics and car driving, it does intersect, but really not in any meaningful way.
My point is people get too hung up on “how much less depends on, you guessed it, metabolism… So just saying “eat less” isn’t very helpful IMO.” That they forget “And eating less will make you lose weight”
That’s my whole point. You gotta eat less if you want to lose weight and you can dig around in the science and semantics of it all you want but the bottom line doesn’t change.
Sure, but it’s not like people don’t know that, right? My take is sport, ditching sugar and so on will help you to eat less. Another thing is that the body reacts differently when you eat fat and sugar at the same time versus eating sugars, then later eating the fat. You are not wrong but there are many ways to get to the “eat less” IMO.
You’re just crying about phrasing then.
“U crying” lol what a lame take.
You’re actually crying
Nope, there’s just even more energy in a lump of coal.
I believe their point is that it’s a bit silly to sit around focusing too much in thermodynamics beyond the raw limits, when there’s a lot of factors that weigh in to how much of the theoretical maximum is available or used. Beyond just the basic chemistry involved, there’s hormones that influence how it’s used, and peoples urges to consume.
That’s just not true.
The average home in the US uses 10,000 kWH per year; let’s be generous and call that 500 kWH per month, or 2e9J.
A sugar cube is 5g. To power a home for a month, it would therefore need a specific energy of 2e9J/5g = 0.4e9 J/g. Normally specific energy is given in MJ/kg, so we get a minimum needed of 400,000 MJ/kg.
Coal, per Wikipedia, comes in at 26-33 MJ/kg. Liquid hydrogen gets over 140, and that’s the most efficient fuel on the list.
I didn’t bother to look up the specific energy of sugar, but somehow I doubt it laps coal by orders of magnitude. The only possible way it could have that much energy is if we could convert its mass directly to energy, but neither technology nor biology can do that right now so it’s a bit silly to even mention.
Yes, that was the point. If we focus purely on the math to the exclusion of reality you get results that don’t apply to reality.
If you only look at thermodynamics when discussing weight loss you get the best possible weight loss advice: “eat less”.
It happens to ignore the reality of biology, how the body reacts to changing nutrition, or how it reacts towards changing your desires when nutrition changes, but it is technically correct.
Just like it’s technically correct to say that a sugar cube has enough energy to power your home for a long time. It may be a useless observation, but it’s technically true.
Yup. Good habits come first. Every 12 pack of pop is roughly a marathon, give or take.
The simple act of cutting pop for water saves a massive amount of calories, but can be really hard if you’re not used to liquid not being strongly flavored.
Excercise, beyond being a bit self fulfilling (“I want to be in shape so it sucks less when I excercise”), does also increase your baseline metabolic rate once you get in the groove. Once you start moving your body becomes more free with burning energy when you’re just sitting around, and you’ll passively burn 3-6 cans of pop more than you would before.
But 100% to your main point. If you don’t have your diet under control it doesn’t matter how much you excercise, the medieval peasant that lives in your endocrine system will make it very hard to resist putting the calories right back in.
Gl on everyone’s long term goal but don’t you dare suggest eating less to achieve the goal of losing weight.
Let’s miss my point lol