A Calorie is Not A Calorie - A Discussion of Thermodynamics

[ctviggen]

Logical fallacies do seem to come to the CICO debate, like moths to a flame.

That’s because CICO IS a logical fallacy.

[OldDog]

Y is a crooked letter!

No. S is a crooked letter.

[ctviggen]

My problem with CICO is that it’s a tautology: One can just keep saying “you lost weight because you ate less” or “you gained weight because you ate more”. It’s self-fulfilling and also ignores any complexity.

For instance, we have three birthdays in a row in my house, one per week in July/August. We usually get ice cream cake. I had one piece of ice cream cake each time. Even after 6.5+ years of low carb/keto, many 3-5.5 day fasts, many IFs, I STILL get hungry about an hour after eating ice cream. I had to eat something each time (usually, ham).

From my perspective, the type of calories do matter. And I know by eating a very high saturated fat diet, that this kills my appetite for quite a while. On the other hand, I always eat more if I eat breakfast, eat bacon, eat high fat that’s not high saturated fat, nuts, etc.

The type of calories matter.

Furthermore, it’s basically impossible to determine calorie expenditure or inputs. I spent the weekend doing projects around the house. Saturday, I normally do HIIT bike riding + abs, but decided to get a start on projects instead. I ended up doing projects Saturday, night swim in the pool with the kids, worked all freaking day Sunday until 7:30pm finally finishing the projects. Got up Sunday to ride my bike, but was too stiff and beat. Started project instead. Beat today.

How many calories did I expend? No idea.

And without a good idea of how many calories I’m expending, there’s no reason to count calories, as I can’t balance the two.

Let’s not even discuss trying to track intake, and the inability for websites to determine the same calories for the same item.

If someone wants to track calories and thinks it’s beneficial, I have no problem with that. But, as with everything else, “calories” are complex and for me not a useful tool.

[anon81060937]

Maybe long life has more to do with the culture and/or genetics?

Higher Sirt3 expression increases lifespan.

Similarly, HFD-induced brain oxidative stress was significantly reduced by BM(Bitter melon) supplementation with a concomitant reduction in FoxO, normalization of Sirt1 protein expression and up-regulation of Sirt3 mRNA expression.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21639917/

[atomicspacebunny]

up-regulation of Sirt3 mRNA expression

Bitter Melon is interesting stuff, it gets even more potent if want to oxidize white adipose body fat with brown fat if you drop your body temperature to around 40 degrees (or outside ambient entire body temp).

Here’s a bigger list:

“…Scientists have pinpointed some of the specific cellular changes that occur with caloric restriction. The most practical ways of achieving these benefits are:4-10

1. Boosting function of sirtuins , proteins that regulate cellular health,

2. Increasing activity of AMPK, an enzyme that regulates metabolism,

3. Reducing activity of mTOR, a protein linked to aging and chronic disease,

4. Blocking cellular senescence, when older cells become dysfunctional, and

5. Encouraging autophagy, cellular “housekeeping.”

These actions protect against many forms of chronic disease and accelerated aging.4,6-10

Caloric Restriction and Intermittent Fasting “Mimetics”

Sticking to a restrictive diet is difficult.

It can also be unpleasant. For some, substantial caloric restriction may lead to loss of strength and stamina, loss of libido, loss of bone density, depression, and other undesirable effects.1

Research is increasingly finding that there are alternatives to severe dietary restriction. Several compounds have been shown to target some of the same cellular pathways as caloric restriction, without side effects.5,7-9,11

These compounds are known as caloric restriction mimetics. A mimetic is something that mimics the effects of something else.

Some of the nutrients found to be caloric restriction mimetics are health-promoting polyphenols.

For each of the five major cellular changes spurred by caloric restriction, science has discovered mimetics that have the same effects. …More

[IdesOfMarch]

The type of calories matter.

Well of course they do, but nobody is saying that CICO defines what type of calories they are. There is a prevalent strain of strawman arguments at work that involve “putting words in the mouth” of CICO.

My problem with CICO is that it’s a tautology: One can just keep saying “you lost weight because you ate less” or “you gained weight because you ate more”. It’s self-fulfilling and also ignores any complexity.

You are saying that “CICO is no more complex than it is” - there’s a tautology. How does “what one says,” there, necessarily matter? Maybe a person did lose weight because they ate less. Or maybe there were other causes, and they didn’t eat less. This says nothing against CICO; CICO will change right along with the various cases. Maybe some bloke is correct about what went on, or maybe he’s incorrect. The possible error in human perception is no argument against the science.

Furthermore, it’s basically impossible to determine calorie expenditure or inputs.

This is almost exactly the same as what @amwassil was saying on the ‘Stokies…’ thread.

Stokies and CICO die/blow hards

The point of the above example was simply to demonstrate the impossibility of determining energy inputs and outputs precisely in the illustrated example of maintaining body temp.

We all should know that we actually can determine things quite exactly. That we can’t natively do it in this case doesn’t alter the reality of what’s going on. We couldn’t see bacteria until the 1600s, but they were there, nonetheless. Sure, we are not generally directly doing accurate calorie summations while we do projects around the house, etc., but this does not mean we should stick our heads in the sand, declare the science “invalid”, stomp our feet and declare that the earth is flat.

How many calories did I expend? No idea.

And that’s fine. You don’t have to count them. Personally, I’ve never wanted to do anything like that, “count calories” or weigh food, etc. But that doesn’t mean that the underlying physical truth of what’s happening isn’t there.

What if we were talking about insulin levels, i.e. “IUID” - insulin up, insulin down. There are plenty of people outside this forum who deny the carbohydrate-insulin hypothesis. IUID only tells us so much, and many logical errors can be made by pretending that its application will always be in certain ways. IUID is no different than CICO - it’s valuable to understand what is happening, but it has its limitations and it’s silly to argue against things that are not there.

This is the same thing. We don’t know the exact insulin level while we do projects around the house, etc. Joe Blow can say, “You lost weight because your insulin level went down.” Same as above, maybe that is the case, and maybe not. That Joe isn’t the final arbiter of all things, or that without being aided by technology we can’t get a really accurate fix on our insulin level, does not mean that the underlying reality of events changes or is somehow “unreal.”

If someone wants to track calories and thinks it’s beneficial, I have no problem with that. But, as with everything else, “calories” are complex and for me not a useful tool.

Okay, very reasonable. That’s much different from saying that an energy accounting “violates laws of thermodynamics” or is “invalid,” etc. There are lots of complaints that CICO is “too simple” and then lots of complaints that it’s “too complex.” So, if somebody else is doing the counting or theorizing, how much accuracy is good enough? In the end it really isn’t very complicated.

[atomicspacebunny]

If someone wants to track calories and thinks it’s beneficial, I have no problem with that. But, as with everything else, “calories” are complex and for me not a useful tool.

Calories are complex maybe because our human minds want to believe we are a steel container that blows stuff up (calories in calories out) when it really is about MASS?

There can be no thermodynamics if the thing your putting into is not completely thermodynamic?

It is more Chemical and Mechanical?

[IdesOfMarch]

Calories are complex maybe because our humans minds want to believe we are a steel container that blows stuff up when it really is about MASS?

Not sure about you but my steel content is actually quite low. We do “blow stuff up,” however - that we make heat, alone, is proof.

Calories are complex maybe because our humans minds want to believe we are a steel container that blows stuff up when it really is about MASS?

Surely there is some inseparability at work here, no? For example, if we want to lose fat - if we want to lose some weight, there - then we need our body to need energy. It’s not going to take energy/mass from fat stores unless there is an inducement to do so.

[atomicspacebunny]

We do “blow stuff up,” however - that we make heat, alone, is proof.

Not according to the math and physics “the proof” says totally the opposite if you understand the math?

The human body is not a thermodynamic system in the way average person tries to oxidize body fat?

Counting units of energy you would need to work off a thermal paradigm not just simply counting numbers which is non-existent? Temperature matters not just what you put into your mouth and your counting the numbers because your incineration rate will be so variable that you would get lost in the confusion to get any meaningful estimate?

You may be still burning what you ate three or five days ago? But my macro app says I already burned it? And then your going to take more food and throw it on top of that, confusing you even more?

[ctviggen]

I stopped here: " C57BL/6 female mice were fed HFD with and without bitter melon (BM) for 16 weeks."

[anon81060937]

I stopped here: " C57BL/6 female mice were fed HFD with and without bitter melon (BM) for 16 weeks."

That part is irrelevant because they most likely fed mice seed oils. The point is that bitter melon increases expression of Sirt3.

[ctviggen]

Protein makes one…tall?

Meat is good, regardless of its calories. (And, yes, this is correlation, not causation.)

[ctviggen]

Call me when there’s an RCT in humans.

[MarkGossage]

It’s not going to take energy/mass from fat stores unless there is an inducement to do so.

What like staying alive for example?

[atomicspacebunny]

Meat is good, regardless of its calories. (And, yes, this is correlation, not causation.)

Being you have enough stomach acid, digestive enzymes and gut microbes to break it down and it not being fully digested by the time it reaches the other end, of course massive amounts of meat won’t raise your blood sugars.

I could eat massive amounts of undigestible fiber and have low blood sugars if that’s all I ate?

Hopefully your getting lots of Vitamin C (not enough C scurvy/shortness of breath?) with that and other Vitamins and Minerals?

[ElmosUzi]

This’ great. While I’ve switched sides on CICO (not saying it’s perfect by any means) because it’s what finally broke an almost year stall for me I draw a line at “a calorie is a calorie”. There’s no reality when you can claim 500cals from meat or vegetables is the same as 500cals from Cupcakes and Twinkies.

Good, it’s nice to see physical reality trumping ideology. I think ‘keto magic’ - the understandable relief and joy many of us feel when the weight loss or metabolic healing take place - becomes supernatural for some people, and the next thing you know they’re assuming they’re escaping the physical laws of the universe.

In the almost 4 year history of this forum, has anybody on it ever actually said that the meat/vegetables were the same as the Cupcakes/Twinkies? Or that “a calorie is a calorie” (meaning “nothing further to see, here, folks”)? Most anti-CICO arguments are as easy to defeat as shooting fish in a barrel. If you see somebody making the first two claims in this paragraph, let’s all get after them - then we can all shoot.

[atomicspacebunny]

Then we need our body to need energy. It’s not going to take energy/mass from fat stores unless there is an inducement to do so.

Let’s say you eat 5, 10 or 20 grams of sugar?

You just ate too much?

Mass according to its highly concentrated density?

How long would it take to burn all that sugar?

You would probably have to walk at a normal pace for an X amount of hours?

Running will make the X amount of hours shorter?

But it’s not over yet, after you burn through that wall of sugar then you start burning body fat especially in the recovery period of deep delta REM sleep?

Same-thing with fat?

Same-thing with protein?

[OldDog]

Let’s say you eat 5, 10 or 20 grams of sugar?

Then the most weight you have gained is 20 grams.

[ElmosUzi]

Please read the article and direct your comments to refuting the authors’ terminology, claims and conclusions.

You’re not responding to anything I said, but onward…

Until and unless you can cite some evidence, I think you are just making up your own definitions of various common ideas used by the proponents of CICO to define and explain their theory and methods of weight management.

Vast amounts of evidence have been provided - yet we’re continually dealing with the pretense that CICO means “a calorie is a calorie,” with nothing more to be considered. How, logically, do you get there from “calories in, calories out,” stated just like that? You cannot do it. We’re counting things. We’re keeping track of things. We’re not saying there is nothing beyond the count that may affect other stuff. Change “calories” to another noun, and it’s going to be the same. The evidence is logic itself.

Specifically, refute the following:

At first glance, one can tell it’s not “about CICO” or “refuting CICO.” It’s talking about multiple states of CICO, as these 3:

CI = CO means no change in weight
CI > CO means gain in weight
CI < CO means loss in weight

A review of simple thermodynamic principles shows that weight change on isocaloric diets is not expected to be independent of path (metabolism of macronutrients) and indeed such a general principle would be a violation of the second law.

Well… that’s a hell of a sentence… But yeah - proteins and the thermic effect of food, for example, i.e. CO is going to be different because the energy cost of digesting the food is different. Could make the overall energy balance negative, i.e. weight loss, versus a different diet.

Homeostatic mechanisms are able to insure that, a good deal of the time, weight does not fluctuate much with changes in diet – this might be said to be the true “miraculous metabolic effect” – but it is subject to many exceptions.

That’s pretty nebulous - what is “a good deal of the time”? Maybe I need to read the whole thing. Same for “changes in diet;” well, how much change was there? Sheesh… And they make it virtually meaningless by giving themselves the out of “many exceptions.” However, if they are saying that changes in energy expenditure could negate weight change, then that’s obvious. ‘Homeostatic mechanisms’ - this would be CICO changing.

The idea that this is theoretically required in all cases is mistakenly based on equilibrium, reversible conditions that do not hold for living organisms and an insufficient appreciation of the second law. The second law of thermodynamics says that variation of efficiency for different metabolic pathways is to be expected. Thus, ironically the dictum that a “calorie is a calorie” violates the second law of thermodynamics , as a matter of principle.*

I don’t know why they would be saying there would be the idea that it’s theoretically required in all cases. Nobody’s saying that the macronutrients don’t have some differing effects, and nobody’s saying that the human body is a perpetual motion machine or anything like that. There’s always less than 100% efficiency, there’s always going to be some loss, even if very small.

The last sentence there, though - it’s saying that as a matter of principle the various macronutrients must have different losses. I think this is an incorrect assumption. In practice, they do have different losses, but this does not come from any necessary principle, this comes from the physiochemical properties themselves. There’s nothing that says they would have to be different.

Metabolic advantage with low carbohydrate diets is well established in the literature. It does not always occur but the important point is that it can occur. To ignore its possibilities and to not investigate the precise conditions under which it appears would be cutting ourselves off from potential benefit.

Agreed - a more prominent shifting of the energy balance as they mean here, i.e. beneficially and in the case of eating low-carb, is more likely to occur when insulin resistance is a factor. That’s when the “can occur” part has a higher chance of being true.

The extent to which metabolic advantage will have significant impact in treating obesity is unknown and it is widely said in studies of low carbohydrate diets that “more work needs to be done.”

One enormous problem is that studies involving “low-carb” diets often still are much higher in them than a ketogenic diet would be. Geez, cut the carbs down to 40% or 25% or 15% and tell yourself you’re examing the effects of a low-carb diet, huh?

However, if the misconception is perpetuated that there is a violation of physical laws, that work will not be done, and if done, will go unpublished due to editorial resistance. Attacking the obesity epidemic will involve giving up many old ideas that have not been productive. “A calorie is a calorie” might be a good place to start.

Definitely, nobody should be assuming that the physical laws don’t apply. Matter that we take in and energy that we take in are subject to the physical laws, and they all go somewhere, entropy and all.

[atomicspacebunny]

Then the most weight you have gained is 20 grams.

But 20 grams of what? Water? Muscle? Adipose Tissue? Bone Density? What is Generating the Most Heat? What Weighs more?

The mass morphs (transfers energy around within itself) rather than loses mass irregardless of how much it weighs?

Food’s Calories have, therefore, no impact on body mass. It is food mass that augments body weight; the absorption of 1g of glucose, protein or fat increases body mass by exactly 1g independent of the substrate’s Calories; a consequence of the Law of Conservation of Mass.

Foonotes:

[1] “…The law of conservation of mass or principle of mass conservation states that for any system closed to all transfers of matter and energy, the mass of the system must remain constant over time, as the system’s mass cannot change, so quantity can neither be added nor be removed. …” …More

[2] “…There is a scientific law called the Law of Conservation of Mass, discovered by Antoine Lavoisier in 1785. In its most compact form, it states: matter is neither created nor destroyed. …the total amount of mass and energy in the universe is constant. …” …More

[3] “…Thermoregulation: Most body heat is generated in the deep organs, especially the liver, brain, and heart, and in contraction of skeletal muscles. …” …More