Stokies and CICO die/blow hards

[amwassil]

Let’s start with Dr Jason Fung:

Why the first law of thermodynamics is utterly irrelevant - Diet Doctor

"A calorie is a calorie" violates the second law of thermodynamics

Wrap it up with this link, which has some very cool charts that illustrate complexity:

Keto does not defy the First Rule of Thermodynamics

[CaptainKirk]

Nice…

Another key point from Bikman, I believe. When you are peeing out ketones… Does that count toward CO? From an Energy balance, those calories were NEITHER consumed nor converted to actual energy. And that is something that may happen during fasting, and certainly when I exercise fasted as my body ramps up ketone production… (And why it stops happening when you keto adapt). So some of that initial weight loss is literally a purging of excess energy your body does not know what to do with yet…

Thank you to EVERYONE… Through disagreements, and posting our different viewpoints…
I feel I have learned something, and I can better make my argument.

[amwassil]

When you are peeing out ketones… Does that count toward CO?

I think it does. Ketones are modified fatty acids, which are stored energy so the ketones are stored energy just as well. They did CI at some point or resulted from some other CI so when you piss/breathe them out unused, they contribute to CO. In one of his videos, possibly the one on BAT, Bikman jokes about losing weight/fat in keto just by pissing and breathing. Yet it may actually add up to significant amounts over time.

[dlc96_darren]

[amwassil]

For anyone interested or just curious, I just created the following new topic:

A Calorie is Not a Calorie - A Discussion of Thermodynamics

This pretty much demolishes CICO once and for all. And the linked article is from 2004! So, the science demonstrating exactly how CICO miscontrues thermodynamics has been out there for 16 years.

[OldDoug]

People have been firing this thread up today. All the time I’m seeing like

and

It’s a hootenanny!

[Chantarella]

@stokiesgoneketo
Oh bravo!! What a transformation! Can you add a few more fotos? I love looking at them. The before and after are so uplifting! I am deeply impressed. Did you add fasting in any form to your keto diet?

[ElmosUzi]

I think it’s like Dr. Fung’s “Two Compartment Model/Problem,” which is actually three things. Energy (the 1st thing) doesn’t just go to ‘calories out’ (the 2nd thing). It can also go to fat storage (the 3rd thing).

With CICO, there are the data-driven people who pay attention to the whole thing, realize its constraints and also its benefits - we need not limit ourselves to ‘in & out’ because we can derive movement into or from fat storage by “in minus out” or vice-versa. (1st group.)

Then there are people who don’t approach CICO the right way. They forget about the ‘out’ part, act like merely “counting calories” (the 'in) will make for long term weight-loss for people, nothing more required, etc. (2nd group.)

Then there are people (3rd group) who criticize the 2nd group (and they are right in doing so), yet also the 1st group. It’s as if they personalize CICO and assign the human errors from the 2nd group to it. This is just as incorrect as the errors the 2nd group are making.

[IdesOfMarch]

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. Yes, of course, if you could determine all the inputs and all the outputs precisely, you could answer this exact number of calories are required under this set of circumstances. But we can’t do that, and you know it, because the number of known and possibly unknown variables are high.

We actually can determine the exact number of calories - it just takes the equipment to measure the energy expenditure. That we can’t do the math in our heads or directly perceive the exact answer via our senses doesn’t mean the answer is unobtainable. Likewise, the fact that for most of our history we couldn’t directly perceive things below a certain size did not mean that they weren’t there. It was only 400-500 years ago that we got the microscope, but that didn’t prevent the prior existence of bacteria, for example.

As for general applicability of thermodynamics to metabolism, I said this a year ago: For anyone who thinks otherwise, the laws of thermodynamics do not change. What changes are the inputs and outputs within the metabolic system. It is a complex system regulated by various hormones and enzymes some of which act in parallel and some of which in antagonism on specific types of input (ie carbs, fats and proteins; minerals, vitamins, etc). The error of CICO is to ignore the regulatory functions of hormones and enzymes and the near impossibility to determine precisely caloric intake and output, not thermodynamics. If you could in fact determine the precise difference, after all the regulatory inputs/outputs of various hormones and enzymes, on a precise determination of caloric input and output within the system you could theoretically predict precise results based on caloric values. Realistically, though, it is not possible to attain sufficient precision to do so. The fallback is trial and error - “what works for me, but not necessarily for thee”.

Cool - we agree that the laws of thermodynamics do not change (and I assume we agree that they apply, here). But you are wrong where you say, “The error of CICO is to ignore the the regulatory functions of hormones and enzymes and the near impossibility to determine precisely caloric intake and output, not thermodynamics.”

CICO does not address hormonal effects, and it does not claim to. In this respect, CICO (less on the “in” than the “out”) is the result of hormonal effects, not the cause of them. Hormones are a substantial driver of what the “calories out” is. CICO isn’t pretending to tell us all the reasons why, CICO is just telling us “Here’s what you have as far as energy balance.” CICO is saying, “Here’s what’s going on, thermodynamically.” It’s up to us to figure out broader considerations if we want to.

So please stop implying that I am ‘anti-science’ or illiterate.

I didn’t say illiterate, and I specifically did say that I was not accusing you of being truly “anti-science.” I have seen you be very helpful to many forum members and come up with many good responses to questions, and you’re obviously very interested and willing to do research. Yet on ‘CICO’ you seem determined to go off the rails, i.e. presume that CICO ‘claims’ to tell us more than it does.

We have 1347 very small green balls in one hand, and 1187 in the other. We don’t directly perceive the correct numbers right away. But with time and effort, we can determine those numbers. Yet by your logic you are saying that the accounting is invalid, no matter what.

It says a lot about you that you continually couch your arguments to imply those who disagree are less informed than you.

That’s not really it. I am saying that just because science gets complicated, that just because we can’t do the math in our heads or immediately visually detect the answers, etc., it does not mean that a proper scientific consideration is not possible. It’s not always easy to avoid logical fallacies, to not generalize from the particular, to not insert opinion as objective fact, to properly qualify our statements so they are always true, rather than sometimes true, etc.

As above, just because we don’t immediately know what the count of very small green balls is, nor all the reasons for them being in each hand, that doesn’t mean that an accounting of them is invalid or in error. Similar criticisms of CICO are likewise illogical.

CICO actually tells us quite a lot, directly and by inference we know almost the entirety of energy flow and balance, right there.

What I have said about CICO is that it simplifies a very complex thermodynamic system to the point of absurdity by ignoring a large number of very important processes that affect the human system just as significantly and in many instances moreso than merely counting calories.

This too is wrong. It’s not “absurd” to view things as energy in, energy to storage, energy to usage, and energy to waste. How accurate do things have to be, to satisfy you? Don’t you think we’ve already gotten a very complete accounting, right there? What else do you think is happening? I submit that if you think a substantial amount is missing, then you are dealing with something that is imaginary.

CICO does not claim to define and inform about all the “very important processes” you mention. Again, CICO is a result here, more than a cause. As with the green balls, it’s up to us to pursue the question of why the count is what it is.

CICO is not just a statement about thermodynamics.

It’s a statement of physical properties, that’s really all.

[IdesOfMarch]

Another key point from Bikman, I believe. When you are peeing out ketones… Does that count toward CO? From an Energy balance, those calories were NEITHER consumed nor converted to actual energy.

I think it does. Ketones are modified fatty acids, which are stored energy so the ketones are stored energy just as well. They did CI at some point or resulted from some other CI so when you piss/breathe them out unused, they contribute to CO

I think this is exactly right. They definitely were consumed/got into the body somehow.

[IdesOfMarch]

The body can be efficient utilizing calories and it can also be efficient in wasting them. Plug that into your closed system.

Our bodies are not closed systems. Normally, very little energy is wasted - when weight loss is desired, if anything the body tends to be frustratingly efficient with energy usage. This is a very common experience and I’ve seen many people on this forum talk about it.

If by “wasting calories” you mean increasing metabolism, then sometimes, yes. But that is obviously part of “calories out,” so there should be no argument there. Really, it boils down to a fairly simple picture. If weight is staying the same, then ‘in’ and ‘out’ will reflect the metabolic rate, and besides a normally very small amount of waste/excretion, there is nothing else.

If weight is changing, then accounting for that, the metabolism and excretion, is the picture.

[Rclause]

and besides a normally very small amount of waste/excretion, there is nothing else.

I can’t remember where I was reading about it but the body can make subtle changes in body temperature to conserve or waste energy. There are two paths other than increased exercise for CO side of the equation. Waste the calories or store them.

[MarkGossage]

That sounds like Bikman… converting White Adipose Tissue (WAT) to Brown Adipose Tissue (BAT) to spend excess energy as heat.

[stokiesgoneketo]

No. I eat more on keto actually. Up from 1200a day to 1700 on average. Heavy training days could hit 2000.

[ctviggen]

If anyone has been following Fire in a Bottle’s posts, he has a theory of obesity that is a bit complex. But one thing he’s trying – and has succeeded in doing, at least in part – is raising his body temperature and his energy expenditure. He believes PUFAs cause us to to basically be almost in hibernation, lowering our body temperature and calorie expenditure.

I have been testing his theories by taking his oil and berberine. I haven’t quite gotten the formula down yet, though. For instance, he takes berberine on an empty stomach with only coffee in the morning and takes his oil later in the day with a meal. When I took berberine with coffee, I was STARVING, which is unusual, as I very rarely am hungry in the morning.

So, I’m still testing. I have not yet experienced much of a temperature increase, but I haven’t perfected the formula for taking everything. I also started out with lower amounts of oil.

As for theoretically being able to determine CO and CI in a lab, who cares? For those of us living freely, it’s immaterial.

Just listened to a podcast where the two presenters lived with the Hazda. They said the Hazda would go out and find meat for 10+ hours on a hunting trip. But when they weren’t hunting, what were they doing? Nothing. Literally. Just sitting around talking. This idea that hunger/gatherers had to be moving all the time is a myth.

[OldDoug]

He believes PUFAs cause us to to basically be almost in hibernation, lowering our body temperature and calorie expenditure.

Interesting, Bob. All the more reason to avoid them, eh? I guess I should check out Fire in a Bottle to see how that would work, mechanistically. If that does operate, it would certainly fit well within the overall observed increased obesity, etc., of the past 40 - 50 years.