DETAILS
Virtually every program aimed at anyone who wishes to gain or lose bodymass,
whether it be fat or lean body tissue, is based on the law of conservation of
energy (i.e. Energy in = Energy out - in a closed system). Thus, one will not
lose weight if one ingests more calories than one expends. Conversely, one
will not gain weight if one burns more food than one ingests. One remains in
balance if one burns exactly the same number of calories that one ingests.
So, if you are overweight, then all that you have to do is cut down on the
number of calories you eat and if you are underweight, then all you have to
do is eat more. Adding some exercise will assist in helping you burn
calories, so for losing weight (or, rather, excess bodyfat), a combination of
restricted calorie intake and regular exercise (usually presumed to be
'aerobic' endurance activity) is even more strongly recommended.
While this principle seems to be perfectly logical and seems to be successful
in many cases, we all know that there appears to be something not quite
correct about it, simply because we all know of people for whom it does not
work.
Some really unfortunate obese people become desperate because they have tried
cutting their calorific intake drastically, they have followed demanding
exercise programs, they have seen psychologists, and yet any minor losses
that they may have experienced are regained in no time at all. Nobody seems
to believe that they haven't been cheating on their weight reduction
programs, so off they go to have liposuction, but two years later, poor souls
are right back where they started.
They are informed that their problem is genetic, even though they were not
particularly overweight as children or teenagers. Maybe they hear the
monotonous tale that it is impossible to gain weight on less than 1000
calories or less a day and they must be 'cheating'. Or maybe their metabolic
rate is too low and they need something to 'speed it up'. Or they were
'deprived children' and subconsciously their bodies have been making up for
it by gaining weight.
Maybe their metabolic rate is very low, but is it not possible that their
absorption of food is far more efficient than those who are much thinner.
Maybe their metabolic systems tend to convert more of anything they eat to
adipose tissue, while those of their thinner cousins tend to be far less
capable of storing excess food as fat, because they genetically happen to be
less capable of storing fat for survival in times of food shortage.
Thus, is this propensity to store even the slightest excess of food in the
form of energy-concentrating fat a vestige of the evolutionary survival
history of humankind, in which food was not nearly as available as it is
today. In a similar vein, survival of humankind has to do with the fertility
of women and considerable research has indicated that when a woman's bodyfat
level drops below a certain percentage of bodymass, she becomes amenorrheic
and infertile. So, is the tendency to store excess food in the form of fat a
genetic memory of a once-necessary survival mechanism or is it something more
sinister?
At the opposite end of the scale, there are some unfortunate folk who
struggle to gain weight, no matter how much they eat of anything. Their
calorific intake far exceeds their energy expenditure, yet they never gain
weight in the form of adipose tissue or anything else. Certainly we need to
rule out the possibility of intestinal worms or other chronic disease, since
pathology may be the cause rather than mere physiology.
There is also another interesting category of people who exhibit 'normal'
bodyweight, have low bodyfat and always look excellent - they can eat
anything in any quantities, yet they never gain weight, nor do they do much
exercise. Does the answer to the riddle lie with this group?
All of this suggests that we re-examine the application of the Law of
Conservation of Energy to bodymass equilibrium. Years of scientific research
has shown that this Law is correct, so there must be something incorrect in
the way in which it is being applied.
It is quite simple to deduce at least one flaw, namely that food is not
metabolised with 100% efficiency, so that some food will always go to waste.
Thus, excess food does not necessarily end up as adipose tissue; it might
simple end up in the sewers. In other words, we need to rewrite that energy
equation a little more thoroughly:
Energy in = (Energy for basal metabolism) + (Energy out as work) + (Energy
stored as fat) + (Energy lost as waste matter and heat)
This means that we need to focus on several other factors other than food
intake and exercise. We also need to comment on how well nutrients are
absorbed from the gut, how metabolic rate alters in response to exercise or
nutrition, and how all calories are not treated equally in the body. Are
members of the public being done a grave disservice when their weight
problems are discussed with them on the basis of the highly simplistic from
of the Conservation of Energy law?
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