Gregory Ellis's Postings
I wanted to take ths opportunity to comment on Gregory Ellis's postings about the second law of thermodynamics and other issues related to calories and diets. I realize I may be a bit late as he appears not to have posted for a while, but I wanted to put my two cents worth in anyway....
As I understand it, the issue is very much about the type, or source, of calories - not all calories are "created equally". To illustrate, consider the following example: Assume that Ellis and I weigh the same and we each go on, say, a 3,500 calorie a day diet. Mine is all carbohydrates and his is all fat. (Let's not worry about protiens and nutrients for the moment and assume minimal exercise). It won't be long before I start to gain weight. However, Gregory won't, because as he, and many others, have pointed out, his body can't store fat from ingested fat. Moreover, as I understand it, depending upon how Ellis eats his fat, he may even loose weight on his diet, by judiciously timing his injestion rate. Since his body can't store the fat that he eats, he could eat, say 3,500 calories for breakfast on day 1 and 3,500 calories for late on day 2. It would appear to be possible that, by the end of day 2, before his late meal, he may have to dip into his stored fat to supply hs ongoing needs.
As a professional engineer, I do have an understanding of the seond law of thermodynamics (along with the first and third, Newton's Maxwells, Einstein's and many other laws). However, the issues here are more complex than can be explained with the notion of entropy - after all, it doen't even fully explain even the simplest thermodynamic systems, that's why there is a first and third law! It seems to me that the issue of calories and weight loss/gain is much more complex. Although I don't completely understand the biology or biochemistry behind the above example, my guess is that the body digests the fats and breaks them down into fatty acids at a fairly constant rate. However those fatty acids don't release their energy until they are metabolized in the muscle cells, by going through the Kreb's cycle. If your muscles don't need them immediately and there is no way to store them, they are simply excreted, before they have given up all their energy. I know this is greatly oversimplified (and possibly not even correct), and would appreciate Ellis or anyone else's comments.
I must confess that I haven't read Ellis's book, but I think that if he wishes to use this forum to expresss his ideas or attempt to make a point, he should make that point here and not refer obliquely to his book.
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