The more fat you store the hungrier you’ll become. The more carbs you eat, especially the refined kind, the more fat you’ll probably store.

As Gary Taubes points out in his book, it’s all determined by the hormonal regulation of the fat tissue and the effect of the nutrients consumed on those hormones.

You are pretty much on the right track. What you have overlooked, however, is gut microbes. About 2 kilograms of gut microbes inhabit the digestive tract. As they multiply, they generate heat. This heat diffuses into the body and probably should be considered part of the body’s temperature regulating mechanism.

The amount of microbial activity is determined by the amount and quality of food intake. A diet rich in all of the nutrients required for efficient gut microbe multiplication will produce more dead gut microbes in the feces than a diet containing large amounts of empty calories. In addition, increased microbial multiplication means more heat energy generated in the digestive tract and less energy absorbed into the bloodstream.

Since each gram of microbes (dry weight) represents 5 kcal of heat energy that did not get absorbed into the bloodstream in caloric form, one can calculate the amount of heat energy generated daily by gut microbes. If a person produces about 1 ounce of stool per 12 pounds of body weight, a 156 pound individual would generate13 ounces or 369 grams of feces. Let’s say the dry weight of the feces is 25% of that or 92 grams. Since 50 to 60 percent of feces is dead gut microbes, the maximum dry weight of microbes would be 55 grams. Multiplied by 5 kcal per gram yields 275 kcal of heat energy.

I don’t know. Perhaps.

A calorie is a unit of energy. Other units of energy include British Thermal Units (Btu), watt-hours, Joules, horsepower-hour, and so on (energy reflects power delivered over a period of time. Thus, “watts” represent power, while watt-hours represent energy expended.)

Entropy is not energy. Rather, it is a description (and I am speaking loosely here) that characterizes the “quality” of energy. Without diving into the thermodynamic depths, processes that occur spontaneously always result in a net decrease in overall system quality (somewhat confusingly, this quality is defined in the negative as Entropy. Thus, a spontaneous process results in a net increase in entropy.)

Dr. Eades correctly identifies the first law of Thermodynamics, which states that energy is conserved (though in fact, the law actually codifies the conservation of mass-energy. However, since we are talking about chemical rather than nuclear reactions, his version is more than good enough.) The Dr. errs, however, in suggesting that the second law somehow gets around the first law. It most certainly does not. And as I mentioned above, the units of energy and entropy (which is Btu per poundmass-degree F) are incompatible. Thus, his equation “calories in = calories out + entropy is flatly wrong. If we may use an analogy, consider salt water. The volume of water can stand in for energy, and the salinity (saltiness) can stand in for entropy. The equation proffered here would be akin to saying:

5 gallons in = 4 gallons out + 35ppm salt

It doesn’t fly, nor can one craft a logical linkage between gallons and saltiness.

Where the error? I think I know. Remember, energy must always be preserved under the first law.

Food represents stored energy. Whatever energy enters our bodies must be accounted for by an energy balance. Here is the correct equation:

Calories in = calories out to generate heat + calories out to perform work + calories stored (as fat) + calories discarded (excreted as waste.)

Note that entropy cannot be a part of this equation because the units don’t match. Does entropy increase for this reaction? It most certainly does. But that has NO BEARING on the primacy of the first law. All energy must be accounted for.

Why, then, do low carb diets seem to allow weight loss with equal or greater caloric consumption than traditional diets? Well, the only component of our energy balance that is unexamined is the last term. There seems little doubt that our waste products must have a much higher content of unused energy than they would under a traditional diet. In other words, we are simply passing through a portion of our food energy “unused”. And a simple series of calorimeter tests should be able to prove this. Though I also think that low carb diets remove an awful lot of junk calories that we don’t even notice we consume (i.e. the “calories in” term probably goes down for many low-carb devotees.)

Thus, the “calorie is a calorie” nugget is not (and cannot be) rejected. It holds, and will always hold. However, in the face of successful weight reduction, a fully elaborated energy balance will – must – lead to a conclusive source of where the energy is going.

I am not writing this to be a smart-aleck. As a believer in this type of diet, I think it is very important not to present confused or erroneous description about what is and is not known about them. Rejecting “a calorie is a calorie” as being somehow subverted by some diet will never convince a skeptic schooled in engineering or physics because 200 years of thermodynamic studies have verified it to be true.

I think, though. that determining the source of the diet’s success should not be difficult. We either unknowingly reduce our total caloric input with a low carb diet, we excrete more energy dense waste produces with a low carb diet, or a combination of the two. If our metabolism and level of activity remains generally consistent, these are the only option.

I see what you mean now. I guess by saying low-carb calories that I was implying higher-protein calories since most low-carb diets are higher in protein.

Love your blog (obviously, as I’m in the archives). Sorry for the late comment, but I had a question that I didn’t see asked in any of the comments: doesn’t the fact that the low-carb diet consisted of 24% protein and the low-fat diet consisted of 12% protein cast doubt on the idea that it was the non-protein composition responsible for the increase in metabolic output?

Thanks!

Unless I’m misunderstanding your question, I think that was the point of the article in AJCN. According to the authors, it was the increase in protein that brought about the increased metabolic output.

FYI, not on your blog roll, another blog I’ve read through and found to be quite informative (and compatible in most ways with your ideas, I think):
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/

And while here, here’s something I wrote in a private forum earlier today, FYI:

An Austrian study ( http://tinyurl.com/5mz4us ) indicates that higher levels of D3 correlated with longer lifespans. Period. In other words, higher levels of D3 reduce the all-cause mortality rate. There’s simply no man-made drug that can claim anything close to this.

The study included 3,258 with an average age of 62 year, and over an average follow up of about 7.5 years just over one-fifth had died. The study concluded that people with the lowest blood levels of D were 2.5 times more likely to die from cardiovascular disease, and twice as likely to die from all remaining causes, such as cancer. Lower D levels are also associated with higher CRP and other markers of inflammation.

A second recent study (13,331 people enrolled) comes to the same conclusion, this time by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Can’t find a link. The lead doctor was Michal L. Melamed, M.D. if anyone wants to try to find it.

Note that various studies have reported that most Americans are deficient in vit. D, up to 95% of those in northern regions of the States. And this is one of the cheapest supplements available. There’s no reason anyone should be deficient.

Here is the link for the Melamed study:

I believe that Vit D is extremely important for good health and that it probably does decrease all-cause mortality, but neither of these studies proves it.

I’ve heard that cold water burns calories because our bodies have to heat up the water in order for it to be used. But at the same time, I’ve heard that we use some of energy keeping our temperature low enough, so wouldn’t that mean the cold water would help this process and thus not burn more calories? What do you think?

I should probably stick to mountain biking for keeping the fat low I guess

Maybe you’ll be glad to hear these posts are praised internationally.

It seems like all the words of admiration to Dr. Eades and his work have been spent out, so (although I have a great desire to) I won’t bother to say anything impressive or extraordinary, I shall simply agree and confirm what have already been said.
Being on LC diet 7 days for the first time in my life, and having read extensive ammount of articles on this subject, stil some questions remain unclear, and I found them somehow very important from the practical point of view:

1. I want to lose fat, not only weight. It comes logically to me that I have to intake less calories in the form of protein+fat (which are approx. fifty-fifty in my diet)in order to start burning body fat. Am I right? It makes no sense to me that I can eat fat+protein w/o control and still lose fat, even LC dieting.
In other words I have hard time to calculate the wise number of fat+protein calories which will lead to the most efficient fat burning regime.
If it takes long time and space to explain, maybe you just refer to a link.

2. Is prolonged ketosis per se related to health risk, irrespectively of KB concentration in the blood. I mean, is it legitimate to say there is increased blood concentration of KB, if we assume that all the excess of KB is being excreted through urine? Or more precisely, is this transient state of raised KB levels in the blood before being eliminated harmful? Then maybe it will be better to burn all the excess with exercise rather than waiting to be eliminated. OK, I know, some exercising is always welcomed. Then, is it better to take long walks for hours, or to do 30 min aerobic exercise on daily basis?
Again, besides your direct answer, I’ll appreciate if you link me to useful articles on this issue.

3. The last, but not the least, what is your professional opinion about Metabolic typing? This approach is completely new to me, just to find out that Internet is full of respective questionnaires. Of course, I couldn’t resist them, and what comes out as a result is that I belong to Protein type with recommended 50% fat:30% protein:20% carbs diet proportion for the rest of my life in order to stay slim and healthy.
Is there any reasonable scientific support for such a typing?

Well, I realized the post is dedicated to thermodynamics and weight loss and I happen to be off-topic with my questions. I apologize. I simply was not enough eager to read all the previous posts. Guru had similar questions, but when I tried given link for further explanations it didn’t work (and still doesn’t work, maybe you can check out what is going on).

Oh, I would almost miss to mention that I’m in a serious “negotiations” with my husband to start with the intermittent fasting.

Dr. Eades, I feel extremely lucky to come across to your Protein power web site.

P.S. English is not my native language. Sorry for the spelling, grammar and style mistakes.

Hi Ljubica–

MRE

Glad you enjoyed it.

MRE