A simple daily-iterated formula to start:
WEIGHT = WEIGHT—WEIGHTBURN + FOOD
My assumptions are that WEIGHT is the person’s current weight. WEIGHTBURN is the amount the person burn per every day from energy consumption + bodily maintenance. FOOD varies from person to person.
My questions for you:
But it is possible that some of the “calories in (the mouth)” may pass through the digestive system undigested and later excreted? Could people differ in this aspect, perhaps because of their gut flora?
Not unreasonable. I remember reading that while brocoli has more calcium than milk, the composition of milk allows the calcium to be absorbed better. In fact, the components of brocoli seem to contain something that actually inhibits calcium absorption!
More generally, I assume your reasoning here to be that actual food digestion is not a 1:1 to, say, food labels. Correct? (I assume that food labels use some sort of average, say, 10,000⁄100 = x per 100g. Correct me if this is wrong please!)
Also, what if some people burn the stored fat in ways we would not intuitively recognize as work? For example, what if some people simply dress less warmly, and spend more calories heating up their bodies? Are there other such non-work ways of spending calories?
Define your ‘work’. Is it physical activity without any body maintenance? Keeping your body temperature, for example. Digesting food also takes ‘work’. I don’t think you can burn so much calories from exercise alone, in fact. Calorie counting is a better choice for fat loss than walking/running distance.
More generally, I assume your reasoning here to be that actual food digestion is not a 1:1 to, say, food labels. Correct?
Yes, but more importantly, I ask whether the difference between “food labels” and “actual food digestion” may depend on the specific person. To use your example, some person may be able to better extract calcium from food than other person, either because their genes create different enzymes, or because their gut flora preprocesses the food differently.
Now apply this argument to the calories themselves. Is it possible that two people eat the same food, yet one of them extracts 1000 calories from the food, and the other extracts 1500 calories?
Define your ‘work’.
Well, you have just returned my question. I was curious whether there are ways to spend calories that most people would forget to think about when thinking about “work”.
For example, whether it is possible that we could observe two people the whole day and conclude that they do the same things (same kind of work, same kind of sport) and therefore their “calories out” should be approximately the same, while in reality their “calories out” would differ because one of them e.g. wears a warmer sweater.
Adding these two questions together, I am asking whether it is possible to have two people eat the same food, do the same amount of work and sport, and yet at the end of the day one of them gains extra calories and the other does not.
Is it possible that two people eat the same food, yet one of them extracts 1000 calories from the food, and the other extracts 1500 calories?
Yes. Off the top of my head some factors which will affect this: bowel transit time, the general condition of the GI tract including the amount/efficiency of digestive enzymes, gut flora particulars.
I am asking whether it is possible to have two people eat the same food, do the same amount of work and sport, and yet at the end of the day one of them gains extra calories and the other does not.
Certainly possible. In fact, I would expect this to be true for the same person at different ages: a 20-year-old who loses weight at a certain food/activity level would eventually become a 40-year-old who would gain weight at the same food/activity level.
Yes, but more importantly, I ask whether the difference between “food labels” and “actual food digestion” may depend on the specific person.
Obviously; things like lactose tolerance seem like clear examples of this, and Lumifer’s list seems like the sort of things I would expect matter in less obvious but more important ways.
I’m not really sure how to pinpoint individual differences. I’m going to stop here but I honestly think it would be nice to break this down further. A potentially harmful practice could be taking some sort of average ability to digest food, and then start deriving standard deviations from it. I’m saying ‘harmful’ because I (1) do not know how to do this and (2) I have no idea if this is the right thing to do.
Now apply this argument to the calories themselves. Is it possible that two people eat the same food, yet one of them extracts 1000 calories from the food, and the other extracts 1500 calories?
I’d imagine that people who had a less economical digestion would probably have less offspring, but that’s just a guess.
Well, you have just returned my question. I was curious whether there are ways to spend calories that most people would forget to think about when thinking about “work”.
It would be greatly helpful to have a list of energy spendings by the body, then. Can someone provide directions?
EnergyIntakeFromFood = Food’sCaloricComposition (* PercentAbsorbed: where this is probably close to 100%)
This is also more complicated because food travelling through your digestive system (or liquid travelling through your filtration system) can be at various stages and weights. For example watermelon has a lot of water in it, so will initially make your weight go up, but shortly after only the sugar will remain.
Other factors like feeling bloated may genuinely be caused by water retention. BUT if we try to build a model assuming these other factors are not there...
And assuming that when you eat food, the mass of the food is equivalent to your weight change due to the caloric load. (which is distinctly not true for chocolate, where you can eat less weight of chocolate but put on more weight because of the calories. The weight comes from added water when you process that food.)
(this is where the weight-measure starts breaking down but if we keep going anyway we can still get a useful model)
Can we get in some agreed upon middle ground?
A simple daily-iterated formula to start: WEIGHT = WEIGHT—WEIGHTBURN + FOOD
My assumptions are that WEIGHT is the person’s current weight. WEIGHTBURN is the amount the person burn per every day from energy consumption + bodily maintenance. FOOD varies from person to person.
My questions for you:
Not unreasonable. I remember reading that while brocoli has more calcium than milk, the composition of milk allows the calcium to be absorbed better. In fact, the components of brocoli seem to contain something that actually inhibits calcium absorption!
More generally, I assume your reasoning here to be that actual food digestion is not a 1:1 to, say, food labels. Correct? (I assume that food labels use some sort of average, say, 10,000⁄100 = x per 100g. Correct me if this is wrong please!)
Define your ‘work’. Is it physical activity without any body maintenance? Keeping your body temperature, for example. Digesting food also takes ‘work’. I don’t think you can burn so much calories from exercise alone, in fact. Calorie counting is a better choice for fat loss than walking/running distance.
Yes, but more importantly, I ask whether the difference between “food labels” and “actual food digestion” may depend on the specific person. To use your example, some person may be able to better extract calcium from food than other person, either because their genes create different enzymes, or because their gut flora preprocesses the food differently.
Now apply this argument to the calories themselves. Is it possible that two people eat the same food, yet one of them extracts 1000 calories from the food, and the other extracts 1500 calories?
Well, you have just returned my question. I was curious whether there are ways to spend calories that most people would forget to think about when thinking about “work”.
For example, whether it is possible that we could observe two people the whole day and conclude that they do the same things (same kind of work, same kind of sport) and therefore their “calories out” should be approximately the same, while in reality their “calories out” would differ because one of them e.g. wears a warmer sweater.
Adding these two questions together, I am asking whether it is possible to have two people eat the same food, do the same amount of work and sport, and yet at the end of the day one of them gains extra calories and the other does not.
Yes. Off the top of my head some factors which will affect this: bowel transit time, the general condition of the GI tract including the amount/efficiency of digestive enzymes, gut flora particulars.
Certainly possible. In fact, I would expect this to be true for the same person at different ages: a 20-year-old who loses weight at a certain food/activity level would eventually become a 40-year-old who would gain weight at the same food/activity level.
Obviously; things like lactose tolerance seem like clear examples of this, and Lumifer’s list seems like the sort of things I would expect matter in less obvious but more important ways.
I’m not really sure how to pinpoint individual differences. I’m going to stop here but I honestly think it would be nice to break this down further. A potentially harmful practice could be taking some sort of average ability to digest food, and then start deriving standard deviations from it. I’m saying ‘harmful’ because I (1) do not know how to do this and (2) I have no idea if this is the right thing to do.
I’d imagine that people who had a less economical digestion would probably have less offspring, but that’s just a guess.
It would be greatly helpful to have a list of energy spendings by the body, then. Can someone provide directions?
going to modify for clarification:
EndOfTodayWeight = StartOfTodayWeight—EenergyBurn + EnergyIntakeFromFood + WaterIn—WaterOut
where Energyburn is:
EnergyBurn = BaseMetabolicRate + IncidentalExercise + PurposefulExercise (+ SomeFudgeFactor for individual variance)
And:
EnergyIntakeFromFood = Food’sCaloricComposition (* PercentAbsorbed: where this is probably close to 100%)
This is also more complicated because food travelling through your digestive system (or liquid travelling through your filtration system) can be at various stages and weights. For example watermelon has a lot of water in it, so will initially make your weight go up, but shortly after only the sugar will remain.
Other factors like feeling bloated may genuinely be caused by water retention. BUT if we try to build a model assuming these other factors are not there...
And assuming that when you eat food, the mass of the food is equivalent to your weight change due to the caloric load. (which is distinctly not true for chocolate, where you can eat less weight of chocolate but put on more weight because of the calories. The weight comes from added water when you process that food.)
(this is where the weight-measure starts breaking down but if we keep going anyway we can still get a useful model)