C55 H104 O6 - The mathematics of weight loss

Came across this old Tedx talk, basically where does the weight you lose actually go. Enjoyed it and thought I would share for those who haven’t seen it…

TL/DR
Yes you Eat Less and Move more but you have to Keep Breathing!

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You’ll lose a lot of weight when you stop breathing…

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Very true :sweat_smile: but whilst your living, you lose that fat via the gas you exhale…

Hmmm…that is gonna require multiple viewings as my high school chemistry days were pathetic and are long behind me now!!

That said, if there was a diagnostic device that was able to accurately measure your Resting Metabolic Rate, is that something that would be of interest to performance athletes?

If you think at a very basic level. You breathe in O2 (well as part of air but other gases pretty much just go in and then back out) and breathe out CO2…just (again very basically) just adding carbon (and hence mass)!

I just watched this video because it was mentioned on Ben Greenfield. I found the conclusion rather disappointing!

I dunno. I’ve seen quite a few beer bellied mouth breathers. :thinking:

Such a device does exist, you see it turn up in studies and I think the podcast hosts did it once, but its usefulness seems pretty limited.

When I have heard smart people talk about the issues with the math on this it generally seems to come back to NEAT being highly variable both individually and between individuals. Even if you put people in a metobolic ward and control for nearly everything the amount of calories people use doing ‘nothing’ can change by many hundreds of calories when you under/over feed them. Some people can magically fidgit away an extra 300 per day when sitting still when you over feed, its wild.

I have been tracking my TDEE in a spreadsheet for a few years now and you can tell what the weather was like outside by the ~500 cal swing in TDEE even controlled for exercise just cause i do more non exercise stuff when its nice out. That swing is often as big or bigger than from exercise.

FWIW, all my tracking has really done is confirm for me 100% the magic lever is alcohol. I will go ahead keep tracking data until that is not true.

Yeah, I know such devices exist…but they are extremely expensive and not geared towards the consumer market. I’m curious if there would be any interest on a consumer level for such a device.

I would disagree re: the usefulness…at least on the top line. If you know you actual RMR (and not an estimate), you can better dial in your caloric intake to achieve your nutritional / performance / weight loss goals.

And your RMR changes as you gain (or lose) fitness, etc. so knowing where you are in terms of actual RMR would seem to be beneficial.

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