Banters (followers of the Banting diet) have
an interesting relationship with the first law of thermodynamics. They seem to
both love it and hate it at the same time; using it to both enrich their own
arguments and to dispel their opponents. In reality there is no reason to fear
the law as it is perfectly compatible with the Banters views, however their
uneasiness gives away many underlying insecurities.
The law states that energy can neither be
created nor destroyed so that within a closed system a change in energy equals what
you put in minus what you remove.
Change
in energy = Energy in – energy out
When it comes to body weight this means
that if you put more energy in than you take out you accumulates energy and
gain weight. I’ve heard Banting heavyweights such as Gary Taubes and Dr Stephen
Phinney discuss this issue and they seem threatened by the equation as if
non-Banters are saying ‘it doesn’t matter what you eat, when it comes
to obesity it’s simply a matter of energy in and energy out’. Banters, of
course, see this as a threat because they believe that you have to eat LCHF to
lose weight and it very much does
matter what you eat.
One of their arguments is that if body
weight were simply energy in and energy out anyone eating just one extra
spoonful of food per day would gain mountains of weight over a decade. In
reality, many people maintain a fairly constant weight over long periods of
time. They never go as far as to say the equation must be wrong but rather that
there is some issue with its direction. They claim that non-Banters are wrong
in saying that energy in minus energy out leads
to change in energy (weight). Instead it is change in weight that leads to energy in minus energy out. I
have never seen any evidence presented to back this up but and how could there
be when there is no arrow in the equation! The simple fact is that there isn’t
an arrow in the first law of thermodynamics any more than there is one in E=MC2.
Equals signs just don’t have a direction. It isn’t a case of one thing leading to another it is a case of each
side of the equation being equal.
While Banters tie themselves up in knots
with this argument they miss the obvious which is that the theoretical
non-Banter argument is false but in a different place. It’s the first half “it
doesn’t matter what you eat” that is wrong while the second part “it’s simply a
matter of energy in and energy out” is correct. Of course the second part is
correct; it’s simply stating the law that no one disagrees with. I’m not
entirely sure why Banters miss this point so regularly but I think it’s because
they embrace simplicity rather than complexity. The simple fact is that body
weight homeostasis is an incredibly complex issue not easily summed up in sound
bites and one liners.
Other that a few very minor factors we take
in all our energy through our mouths by eating and there are a multitude of factors
controlling how much energy passes our lips. These include, but are not
restricted to, availability of food (you can’t eat if there is no food
available), mental health and emotion (depressed people tend to eat less, those
with Seasonal Affective Disorder SAD eat more), income, appetite and satiety,
drugs (many psychoactive drugs cause increased appetite). Many of these factors
are inter-related and are never the same for 2 separate people.
While factors controlling energy in are
complex that is nothing compared to energy out. Factors include environmental
temperature, basal metabolic rate, the thickness of our clothing, thyroid
status, amount of exercise, the make-up of the gut microbiome, amount of sleep,
any illnesses we have (e.g. cancer) and many other environmental, genetic and
epigenetic factors that are not well understood.
It’s a pretty amazing fact that many people
have a very stable weight over many years when a tiny tip in the energy balance
each day would be enough to see large changes in weight over time. Clearly
there is some very fine tuning in the way the body regulates weight
particularly given the number of variables involved. I don’t pretend to fully
understand this process but what I think the Banters should learn is to embrace
the complexity of the situation, pay attention to the facts and stop worrying
about the first law of thermodynamics.
