weight loss: Einstein
"Energy and matter can neither be created nor destroyed"
Albert Einstein
Theory of General Relativity
Expert Opinion on Fat
Loss
Dangers of
Excess Body Fat
Diet: There's
no such thing as cheating
Diets don't work
Eating out
Reducing fat No, we don't have to understand the theory of
general relativity ( Einstein) to understand how to lose weight (fortunately)!!
But it is very reassuring to us that this theory works! Why is that
reassuring?
I frequently hear the following statements about
weight loss::
- "I am trying to lose weight, but it's not
possible"
- "I don't eat at all, and I still don't lose
weight"
- "its genetic, everyone in my family is heavy
and over weight"
- "I am going to start a diet tomorrow"
- "I am going to lose ten pounds in two weeks with
this diet"
- "my friend eats everything and is still thin,
and never gains weight"
- "I am sick and tired of hearing about weight loss"
The reason that Einstein can help us is simple.
Reread the statement "energy and matter can neither be created nor
destroyed." What does that mean? It means that the sum total of
matter and energy and in the universe is a constant. Matter can be
converted into energy, and energy into matter. The famous formula E=mc2
means that the energy which can be generated from a certain
mass is equal to the quantity of mass, multiplied by the velocity of light
squared.
What does all this mean for us? I know that if I
want to lose five pounds of fat, I must essentially convert this mass of fat
into energy. I can see the fat on my body, but not the energy.
The energy is expended during exercise. The fat which was on my body
was used as fuel to make energy, and this energy was used to move my muscles
and bones, to exercise. The energy will look better on me that the fat
will; you can't see the energy, but you can see the reduced fat, and the
muscles that develop.
What? You don't believe me? Take a pile of wood
in the fireplace. This is a mass, a cold pile of logs. But if I
set the wood on fire, heat and light are generated. What happens to
the wood. Its mass was converted into energy. The exact
conversion factors ( how much wood created how much heat and light) are
easily calculated. The energy to provide heat and light was always in
the piece of wood, just in another form, mass. It was not converted.
The same is true of the fat in one's body.
Again, if one wants to lose 5 pounds of fat, what does one do? How much
energy does one need to create (from the fat). Let's go to some
commonly accepted numbers and conversion factors to find out. 5 pounds
is equal to 2.3 kilograms (2.2 pounds are in a kilogram (1000 grams)).
One gram of fat produces nine calories of energy. Therefore, 2.3
kilograms (2300 grams which is equal to five pounds) produces 20,700
calories of energy. This would mean that if one burned 20,700
calories, than five pounds of fat would have been used up to create this
energy. Now, let's say that one ran 6 miles per hour for 30 minutes,
and burned roughly 500 calories. It would take forty one of these sessions
to burn the 20,700 calories required to lose the five pounds of weight in
fat. If one runs four times per week, that's 10 weeks, to burn off
five pounds of fat. That's right, just ten weeks of running 30
minutes at six miles per hour will burn the energy of five pounds of fat!!
That sounds easy enough, doesn't it? It should
be easy to lose weight, shouldn't it? But then why does the mechanism
to lose weight elude us? Why is it that so many people are on diets,
but few are losing weight? Why is is that there are so many diets
available? If there were a magic bullet, and if one diet worked, then the
others would fade away as everyone flocked to the successful one. Of
course there is not one answer, but many. Let's focus on some of the
main causes, and then branch out into more specifics.
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