Why exercise isn’t what we believe it to be.
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As a genetic non-responder to the laws of thermodynamics, i.e. weight loss as a result of both exercise and dietary restriction, I find the first premise in this video that our body “follows the laws of thermodynamics” is misleading. It sets many people up for a lifetime of failure and self blame.
Our systems are much more complex than simple machines that do follow the laws of thermodynamics.
Hormonal, neurological and genetic factors play a greater part in human “weight” than thermodynamics.
Some good points other than that 
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I think they try to keep it informative yet not too complex. I’m sure your points are valid.
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I would totally disagree with you. Like it or not, it’s simple math. Calories in vs calories out. Thermodynamics is the law. All the other “factors” simply alter the calories in or out.
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Technically, matter/radiation gets created all the time from Unruh radiation at the edges of every cosmic event horizon due to dark energy. Though very negligible, we can gain mass out of nowhere.
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I’m finding it not negligible, this mass out of nowhere 
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Well, I didn’t say it didn’t apply I said it was misleading.
The laws of thermodynamics are pretty straightforward. The issue with applying it, as the be all and end all, to human biological systems is misleading, an oversimplification of how human physiology uses energy.
If it was as simple as following that law, more people who struggle to attain a healthy weight through diet and exercise would be skinny. But they are not.
I’m one example, I have 12 of the top 13 “fat genes” turned on, this makes me a “non-responder” to both caloric restriction and physical activity. Being a non-responder doesn’t mean there are not benefits from living a healthy lifestyle. It just mean the fat storage system is more robust in retaining the fat. There are a number of studies on this aspect of the hows and whys of fat(s)
I don’t know if there are other examples of how biology messes with the results of the laws of thermodynamics, and again, I understand that there is a balance of energy in and energy out but the results are more complex in the human biological process than applies to the simplicity of a machine.
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Agreed. Biology is very complex. I find the worst part is how I stop wanting to lose weight when I’m trying to lose weight. I mean my mind goes to, “I’ll lose weight tomorrow…today I need to build my muscles!” It’s a bummer.
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I get that, used to get stoked when I’d hit a goal weight, then one slight deviation and I’d bounce up enough to mess with my mind. The constant emotional struggle sucked and eventually people give up on that one. Not like there aren’t a dozen more struggles in life to deal with and we only have so much emotional “energy”, which then requires picking our battles to conserve that energy and our sanity.
I feel that GLP1-R drugs are one of the most important health span and therefore life span increasing discoveries. I know they have changed my life in the most amazing way.
Plus the additional benefits that are being discovered on a regular basis.
One thing it has done is get me back into working out.
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No offense intended, but I just don’t buy into the “non responder” idea. And it is just as simple as calories in and calories out.
Now you can go on forever about how complicated the calories out can get and how the body will do everything it can to save calories. And I completely agree that reducing calories in is a monumental task in which you are fighting against a system that has developed over a million years.
GLP1 drugs are so good at helping people lose weight because they help you battle your body’s defenses (hormones) and let you decrease calories in.
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Agreed. I rapidly lose weight when I’m on a cut but often only manage to maintain my weight because I go on 5000 calorie binges multiple times a week.
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There are no excuses as someone could just continue decreasing calories in until they start losing weight, now GLP-1 agonists help with that.
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You touch on the most important issue. Many people simply cannot reduce calorie intake. Their hormones stimulating hunger are too strong. I think it’s a reasonable “excuse”. Again, this is why GLP1’s are so beneficial.
Exercise plays almost no part in weight loss.
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IMO: From personal experience low carb diets such as Atkins and Keto eliminate this problem if you stick to the diet for a reasonable time. Your hunger and many of your cravings go away until you reach a point where you have to force yourself to eat the required calories.
Of course, this is just N=1, but other members of my family and friends have experienced this.
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I find grapefruit to be a very effective hunger killer. A grapefruit just flips off the hunger switch for several hours. It’s a nice combo when fasting for rapa.
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In summary, the video says that you cannot exercise to lose weight because walking for an hour burns 250 kcal, but a plate of food can burn 1000 kcal. But exercise balances your body and reduces chronic inflammation for a healthy life and longevity, he says. Yes, these are good things that are already known.
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It’s baffling how folks can be so uninformed about the impact of calories-in calories-out on weight loss.
You have an incredibly complex machinery called human metabolism (including various hormones and uncountably many feedback loops driving your cellular machinery).
Even if you consume X calories, and intend to burn Y calories, your body has a mind of its own to burn Z calories. So, while your theoretical weight loss or gain might be X - Y, you end up with X - Z.
What’s X - Z? It can be practically anything. It’s been documented in numerous papers that many chonically obese people cut X to very low values, but their Z is cut even more (through biological mechanisms beyond our control), and therefore X - Z ends up being close to zero (=> no weight loss) or positive (=> weight gain). Not only that, these people feel miserable along the way while trying so hard to lose weight. As humans have finite capacity to endure misery, eventually they give up on their diet, which wasn’t working to begin with, and further weight gain ensues. This phenomena has been documented in papers, and it’s most obvious in diet statistics — 90% of chronically-obese dieters fail their diets long term. It’s been also shown very convincingly in “biggest loser” studies — how these people invariably gain all the weight back despite trying incredibly hard using a regimen including heavy exercise and supervised diets.
TL; DR 2nd law of termodynamics is always true. But it’s incorrect to assume that calories-out is largely within our control.
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Source for this claim?
The source is basic human biology. No one has a precise mechanism to control their calories burned. You can push it up by a couple of hundred calories (through daily exercise), but you roughly burn about ~2000-2500 calories through basal metabolism over which you have very little control.
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