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"You can't burn calories. Calories is a measure of heat. You can't burn heat." - Bart Kay CICO, Calories in/Calories out also doesn't work like that in the hum

• Aachen 5y ago
  In that case, explain to me how my house gets warm from burning caloric gas ... calories are obviously the measure of how much heat you get from burning something, not the heat itself that you're "burning"
  • 0xcde4c3db 5y ago
    > calories are obviously the measure of how much heat you get from burning something, not the heat itself that you're "burning" I think that's exactly the point: calories can only measure how much we're burning, but what we're burning matters just as much, if not more. If your gas service was cut off, you would (I hope) not pump crude oil into your furnace instead. It might be accurate (as far as it goes) to say that a furnace is a machine for turning hydrocarbon fluids into heat, but you probably respect your furnace and its requirements too much to do something like that. Most people, including too many exercise and nutrition "experts", are all too happy to make oversimplifications nearly as silly when thinking about our own bodies.