Monday, 15 January 2007

Drink yourself thin, the Scienceology way


I think that the Enviga post was maybe a bit negative for the inaugural post on this blog. I'm therefore going to make it up to everyone by showing how you can make your very own "Negative calorie" drink at home. For free! Don't say I never do anything for you.
1) Fill up a 1L bottle with water. Ordinary tap water will do unless you live in the sort of places I like to go on holiday. Use your judgement.
2) Put bottle in fridge until it's nice and cold.
3) Drink.

Hey presto, your very own negative calorie drink. The energy used by your body to heat the icy water up to body temperature is greater than then energy you receive by ingesting it (0 calories, if any one's counting). It's even possible to work out exactly how many calories you burn using this method:
The specific heat capacity of water is 4.2 Joules/g/degree centigrade. This means that it takes 4.2 Joules of energy to heat 1g of water by 1 degree centigrade. As we have 1000g of water, it takes 4200J per degree centigrade to heat it. The temperature difference between you and your fridge is about 35 degrees, so in bringing this water up to body temperature uses 4200 x 35 = 147000J, which is about 35 calories.
So, you can spend $5 on Enviga to possibly lose 120 calories or you can drink cold water for free and definitely lose 35. You can all thank me later.

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