What Everyone, Including Donald Trump, Needs to Know About How Your Body Gets “energy”
Food contains energy. Exercise drains energy. We feel great when we are full of energy. But are we talking about the same thing in all three sentences? We are not like that, and our president is one of many people who cannot correctly understand the different meanings. Let’s clear up the confusion.
Trump, according to the New Yorker, “considers exercise to be wrong, arguing that a person, like a battery, is born with a limited amount of energy.” Exercise does consume energy, but you may feel more energized afterwards than before you started. This is because we are talking about two different definitions of the word energy.
First, a small stop in the world of physics. Here energy is the ability to do work. If you apply a force of onenewton to move an object one meter, you will do one joule of work. Each kilowatt hour on your electricity bill is 3,600,000 joules. Each “calorie” (actually a kilocalorie) in your Snickers bar or salad is 4,184 joules .
In this sense, calories are a measure of energy. After all, food is fuel. Just like you can talk about calories or joules in a chocolate bar, you can talk about joules in a propane can, in a wood fire, or in a battery . This is all stored energy.
When you “burn calories,” you are converting the energy from food (or stored fat in your body, for example) into another form of stored energy, which you may remember in your biology class as ATP . And then that ATP can trigger important things in your body, like contracting muscles or helping brain cells communicate with each other . This is what we do with the energy (calories) in our food.
The sense of energy has nothing to do with the physical sense of energy.
Usually, when we say that we have “energy”, we are not talking about physics. We talk about how we feel . If I slept well, I could wake up full of energy. If I have just finished a three-mile run and fully feel like I can run three more, then I will be happy that I have a lot of energy. If I had a long day at work and running on business and it’s evening and I just want to faint, I could look at my four-year-old approaching and say, “Wow, I wish I had his energy. “
None of these sensations have anything to do with joules and calories. In this case, when we say energy, we mean the absence of fatigue. How to get this kind of energy? Don’t do things that make you tired . A good night’s sleep relieves fatigue. By maintaining a positive attitude or listening to fun music, we may be less tired. Light to moderate exercise relieves fatigue and helps us feel more energized .
We combine these two ideas because you may not have enough of both types of energy at the same time. At the end of the marathon, you will run out of glycogen (the energy stored in your muscles) and you will also feel very tired. But in most cases, these two ideas have nothing in common.
High energy foods are just high calorie foods
It’s all too easy to confuse food energy (calories) with the energy we feel on a good day (no fatigue). This is where you fall into the trap, and it sounds great if your food is “energized.” Or maybe someone will advise you to eat foods that “energize” your body. What is this energy, again?
Remember that the only energy a food can get is measured in calories. A large chocolate milkshake has tons of energy: 840 (kilogram) calories or 3,515,000 joules. Can you swallow this milkshake along with the 690 calorie BBQ Bacon Burger to keep you feeling refreshed and on top of the world? Uh, no. He is full of energy, but not that kind.
Exercise uses calories but gives you a sense of energy
Okay, what about exercise? For muscles to work, you need to burn calories, so exercise is energy-consuming in that sense. If you exercised a lot and didn’t eat anything, you would be spoiled. Our president reportedly thinks this is the whole story and avoids exercise in order to have more energy.
But exercise actually gives you more energy in the sense of a superior feeling. You burn calories, but you feel great. If you are unsure about this, try exercising in the evening, after dinner, and some time to digest it. You come home before bed, but you will be awake because, hey, you are full of energy!
Don’t be discouraged if, just a few minutes ago, you confused the physical sense of energy with the feeling of a great sense of energy. This is a very common misconception and now you know which is best. Enjoy your newfound energy and maybe someone will print this out and put it on the president’s table ?