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Comment by gambiting | Hacker News Reader

>>Her weight gain continued despite a medically supervised liquid protein diet and exercise regimen.

How is this possible? If they were supplying her with a certain amount of calories per day, she absolutely HAD to lose weight. Unless she was snacking, in which case the whole mystery is solved.

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The number of calories that go into your mouth can be very different from the number of calories absorbed by your body. To give a simple example you'll absorb way more calories by eating a piece of bread with olive oil than if you eat the two pieces of food a couple of hours apart. And someone with intestinal parasites will receive notably less nutrition from their food than someone without. It would would actually be very surprising if intestinal flora didn't effect the ratio of calories consumed to calories absorbed.

Can you cite your source on this please?

> If they were supplying her with a certain amount of calories per day, she absolute HAD to lose weight.

It's weird how people talk about calories in/calories out as if they have a way to measure the second half of the equation.

Actually there are ways. A pretty efficient one is being hooked up to a machine measuring the amount of carbon dioxide you are generating, this is not practical outside of a lab tho.

But more practically, monitoring heart rate is a decent proxy, after calibrating...

Not burning as many calories through exercise over time as previously thought?

Altered metabolism that allowed her to pull more nutrients from her food or store them easier?

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