Calories

It always amazed me that you can lose a pound or two ... overnight. If you were sleeping on a bathroom scale, you'd presumably see the indicator slowly drop by a pound or two. Where does it go? So I tried doing some weight-loss arithmetic, like so: ⊗ The body "uses" about 100 Calories per hour. ⊗ At 3500 Calories per pound of body fat, that's a pound every 35 hours. ⊗ Just living and breathing (without any caloric food intake), you'd lose (very roughly) a pound every 35 hours. ⊗ Then, while sleeping for 8 hours ... would you (could you) lose a pound or two??? Aah, but the body uses less than 100 Calories per hour while sleeping. It's more like 65 Calories/hour. So how does one lose a pound or two overnight? Okay, that 100 Cal/hr is approximate. It'll depend upon your BMR or Basal Metabolic Rate which will depend upon your biological configuration. To lose a pound in 8 hours ... wouldn't that require about 3500/8 = 437 Cal.hr? Impossible. While playing with the numbers, I discover that the calorie that I'm familiar with is NOT the Calorie noted on food products. Indeed, the calorie is defined as the heat energy required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 degree centigrade. The Calorie will raise 1 kilogram by 1 degree. See? The Calorie is really a kilocalorie ... and the word is capitalized. Get it? 1 Calorie = 1 kilocalorie.