WEBVTT 00:00:09.459 --> 00:00:11.097 About seven years ago, 00:00:11.097 --> 00:00:13.140 I saw this photo of myself NOTE Paragraph 00:00:13.140 --> 00:00:14.569 and decided that I had to do 00:00:14.569 --> 00:00:17.423 something about this thing. 00:00:18.643 --> 00:00:22.344 So I ate less food, moved around a bit more, NOTE Paragraph 00:00:22.472 --> 00:00:24.952 and lo and behold, this happened. 00:00:24.952 --> 00:00:27.390 I lost 16 kilograms. 00:00:27.390 --> 00:00:28.818 And you're probably wondering, 00:00:28.818 --> 00:00:29.837 How did he do it? 00:00:29.837 --> 00:00:30.848 But I was wondering, 00:00:30.848 --> 00:00:33.060 Where did the 16 kilograms go? 00:00:33.060 --> 00:00:36.428 And I've been infatuated with this question ever since. 00:00:36.428 --> 00:00:39.940 I ended up publishing a paper about it in the British Medical Journal, 00:00:39.940 --> 00:00:43.099 very brief paper - 850 words, two figures. 00:00:44.650 --> 00:00:47.884 And then, I published a book about it, which was no bestseller 00:00:47.884 --> 00:00:48.997 because it told you NOTE Paragraph 00:00:48.997 --> 00:00:51.536 that you had to eat less and move more to lose weight. 00:00:51.536 --> 00:00:53.297 No one wants to hear that. 00:00:53.297 --> 00:00:57.968 But it's now a first-year subject at the University of New South Wales, 00:00:57.968 --> 00:00:59.766 and so I better explain 00:00:59.766 --> 00:01:05.047 that I did not figure out where fat goes when you lose weight. 00:01:05.047 --> 00:01:07.211 That was done a long time ago. 00:01:07.433 --> 00:01:09.670 In fact, here's some time posts for you. 00:01:09.670 --> 00:01:12.457 When Captain Cook sailed past Bundaberg in 1770, 00:01:13.141 --> 00:01:16.740 we didn't know what happens to fat when you lose weight. 00:01:16.740 --> 00:01:20.950 But when the First Fleet sailed into Sydney Cove, 00:01:20.950 --> 00:01:22.088 we did know the answer, 00:01:22.088 --> 00:01:24.537 and it was all figured out by this bloke in between. 00:01:24.537 --> 00:01:25.937 His name's Antoine Lavoisier. 00:01:25.937 --> 00:01:29.475 He figured out that respiration is a combustion. 00:01:29.757 --> 00:01:32.731 You turn food into carbon dioxide and water. 00:01:33.035 --> 00:01:35.935 And in the process, nothing is lost. 00:01:36.330 --> 00:01:37.364 Nothing is created. 00:01:37.364 --> 00:01:39.018 Everything is just transformed. 00:01:39.271 --> 00:01:40.959 And so, what did I do? 00:01:40.959 --> 00:01:45.203 Well, when I lost weight and I first thought about this, I was so infatuated. 00:01:45.203 --> 00:01:46.199 I wanted to know 00:01:46.199 --> 00:01:50.255 if I lose 10 kilos, where does the 10 kilos go precisely? 00:01:50.685 --> 00:01:52.833 And it took me months to figure this out. 00:01:52.833 --> 00:01:55.070 But it turns out that when you lose weight, 00:01:55.070 --> 00:02:00.330 8.4 kilos out of every 10 comes out of your lungs, 00:02:00.330 --> 00:02:05.174 which I think is the best fact I've ever heard, so I gave - 00:02:05.174 --> 00:02:09.077 you've got to add oxygen to do this, so you can't do it (snap) like that. 00:02:09.077 --> 00:02:10.480 It takes a while. 00:02:10.480 --> 00:02:13.927 So I gave a talk about this at TEDxQUT a long time ago now, 00:02:13.927 --> 00:02:17.087 and then I did a story for ABC TV Catalyst, 00:02:17.087 --> 00:02:19.626 and I met this fellow, Professor Andrew Brown, 00:02:19.626 --> 00:02:21.012 who teaches biochemistry. 00:02:21.012 --> 00:02:23.902 And I showed him my calculations, 00:02:23.902 --> 00:02:25.803 and he said, "That's pretty interesting. 00:02:25.803 --> 00:02:27.476 Let's try and get that published." 00:02:27.476 --> 00:02:30.349 And so he helped me get it into the British Medical Journal. 00:02:30.349 --> 00:02:32.369 And the other thing we did 00:02:32.369 --> 00:02:36.247 was we surveyed 150 doctors, dieticians and personal trainers 00:02:36.247 --> 00:02:38.604 and asked them what they thought. 00:02:38.974 --> 00:02:40.474 And here's the thing: 00:02:40.474 --> 00:02:42.364 what they think happens is impossible. 00:02:42.364 --> 00:02:47.323 You can't turn fat into energy, because it's made of atoms. 00:02:47.323 --> 00:02:50.413 And you would need antimatter atoms to annihilate them. 00:02:50.683 --> 00:02:53.873 So that's literally impossible. 00:02:53.998 --> 00:02:56.308 And since then, I've realised, well, hang on, 00:02:56.308 --> 00:02:59.422 this is part of a much bigger gap in health literacy. 00:02:59.422 --> 00:03:02.188 I've asked literally thousands of kids this question: 00:03:02.188 --> 00:03:04.931 When you breathe in, what are you inhaling? Oxygen. 00:03:04.931 --> 00:03:06.214 And what are you exhaling? 00:03:06.214 --> 00:03:07.677 Carbon dioxide. 00:03:08.366 --> 00:03:11.949 What they don't realise is that they're breathing in atoms, 00:03:11.949 --> 00:03:15.005 and two go in, but three come out. 00:03:15.005 --> 00:03:19.431 And it's this atom here that is the gap in health literacy. 00:03:19.737 --> 00:03:21.563 It's also the secret to weight loss 00:03:21.563 --> 00:03:27.693 because it means that your exhaled breath is heavier than your inhaled breath. 00:03:28.707 --> 00:03:31.834 And when you ask around, so few people know this. 00:03:31.834 --> 00:03:33.986 Well, have a listen to these people: 00:03:33.986 --> 00:03:37.333 (Audio) Ruben Meerman: What's the gas that you inhale in out of the air 00:03:37.333 --> 00:03:38.670 that keeps you alive called? 00:03:38.670 --> 00:03:39.855 Oxygen. 00:03:39.855 --> 00:03:40.940 Oxygen. 00:03:40.940 --> 00:03:43.908 RM: And what's the gas you breathe out because you're alive? 00:03:44.428 --> 00:03:45.625 Carbon dioxide? 00:03:45.825 --> 00:03:47.081 Carbon dioxide? 00:03:47.769 --> 00:03:49.121 RM: Now third question. 00:03:49.243 --> 00:03:52.821 Where did the carbon atoms in the carbon dioxide come from? 00:03:52.859 --> 00:03:54.175 Oh ... 00:03:55.261 --> 00:03:56.619 I don't know. 00:03:56.621 --> 00:03:58.120 (Chuckle) No idea. 00:03:58.120 --> 00:03:59.571 I've got no idea. 00:04:00.559 --> 00:04:02.179 I wouldn't have a clue, mate. 00:04:02.179 --> 00:04:03.913 Ooh, ahhhh. 00:04:03.913 --> 00:04:07.083 Ummmm, wow! Good question. 00:04:07.329 --> 00:04:09.849 I should have concentrated more in chemistry. 00:04:09.849 --> 00:04:11.979 So where do carbon atoms come from? Or ... 00:04:11.979 --> 00:04:14.957 Umm, pollution? 00:04:15.030 --> 00:04:16.444 Fumes? Gas? 00:04:17.934 --> 00:04:19.636 Cars and stuff? I don't know. 00:04:19.636 --> 00:04:21.379 Yeah. Vehicles. 00:04:21.559 --> 00:04:22.693 Don't know. 00:04:22.693 --> 00:04:24.546 Cow poop? (Laughter) 00:04:24.854 --> 00:04:26.529 Should know, but don't know. 00:04:26.529 --> 00:04:28.393 So to be somewhere in the body, right? 00:04:28.393 --> 00:04:29.904 Out of my lungs. 00:04:29.927 --> 00:04:31.165 My lungs? 00:04:31.165 --> 00:04:32.491 From the environment? 00:04:32.491 --> 00:04:33.937 From your blood stream? 00:04:33.937 --> 00:04:35.741 From living things? 00:04:35.782 --> 00:04:37.242 Maybe from the blood? 00:04:37.242 --> 00:04:38.479 From plants? 00:04:38.479 --> 00:04:40.674 My chemistry days are over. I've got nothing. 00:04:40.904 --> 00:04:44.571 From the food we eat? 00:04:45.730 --> 00:04:47.670 RM: You know that! You got there! 00:04:47.670 --> 00:04:48.837 Really? 00:04:48.837 --> 00:04:49.964 So you eat it. 00:04:49.964 --> 00:04:51.221 RM: Yeah 00:04:51.221 --> 00:04:53.644 We eat it? From what? 00:04:53.917 --> 00:04:55.719 RM: Have you heard of carbohydrates? 00:04:55.719 --> 00:04:57.029 Yes. 00:04:57.029 --> 00:04:58.367 Oh, yes. Oh, OK. 00:04:58.367 --> 00:05:00.704 RM: What do you think the carbo bit means? 00:05:00.704 --> 00:05:02.104 Carbon dioxide. 00:05:02.346 --> 00:05:05.726 Probably carbon dioxide? Does it connect to somewhere? 00:05:05.726 --> 00:05:11.065 Like carbon and hydrogen and oxygen together? 00:05:11.995 --> 00:05:13.103 RM: Yes! 00:05:13.103 --> 00:05:16.194 Carbon - carbohydrate, yeah. 00:05:16.365 --> 00:05:17.742 It's not the same word. 00:05:17.853 --> 00:05:20.664 Never thought. It's C-H-A. Carbon-hydrogen. 00:05:21.274 --> 00:05:22.496 OK, interesting. 00:05:22.511 --> 00:05:24.108 RM: What do you do for a crust? 00:05:24.108 --> 00:05:26.625 I'm a PDH PE teacher. 00:05:28.923 --> 00:05:31.372 (Onstage) This is not a gap in health literacy. 00:05:31.372 --> 00:05:34.347 This is a gaping black hole in health literacy. 00:05:34.347 --> 00:05:37.761 And the amazing thing is we supposedly learned all this stuff at school. 00:05:37.761 --> 00:05:41.195 We learned all the dots, but no one ever teaches you how to connect them. 00:05:41.195 --> 00:05:43.541 So the word carbohydrates is the big clue, 00:05:43.541 --> 00:05:45.897 and that's because it stands for carbon atoms 00:05:45.897 --> 00:05:48.281 that have been hydrated by - 00:05:48.281 --> 00:05:50.716 well, if you're dehydrated, you need to drink water. 00:05:50.716 --> 00:05:55.838 And water has a chemical formula, which stands for a bunch of atoms. 00:05:56.188 --> 00:05:58.914 So where do these carbohydrates that you eat come from? 00:05:58.914 --> 00:06:00.437 I mean what is this stuff? 00:06:00.456 --> 00:06:02.091 And it all starts in plants. 00:06:02.501 --> 00:06:07.699 So Step 1 in making carbohydrates is plants suck water out of the soil. 00:06:07.699 --> 00:06:10.195 They take the water molecules, 00:06:10.195 --> 00:06:12.262 stick it into a molecule called chlorophyll, 00:06:12.262 --> 00:06:13.496 you've all heard of. 00:06:13.496 --> 00:06:17.545 It takes a photon of sunlight to zap that bond and zap that bond, 00:06:17.545 --> 00:06:20.324 and now we have the atoms free. 00:06:20.454 --> 00:06:21.454 You do that twice, 00:06:21.454 --> 00:06:24.225 and you've got enough atoms now to make an oxygen molecule, 00:06:24.225 --> 00:06:27.007 which is the waste product of photosynthesis. 00:06:27.400 --> 00:06:29.292 And by the way, you breathe that stuff. 00:06:29.313 --> 00:06:33.976 So every oxygen molecule you inhale came from two water molecules. 00:06:33.976 --> 00:06:37.573 Step 2 is to take carbon dioxide out of the air into the leaf, 00:06:37.573 --> 00:06:42.556 and into a chemical process, which is called the Calvin Cycle. 00:06:42.556 --> 00:06:45.495 And if you get six carbon atoms and stick them together, 00:06:45.495 --> 00:06:47.173 you can make glucose, 00:06:47.173 --> 00:06:50.951 which is the most important carbohydrate in the cosmos. 00:06:50.951 --> 00:06:54.605 If you rearrange those atoms, then you can make fructose, 00:06:54.648 --> 00:06:57.293 which is what sugarcane does, 00:06:57.293 --> 00:06:58.990 which I have a stalk of over there, 00:06:58.990 --> 00:07:00.556 and if you stick it in sunlight, 00:07:00.556 --> 00:07:03.806 it will turn carbon dioxide and water into sugar. 00:07:03.983 --> 00:07:05.776 If you stick glucose to fructose, 00:07:05.776 --> 00:07:07.578 you get table sugar, 00:07:07.937 --> 00:07:12.005 and if you stick galactose to glucose, 00:07:12.046 --> 00:07:15.181 you get another famous disaccharide. 00:07:15.181 --> 00:07:16.657 It's called lactose. 00:07:16.957 --> 00:07:18.889 If you're lactose intolerant, 00:07:18.889 --> 00:07:23.272 you can't break the bonds between this oxygen atom and its neighbours. 00:07:23.742 --> 00:07:27.403 So all of this stuff is understandable if you know about atoms, 00:07:27.403 --> 00:07:28.922 and it all starts in plants. 00:07:28.922 --> 00:07:30.761 But you don't just eat carbohydrates. 00:07:30.761 --> 00:07:32.644 So here's everything that you eat, 00:07:32.644 --> 00:07:34.489 all the macronutrients. 00:07:34.489 --> 00:07:35.855 We've looked at carbs. 00:07:35.855 --> 00:07:36.979 Here's fats. 00:07:36.979 --> 00:07:39.367 The three most common fatty acids in nature? 00:07:39.367 --> 00:07:41.421 palmitic acid gets its name from palm oil, 00:07:41.421 --> 00:07:43.335 oleic from olive oil. 00:07:43.995 --> 00:07:45.859 There's only three atoms there though. 00:07:45.861 --> 00:07:47.944 Three kinds. Three elements. 00:07:47.944 --> 00:07:52.765 And if you stick those three fatty acids to a glycerin molecule, 00:07:52.882 --> 00:07:54.677 you'll make a triglyceride. 00:07:54.677 --> 00:07:56.022 This is what olive oil is; 00:07:56.022 --> 00:07:57.967 this is what every fat in nature is. 00:07:57.967 --> 00:08:00.634 It's the fat in your fat cells that you want to lose 00:08:00.634 --> 00:08:02.637 if you're trying to lose weight. 00:08:02.703 --> 00:08:04.742 And when you burn it, 00:08:04.971 --> 00:08:08.219 what you're really doing is turning it into carbon dioxide and water. 00:08:08.219 --> 00:08:09.327 You call it metabolism. 00:08:09.327 --> 00:08:10.806 People say they're burning fat. 00:08:10.806 --> 00:08:13.612 It means you're turning it into carbon dioxide and water. 00:08:13.612 --> 00:08:15.315 And there's two ways to do it. 00:08:15.315 --> 00:08:18.935 The main highway is called the beta oxidation pathway, 00:08:18.935 --> 00:08:21.818 but there's another way called the ketogenic pathway, 00:08:21.818 --> 00:08:24.272 and the low-carb people will be all over this. 00:08:24.272 --> 00:08:28.480 It's taking fatty acids and turning them into smaller molecules - 00:08:28.480 --> 00:08:31.405 acetyl acetate - which can then be turned into acetone, 00:08:31.405 --> 00:08:33.150 and beta hydroxybutarate. 00:08:33.350 --> 00:08:35.734 But the point is you still add oxygen 00:08:35.734 --> 00:08:38.098 and it still turns into carbon dioxide and water, 00:08:38.098 --> 00:08:40.824 so it doesn't matter what kind of diet you're on. 00:08:40.824 --> 00:08:45.152 If you're burning fat, you're turning it into CO2 and H2O. 00:08:45.472 --> 00:08:48.965 And alcohol's made of the same three atoms. 00:08:48.965 --> 00:08:50.396 Protein's an interesting one. 00:08:50.396 --> 00:08:53.012 It's made out of 20 kinds of amino acids, 00:08:53.012 --> 00:08:55.132 but there's only two more kinds of atoms. 00:08:55.132 --> 00:08:59.100 So for all their complexity, there's only five elements. 00:08:59.100 --> 00:09:01.931 And if you eat them - well, let's take a look. 00:09:01.931 --> 00:09:06.324 Because to make a human, you need those 20 amino acids. 00:09:06.324 --> 00:09:10.362 All the protein in nature is made out of these 20 amino acids. 00:09:11.636 --> 00:09:13.209 A baby, a human, 00:09:13.209 --> 00:09:19.818 is 60% water, 16% protein, 19% fat and 5% a bit of other stuff. 00:09:20.348 --> 00:09:22.456 And when you burn protein, 00:09:22.456 --> 00:09:24.496 if you eat a lot of it, you can't store it. 00:09:24.496 --> 00:09:27.929 So you'll burn it, and you'll turn it into carbon dioxide and water, 00:09:27.938 --> 00:09:29.945 a bit of urea and some sulfate. 00:09:29.945 --> 00:09:33.078 Those two things will end up in the toilet via your bladder, 00:09:33.078 --> 00:09:36.098 and now you know where everything that you eat goes. 00:09:36.552 --> 00:09:38.276 You might be wondering, though, 00:09:38.276 --> 00:09:40.088 "I'm eating carbon, hydrogen, oxygen. 00:09:40.088 --> 00:09:42.643 What's all this talk about diets?" 00:09:42.643 --> 00:09:47.206 Amazingly, this junk diet is also made of nothing but carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, 00:09:47.206 --> 00:09:49.633 but you're not getting many vitamins and minerals. 00:09:49.633 --> 00:09:51.414 So let's take a look at those. 00:09:51.414 --> 00:09:56.035 Here's all 14 vitamins that you need to eat. 00:09:56.747 --> 00:10:00.502 If you don't eat them, you'll get scurvy, beriberi rickets - you'll go blind. 00:10:00.502 --> 00:10:02.182 But the amazing thing is 00:10:02.182 --> 00:10:04.847 per day, you only need about half a gram of this stuff. 00:10:05.347 --> 00:10:09.887 The 14 elements that you have to take, we call them minerals. 00:10:10.275 --> 00:10:11.304 Here they are. 00:10:11.304 --> 00:10:13.826 These are the recommended daily intakes, 00:10:13.826 --> 00:10:17.089 and if you stick all that together, it's seven grams worth of stuff. 00:10:17.089 --> 00:10:18.086 It's not very much. 00:10:18.086 --> 00:10:20.533 That's why we call them micronutrients. 00:10:20.951 --> 00:10:22.417 So when I tell people this, 00:10:22.417 --> 00:10:25.863 the first question I get asked is "So what? I just have to breathe more?" 00:10:25.863 --> 00:10:28.046 And they'll start hyperventilating. 00:10:28.046 --> 00:10:29.971 (Laughter) 00:10:30.243 --> 00:10:32.384 So let's talk about breathing. 00:10:32.384 --> 00:10:34.613 Talk to anyone who works in an ICU unit, 00:10:34.613 --> 00:10:38.412 and they'll tell you that a human who's lying perfectly still 00:10:38.412 --> 00:10:41.230 needs 3.5 millilitres of oxygen, 00:10:41.230 --> 00:10:45.071 and 2.6 to 2.9 millilitres of CO2 will come out of them 00:10:45.071 --> 00:10:47.041 per kilogram of that person. 00:10:47.041 --> 00:10:48.762 Now, I weigh 72 kilos, 00:10:48.762 --> 00:10:52.007 so that means I need about 252 millilitres of oxygen 00:10:52.007 --> 00:10:53.561 just to stay alive. 00:10:53.561 --> 00:11:00.105 That's 15 litres per hour, and over here, I have an hour's worth of breathing. 00:11:01.015 --> 00:11:02.988 This is how much air I have to breathe 00:11:02.988 --> 00:11:07.436 just to get that one balloon of oxygen into my bloodstream. 00:11:07.436 --> 00:11:09.110 A balloon is about 15 litres. 00:11:09.746 --> 00:11:15.334 So that's how much oxygen I need per hour just to stay awake and alive - 00:11:15.624 --> 00:11:17.506 not awake, sorry - I mean alive. 00:11:17.506 --> 00:11:19.469 It's my resting metabolic rate. 00:11:19.469 --> 00:11:24.047 And in that hour, when I breathe all this air back out again, 00:11:24.047 --> 00:11:26.345 it'll have a balloon worth of CO2 in it, 00:11:26.345 --> 00:11:29.418 and these numbers just get better and better and better. 00:11:29.418 --> 00:11:34.414 If you add up all the carbon atoms in that much CO2, 00:11:34.414 --> 00:11:38.399 it's 136 to 151 grams a day of just carbon. 00:11:38.399 --> 00:11:39.925 It's about a kilo a week. 00:11:39.925 --> 00:11:43.046 It's about 49 to 55 kilos a year. 00:11:43.046 --> 00:11:46.683 If you want to lose weight, don't eat that much carbon back in. 00:11:46.683 --> 00:11:50.700 That's the whole key to breathing yourself thin. 00:11:52.310 --> 00:11:57.202 Doctors will - if you are not breathing, they will monitor your breathing. 00:11:57.202 --> 00:11:58.891 If you're having an operation, 00:11:58.891 --> 00:12:00.960 the anaesthetist will look for your breaths. 00:12:00.960 --> 00:12:03.467 This is how much CO2 there should be in your breath. 00:12:03.733 --> 00:12:08.061 If you hyperventilate, your body is not producing more CO2. 00:12:08.061 --> 00:12:10.374 You're just breathing out more than you need to, 00:12:10.374 --> 00:12:11.538 and so this will happen. 00:12:11.538 --> 00:12:13.712 You're pumping out more than you're making; 00:12:13.723 --> 00:12:16.169 the amount in your body will go down. 00:12:16.169 --> 00:12:17.900 It's called hypocapnia. 00:12:17.900 --> 00:12:21.609 It will lead to a loss of consciousness if you do it for too long. 00:12:21.609 --> 00:12:22.719 And some people ask me: 00:12:22.719 --> 00:12:25.626 "What about people who have COPD or emphysema? 00:12:25.626 --> 00:12:29.564 Could they get overweight because they can't get rid of enough CO2?" 00:12:29.564 --> 00:12:32.155 Well, they can't do the Calvin Cycle - 00:12:32.155 --> 00:12:33.292 a plant can - 00:12:33.292 --> 00:12:35.887 so you can't turn the CO2 that you're not breathing out 00:12:35.887 --> 00:12:36.902 back into fat. 00:12:36.902 --> 00:12:38.478 It's impossible. 00:12:38.668 --> 00:12:43.540 So, you know, there's a lot of misconceptions about this business. 00:12:44.052 --> 00:12:48.610 Now, it takes a while to breathe out the carbon that you eat. 00:12:48.610 --> 00:12:52.234 So let's have a look at how much carbon you can put in really quickly. 00:12:52.234 --> 00:12:53.708 I quite like this stuff, 00:12:53.708 --> 00:12:57.780 and there is a lot of sugar in lemon-flavoured soft drink. 00:12:57.780 --> 00:12:59.008 It's one of the highest. 00:12:59.008 --> 00:13:01.236 So, how much sugar are we talking about? 00:13:02.786 --> 00:13:04.617 Well, one stick is 3 grams, 00:13:04.617 --> 00:13:07.039 so there's 23 and a third of a stick in there, 00:13:07.039 --> 00:13:08.375 which looks like this. 00:13:09.005 --> 00:13:12.353 And if you want to turn that much sugar into carbon dioxide and water, 00:13:12.353 --> 00:13:13.939 well, it's going to take a while. 00:13:13.939 --> 00:13:16.426 You're going to need to breathe in that much oxygen. 00:13:16.426 --> 00:13:17.789 You'll make that much CO2. 00:13:17.789 --> 00:13:19.987 How much is that? It's four balloons worth. 00:13:19.987 --> 00:13:22.284 And it's four balloons' worth of CO2. 00:13:22.284 --> 00:13:26.089 So, how long is it going to take me to breathe out that much carbon? 00:13:26.089 --> 00:13:28.386 It's going to take me four hours 00:13:28.386 --> 00:13:32.429 because I only breathe out one balloon of carbon dioxide per hour 00:13:32.429 --> 00:13:33.752 if I stay still, 00:13:33.752 --> 00:13:37.342 but if I go for a walk, I'll breathe it out in an hour. 00:13:37.342 --> 00:13:40.216 If I run, it'll only take me 30 minutes. 00:13:40.216 --> 00:13:42.384 That's why they say eat less, move more. 00:13:42.384 --> 00:13:45.075 Because when you're moving more, you're breathing more. 00:13:45.075 --> 00:13:46.907 And there's always CO2 in your breath. 00:13:46.907 --> 00:13:49.580 What about if we compare it to something a bit healthier? 00:13:49.580 --> 00:13:51.706 Because this has got vitamins and amino acids 00:13:51.706 --> 00:13:53.711 and all the good stuff in it. 00:13:53.711 --> 00:13:55.313 But if we take those ingredients, 00:13:55.313 --> 00:13:58.924 and we chuck it into the equation for food, 00:13:58.924 --> 00:14:01.883 then you discover that, actually, it's four hours as well. 00:14:01.883 --> 00:14:06.725 And so is this tuna salad sandwich on organic wholemeal bread, 00:14:06.725 --> 00:14:10.688 grown on the north side of the hill, blessed by a monk, all the things. 00:14:10.688 --> 00:14:11.713 (Laughter) 00:14:11.713 --> 00:14:13.910 But it's still four hours of breathing, right? 00:14:13.910 --> 00:14:17.243 So the point is they're not equivalent in how healthy they are, 00:14:17.243 --> 00:14:19.942 but they are equivalent in how long they take to exhale. 00:14:19.942 --> 00:14:21.291 An apple takes an hour; 00:14:21.291 --> 00:14:24.189 a fun size chocolate bar, an hour, 10 minutes; 00:14:24.189 --> 00:14:27.524 regular size, 3.5 hours; and a king-sized, 5.25. 00:14:27.524 --> 00:14:30.214 If you're trying to lose weight, don't drink soft drink, 00:14:30.214 --> 00:14:32.051 because that's got carbon atoms in it. 00:14:32.051 --> 00:14:33.520 Drink water. 00:14:33.520 --> 00:14:36.796 If you like this stuff - and who doesn't? - 00:14:36.796 --> 00:14:38.749 a large coffee and a piece of cake. 00:14:38.749 --> 00:14:40.810 That's 10 hours of breathing 00:14:40.810 --> 00:14:43.231 between breakfast and lunch. 00:14:43.231 --> 00:14:44.929 So be careful. 00:14:44.929 --> 00:14:47.972 A large, lovely burger like this guy - 7 hours. 00:14:47.972 --> 00:14:50.817 Have a large fries with it, 13 hours; 00:14:50.817 --> 00:14:53.380 large drink, 16 hours; 00:14:53.850 --> 00:14:57.539 bang in a large sundae - it's a whole day worth of breathing. 00:14:57.539 --> 00:14:59.668 You can see why there's an obesity epidemic, 00:14:59.668 --> 00:15:02.692 but no one knows what really is going on in their body. 00:15:02.692 --> 00:15:06.478 So, usually, we talk about calories in, calories out. 00:15:06.478 --> 00:15:08.709 How's this information going to help you? 00:15:08.709 --> 00:15:11.307 Well, I would like to talk about atoms in, atoms out. 00:15:11.307 --> 00:15:15.972 And when you're counting calories, you're actually counting carbon atoms 00:15:15.972 --> 00:15:18.786 because the energy in food 00:15:18.786 --> 00:15:22.210 is wherever you see a carbon and a hydrogen atom stuck together. 00:15:22.600 --> 00:15:24.479 And it's in all food. 00:15:24.479 --> 00:15:27.972 So just - and it's sunlight that put that there. 00:15:27.972 --> 00:15:33.502 So my project that I really want to get up and running here at Bundaberg 00:15:33.502 --> 00:15:35.477 is let's teach your children this, 00:15:35.477 --> 00:15:36.492 and you can do it. 00:15:36.492 --> 00:15:38.416 Little kids love learning about atoms. 00:15:38.416 --> 00:15:40.630 Adults freak out at the idea. 00:15:41.286 --> 00:15:43.889 But little kids absolutely love it. 00:15:43.889 --> 00:15:46.976 This is Ithaca Creek State School in Brisbane. 00:15:46.976 --> 00:15:49.253 This is a school in India, 00:15:49.253 --> 00:15:53.008 and these kids are using amino, and they're making amino acids 00:15:53.008 --> 00:15:55.178 and sticking them together to build a protein. 00:15:55.178 --> 00:15:59.496 You can do that with amazing resource that my friend Ian Stewart invented. 00:15:59.836 --> 00:16:01.372 They're called "sticky atoms". 00:16:01.372 --> 00:16:04.792 He's a retired physics and chemistry teacher. 00:16:04.792 --> 00:16:06.205 He taught in Brisbane. 00:16:06.205 --> 00:16:09.660 They have magnetic bonds so three-year-olds, even younger, 00:16:09.660 --> 00:16:12.255 can play with these things and learn about atoms. 00:16:12.255 --> 00:16:14.163 And for the educators in the room, 00:16:14.171 --> 00:16:17.949 they conform to the concrete pictorial abstract way of teaching. 00:16:17.949 --> 00:16:19.685 It's a fantastic pedagogy, 00:16:19.685 --> 00:16:21.703 and Ian and I are hoping to work together. 00:16:21.703 --> 00:16:24.594 We took this out backstage, just moments ago. 00:16:24.594 --> 00:16:28.605 Because what we want to do is teach children 00:16:28.605 --> 00:16:31.278 what's actually going on in their bodies. 00:16:31.618 --> 00:16:33.318 And you can't do that 00:16:33.318 --> 00:16:37.168 if you're not talking about the atoms that they're made of. 00:16:37.642 --> 00:16:39.521 Unfortunately, 00:16:39.521 --> 00:16:42.878 the curriculum does not introduce the concept of atoms and molecules 00:16:42.878 --> 00:16:45.685 until kids are in Grade 9, 00:16:45.685 --> 00:16:49.262 and they don't see the periodic table until they're in Grade 10. 00:16:49.262 --> 00:16:50.407 Why? 00:16:50.407 --> 00:16:56.316 Because a fellow called Jean Piaget, who was kind of a contemporary of Freud. 00:16:56.676 --> 00:16:59.422 He thought that kids can't have these abstract thoughts 00:16:59.422 --> 00:17:02.168 until they're about 14. 00:17:03.091 --> 00:17:05.665 We don't use Freud's psychology anymore. 00:17:05.665 --> 00:17:08.347 We still learn it, but we don't use it. 00:17:08.347 --> 00:17:09.367 But our curriculum 00:17:09.367 --> 00:17:13.798 is still under the spell of a person who died long ago, 00:17:13.798 --> 00:17:17.607 whose ideas about education were, well, someone had to have those ideas, 00:17:17.607 --> 00:17:18.931 but they were wrong. 00:17:19.199 --> 00:17:23.913 So I hope to see what happens if kids grow up with this knowledge. 00:17:23.913 --> 00:17:28.150 In 10 years, what do obesity rates look like in a town like Bundaberg 00:17:28.150 --> 00:17:32.396 if all the children learn this at primary school? 00:17:32.396 --> 00:17:35.478 Will they grow up to accept the advice 00:17:35.478 --> 00:17:41.525 that to lose weight, just eat less, move more and keep breathing? 00:17:41.946 --> 00:17:43.244 Thank you. 00:17:43.244 --> 00:17:45.659 (Applause)