Most Impressive. Most people I pose this question to won’t even attempt an answer. My answer is similar to yours but lets see:
Question #7 - Thermodynamics
It is often suggested (by me) that chewing ice cubes is an effective weight loss tool. Is this actually true? Provide a quantitative answer of Calorie ‘loss’ per ice cube.
Solution:
1. You have 21 grams or 0.021 kilograms of ice
2. The temperature difference between an ice cube and your internal body temperature is: 98.6 F - 32 F ~ 67 F
3. It takes about 1 Calorie to raise 1 kilogram of water 2 F. So, 67 F / 2 ~ 34 Cal/kg
4. One ice cube consumes about (34 Cal/kg)(0.021 kg) = 0.714 Calories
Which is very close to U-505’s answer.
5. But what if you consider latent heat of fusion? (All materials require extra energy to transition from a solid to a liquid) Does this change the answer much?
6. The heat of fusion of water is ~ 0.08 Cal/gram. So, (0.08 Cal/gram)(21 gram) = 1.68 Calories(!)
7. Every ice cube consumes about 1.68 + 0.714 = 2.4 Calories!
Some useful information:
- To raise 1 kg of ice it takes 37 + 80 Cal = 117 Calories
- Running a mile (6 mph) burns ~500 Calories
- You get almost the equivalent workout chewing a liter of ice cubes as you do riding on a stationary bike for an hour. (117 Cal vs. 177 Cal)
- Here are some common exercises in terms of calorie burned per hour: http://www.nutristrategy.com/activitylist4.htm
- If you can consider yourself an athletic “Ice Cruncher” you could lose more weight chewing ice than actually working out. You would then have to worry about water weight.
(Yes, Moses is a fitness guru)
