Energy balance is the first law of thermodynamics applied to a body: energy taken in, minus energy spent, equals energy stored. It is a description of physics — not a verdict on a person, a body, or a meal. The interesting part is that the two pans are not independent. Move any slider and watch both sides respond.
Intake against expenditure
Energy balance0kcal/day
TEE = RMR + TEF + NEAT + EAT. Total energy expenditure is four things, not one: what it costs to stay alive at rest, what it costs to process the food itself, all the movement you never planned, and the movement you did. Tap any block on the scale — or any line above — to open it up. strong evidence
Where a sustained gap actually goes
The scale is levelmove a slider and watch it tip
Thermic effect of food
TEF is not a slider because you do not set it — it is a percentage of whatever you eat, so it moves the moment intake moves. That single coupling is why the pans can never be adjusted one at a time.
These are illustrative demonstrations of physiology built from round numbers. None of them is a plan, a target, or a recommendation for any particular person.
Body weight is a crude readout of all this. The scale in a bathroom cannot separate fat from lean tissue, from glycogen (stored with roughly 3 g of water per gram), from gut contents, from hydration — so day-to-day swings of 1–2 kg are mostly water, not stored energy. BMI is weaker still: it is mass divided by height squared, a nineteenth-century population ratio that says nothing about tissue type, distribution, fitness, or health, and was never designed to assess an individual. strong evidence Everything on this page is a teaching model of average physiology — not medical or dietary advice, and no substitute for an assessment by a qualified clinician.