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When you digest food, its carbon atoms enter your blood. Unless they are expelled from your body, they add to your weight. But here is the salient observation: the only effective way your body has to get rid of digested carbon is to combine it with oxygen to form carbon dioxide, and then expel it through your lungs. Unless you breathe out the carbon, you gain weight.

I’m not sure how I feel about this Physics of Gluttony article. Yes, the author is a respected UCB physics professor, and yes, the “conservation of carbon atoms” argument makes a great deal of intuitive sense. Maybe I’ve become distrustful of elegant solutions. Does that mean I’m growing up?