Dr. Pepper and the Second Law of Thermodynamics

Very cold Dr. Pepper is refreshing.
As I consume it, I warm it, so net entropy increases.

Very hot hot chocolate is comforting.
As I consume it, I cool it, so net entropy increases.

In both cases, I have increased my ability to perform Work.

The increase in my ability to do work is much greater than the energy I lose in bringing the parts of my body which touched the liquid (and the liquid, too, for that matter) back to their normal temperature. This process also increases entropy.

Evidently, there's enough energy in these liquids so that I can regulate my temperature.

I suppose I could survive if I only consumed Dr. Pepper and hot chocolate for a month. I'd count the calories to make sure I could maintain my weight, of course. I wouldn't feel all that great because I wouldn't get many of the nutrients essential for optimal functioning, but I wouldn't die.

There's enough energy in these liquids to regulate my temperature and allow me to move about and to sustain bodily functions like breath, heartbeat, digestion and so on. As expected, all these processes increase entropy.

I don't think I could survive a month if I didn't eat or drink anything. I would die much more quickly than if I only subsisted on Dr. Pepper and Hot Chocolate. Say I made it for a whole week and then died. Oddly, the net increase of entropy at that moment would be significantly less than it would have been had I kept to my Dr. Pepper and hot chocolate regimen. By this logic, I, now being dead, would be in a more ordered state than had I continued faithfully swigging.

What gives?

Anticipating that my liquid diet might not do me all that much better than starvation, I decide instead to eat a balanced diet. I figure out the BMR required to sustain my current weight given my sedentary lifestyle. I spend a lot of time each day weighing and preparing precise proportions of food so that I get just the right amount of each of the nutrients, and have fats, carbs and proteins in healthy proportion. I drink plenty of water. I eat six small portions a day and never feel hungry. After a month, I've lost a little bit of weight. It occurs to me that I got some exercise staying on top of my diet. I feel great, however. What's more, I've increased the net entropy more than I would have in either of my other "diets".

Strong now, I'm very motivated to feel even better. I add aerobic training to my daily routine and increase my food intake to compensate for the energy burn rate. At the end of the month, results are starting to show. I've got muscle tone, my cardio stats are improving and I'm generating more entropy.

After a year, I run a marathon. I put in a lot of miles on the road every month, I lift weights and eat significantly more than when I started a year ago. I'm a very competent entropy generator. What's more, I never feel frazzled with how much time it takes to balance a job and the routines and family life. I've got some order at last.

Three years later, I enter and finish the Badwater Ultramarathon. Granted, I'm dead last, and I feel terrible, but that only lasts a week. Once I get back to increasing entropy at the usual world-class rates I'm back to feeling spectacular.

As it turns out, I'm a human interest story. Unbeknownst to me, the Wedge of Order Promotion Society (WoOPS) tried not once, not twice, but 13 different times to knock me out of the race by setting up various paralyzing aroma-therapy traps along the course. (I'd nearly come to blows with one of their members because I'd worn my homebrew micro-label “Entropy Gear” the previous year in the New York Marathon). The story went global and before I know it, Nike enters a branding deal with me and I'm in ad campaigns with Shaq and Flash. The folks at Dr. Pepper figure out a nutritional formula and name it Dr. Entropy.

Within a year, over 1 billion people around the globe are living the High-Entropy life and things couldn't be better. You can't even get a watch without an entropy meter any more, and so many people are running ultramarathons that I can't even make the cut at any of the bigs.

The WoOPS folks protest the Animal Entropy Front for a while, but after numerous accidents with highly active cows, retire to a suspended animation colony. After squabbling for a year over the meaning of "I return slowly, so chill" (their leader's statement upon entering prison), they move their operation to the high country to chase the glacier as it recedes from the old tree line thanks to Global Warming.