why don't the low carb folks believe in CICO?
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Leanbean65 wrote: »I've tried low carb and I do find I feel less hungry and get less blood sugar swings
( subjectively, I'm not actually tracking my blood sugar). However when I logged the calories of what I was eating on the low carb program it was under 1300 per day.
I just don't find it sustainable though. I get major carb cravings and tend to over eat them when I go off the plan. So in the long run this kind of eating plan just doesn't work for me.
For what it's worth, I found I felt less hungry and had fewer swings when I went pretty low carb and cut out added sugar and grains (I did paleo for a while) and ate balanced meals vs. the higher carb and, especially, less balanced way I'd been eating.
Then I added back in sugar and grains, in moderation, started consuming lots of dairy, but continued to keep my eating pattern balanced (varying from 50% carbs and 25% fats and protein to about a one-third, one-third, one-third split, at the extremes, with my meals usually having similar patterns), and found the positive effects I'd attributed to lowering the carbs (or cutting the sugar) remained. AND, the diet I was following was, for me, more sustainable.
Not saying anyone else should do this, but just that I think some of the changes aren't necessarily due simply to going low carb, but the diet that was being followed before low carb. (My diet wasn't even that bad--I just ate a mostly carb breakfast and for me that's a bad strategy, and then I compensated for low energy periods by snacking on carby things between meals from time to time.)0 -
blktngldhrt wrote: »RockstarWilson wrote: »RockstarWilson wrote: »I don't even know where to begin...
The process of converting protein to glucose through gluconeogensis is not thermodynamically favorable. What this means, it just takes more energy to convert specific amino acids to glucose. I see data that suggests your metabolic rate raises on a ketogenic based diet. This was done on people in a calorimeter, with a tighly controlled diet.
So you can sit there eat 2000 calories of a carb based diet with no results due to your TDEE being 2000. Switch over to a low carb diet and your metabolism can increase above 2000. You can sit there eating 2000 calories of a protein based diet and lose weight. Then you come to the conclusion, "i am eating the same as before."
Someone said something about fat and satiety. That theory was a long time ago, I would assume in the late 1990's. Fat supposedly triggers CCK(Cholecystokinin) which makes you feel fuller. But we also have to keep in mind if that's even true, fat is still double the calories.
There is also some people talking about eating a lot of fat such as in keto, the fat comes out the other end. I mean we all heard of floaters... so Idk. It's a possibility.
I'm going to focus on the bold part since I've never seen the data you suggest in the first paragraph.
I don't understand what you mean that fat is double the calories, as in what that means to low carb diets? Low carb dieters don't take the 100g of carbs they would eat otherwise and go and eat 100g of fat instead because they cut those 100g out. I guess I'm confused on what that line meant.
1g of carbs = 4 calories
1g of fat = 9 calories
I understand that. I'm just not sure what the poster meant by that line. That since a gram of fat is double the calories that is why people claim to feel more full, that there are more calories per gram? Just not sure. Either way, I think that feeling full is a big plus for people that eat LCHF.
I feel full and don't eat LCHF.....not sure why LCHFers think they are the only ones to feel full
The difference is that the low carbers who eat high fat will feel full (synonymous with not feeling hungry or weak from hunger) not for 6-8 hours, but from 8-16 hours or longer. I can eat dinner at 8pm, go to bed, wake up at 6am, have 200 calories of heavy whipping cream, and I am good til about 3 or 4 in the afternoon.
This is my eating pattern, and this is the methodology behind keto/lchf. If I have no desire to eat Anything, I have no overeating challenges. And its not an eating disorder...I eat like a slob at night.
What are you trying to say here?
I can't feel full because I don't wait 8-16 hours between meals?
No, what I mean is that I see tons of threads about how people have reached their calorie allowance by 3 or 4 pm, with 5 or 6 hours to go and come on the threads looking for advice. I dont have this issue. Most days, I dont have the opportunity to overeat. I am not saying that anyone who has carbs doesnt feel full. You said that. I am just saying that I can operate all day on just a few hundred calories of fat in the morning, whereas -most- people will have to eat something to sustain. That is all I am getting at.
But this is the same for any diet.
There are LCers who do have the opportunity to overeat. Who don't feel full.
There are plenty of non LCers who feel full.
It's not black and white.
Saying that LCers like the benefit of feeling full is NOT saying that those that eat higher carb diets don't feel full. NO ONE IS SAYING THAT.
the previous poster said "LCHF feel full and that is a benefit" the implication would be that they would not feel full on a high protein diet, which is not the case….Do you even logic?
I personally wouldn't..
but I would never say that it applies to everyone else.
Maybe wording it as 'lchf keeps me satiated moreso than anything else I've tried' would have been better. Not everyone is a wordsmith.
Or maybe I give other people too much credit.
I don't understand how saying "*I* feel more full" equates to "everybody feels full eating low carb and can't possibly feel that way eating any other way". What people experience doesn't have to be the same as you experience.
Often it's stated as "eating more carbs makes YOU feel hungry and crave things." Or it's ambiguous when someone says: "because I eat low carb I don't have to struggle with feeling deprived." Sure, that might well mean just themselves, but it suggests to me that they are assuming that others feel deprived (especially because there's a history in my mind of low carbers on the forums claiming that carbs are not satiating for anyone--look at some of the threads started by Francl about struggling with hunger where she was told over and over to lower her carbs despite explaining that it did not help her). Probably best to ask for clarification rather than assuming, though.0 -
I'd be curious as to whether anyone had scientific evidence to support CICO? All I've seen is refutations, as far as actual scientific studies.0
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I'd be curious as to whether anyone had scientific evidence to support CICO? All I've seen is refutations, as far as actual scientific studies.
go to google scholar and type in "CICO"
or you can test it on your own body ...eat 5000 calories a day and see what happens over a three months..
this can't be a serious inquiry ...0 -
Hey, new to the thread here.
Here are my thoughts. I'm no expert, and this is all pertaining to me:
A decade ago, I wanted to lose weight. I was a 6'0" guy and I was around 260. Former college athlete, but with each passing year after college I added on a few pounds. I am only mentioning this so as to set a picture - I wasn't a guy who when thin was 165. I was 200 when very very lean.
At 260, I started religiously following CICO. I immediately started losing weight, but I was only able to lose about 20 pounds before stalling around 240. Wanting to get as close to 200 as possible, this was frustrating. At the time, I wasn't exactly eating junk food, but I was eating a SAD. This meant pasta, lots of bread (sandwiches), etc ... Being this around 2005, low carb was a brand new fad and still associated with Atkins and heart attacks. Later when i went back and looked, I was eating 250+ grams of carb per day.
After SEVERAL YEARS of yo-yo-ing around 235-255, I decided to give Paleo a try. I also decided to give low carb a try at the same time. For me, low carb was considered under 100g of carb per day. Some people refer to low carb as anything lower than 45% of daily macros. Some people are on the other side and they only consider ketosis low carb. I was somewhere in the middle, thinking low carb started around 30-35% and you could get more extreme from there.
Keeping my carbs under 100g per day, weight started to fly off. When I went up to 150g of carb or more, weight loss slowed down or stopped.
I eventually made it down to 215 pounds, was extremely happy for a while. Then some real life bad stuff happened (loss of job while I was the only income for my family) and went back to standard american diet, and gained a lot of weight back. I'm back in the 240s ... but working my way down again by staying low card and mostly paleo.
In conclusion, I think that people are different, genetically. There are a number of factors that will contribute to an inability to lose weight:
- Stress (cortisol)
- Lack of sleep (cortisol)
- Aromatase fat (having body fat lowers testosterone, makes it harder to lose weight)
- Insulin resistance
I am one of those people who is very sensitive to sugars and carbs. My entire family is .. genetically. With any of us, if you put us on low carb, great things happen. On "normal" diets (pasta, whole wheat bread), we do not fare as well. We are all prone to insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome.
So, I say, if you are someone who is genetically pre-disposed to metabolic syndrome, low card diets in my opinion are far more effective than just CICO alone.
If you are more normal in terms of insulin, metabolic syndrome and all that other stuff, then I believe you can really adhere to CICO more plainly. Juding by the original poster's picture, I'm guessing being sensitive to carbs was never an issue for him. Those sorts can just reduce calories and see results.
Again, not a scientist, just basing this off of my experience, which I have a lot of. A decade of various diets (Atkins, Body for Life, CICO, and more recently Paleo for the last few years), and none of them worked well for me until low carb Paleo, and then I lost ALL of the weight I wanted to, after 8 years of failure. I gained half of it back, but that was a choice I made with my diet at the time.
Peace
PS - I want to add another thing, which helps support the OP's point. On a lower carb diet, my body chemistry was better regulated. Cravings went away. With fewer cravings, it was easier to miss meals, or eat fewer calories. A part of my success was the massive reduction in cravings from going Paleo and low carb. This helped keep me following CICO more exactly.
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I would have thought there would be more consensus on what low carb is...
Feinman published a suggestion with his rationaleVery low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet (VLCKD)
•Carbohydrate, 20–50 g/d or <10% of the 2000 kcal/d diet, whether or not ketosis occurs. Derived from levels of carbohydrate required to induce ketosis in most people.
•Recommended early phase (“induction”) of popular diets such as Atkins Diet or Protein Power.
Low-carbohydrate diet: <130 g/d or <26% total energy
•The ADA definition of 130 g/d as its recommended minimum.
Moderate-Carbohydrate Diet: 26%–45%
•Upper limit, approximate carbohydrate intake before the obesity epidemic (43%).
High-Carbohydrate Diet: >45%
•Recommended target on ADA websites.
•The 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends 45%–65% carbohydrate. The average American diet is estimated to be ∼49% carbohydrate.
Carbohydrate Consumption (NHANES)†:
Men
•1971–1974: 42% (∼250 g for 2450 kcal/d)
•1999–2000: 49% (∼330 g for 2600 kcal/d)
Women
•1971–1974: 45% (∼150 g for 1550 kcal/d)
•1999–2000: 52% (∼230 g for 1900 kcal/d)
and a recent paper compared two diets
"a very low carbohydrate, ketogenic diet (≤50 g carbohydrates per day not including fiber) "
"the MCCR group were encouraged to derive 45% to 50% of their calories from carbohydrates" - Moderate Carbohydrate Calorie Restricted.0 -
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cwolfman13 wrote: »So I guess in conclusion, a low carb diet is completely arbitrary and meaningless.
as is a "high protein diet" or any other subjective choice of words. Always best to define ones terms.
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Gianfranco_R wrote: »
^ apparently in this posters view 35% is "low carb"
from a SAD point of view, yes, missed that.
from http://www.todaysdietitian.com/newarchives/080113p12.shtmlLow-Carb Approach
There’s no consensus on the definition of a low-carb diet. This is why looking at the methodology of different scientific studies always is important to understand exactly what kind of low-carb diet was investigated, which can vary anywhere between 45% to less than 5% of its calories from carbs. Most researchers with experience in the field of low-carb diets usually base their studies on diets providing between 30 and 100 g of carbohydrates per day accompanied with a moderate amount of protein (15% to 30% of calories), with fats providing the rest of the daily energy requirements.
interesting..
I would have thought there would be more consensus on what low carb is...
In the low carb forums here, they acknowledge that LC means something different for everyone but welcomes anyone who wants to join. Typically under 100g total a day is considered low carb in the groups ive seen, where under 20g net is considered Keto level.
The low carb label is fairly arbitrary. But most people who profess to be low carb fall somewhere in between 5% carbs and 100g total carbs.0 -
I'd be curious as to whether anyone had scientific evidence to support CICO? All I've seen is refutations, as far as actual scientific studies.
I think you haven't seen studies because you haven't looked. Seriously, google it. It is a very ubiquitous concept and I think you'd respect your own search results more if you cannot take this baseline as a given. This whole website is based on calorie counting, so your comment is a bit like going over to a beer brewing forum and saying you're a beginning brewer who isn't convinced that fermentation produces alcohol.
Most of the forum stuff is just kvetching about the best way to come in under calorie goals--whether the people complaining realize it or not--and ways to tweak a diet to feel full and meet other nutrition goals.
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lemurcat12 wrote: »
IMO, getting obsessed with the small stuff (or making it all or nothing) is really because people don't want to do what they know they should--eating a balanced meal is boring, they don't like veggies, they are used to being able to eat whatever looks good in the moment. It's not really because there's a bunch of complex knowledge they don't know or secrets to learn. I think there's a view by some that there's an easier way than just eating balanced meals if they can only figure it out (the whole "hacks" thing) and by others that something so simple can't possibly work, but I think focusing on all that puts off the common sense approach--look at your diet and see how you can improve it and cut calories.
You've just put every obesity researcher, nutritionist & dietician out of business...
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Hey, new to the thread here.
Here are my thoughts. I'm no expert, and this is all pertaining to me:
A decade ago, I wanted to lose weight. I was a 6'0" guy and I was around 260. Former college athlete, but with each passing year after college I added on a few pounds. I am only mentioning this so as to set a picture - I wasn't a guy who when thin was 165. I was 200 when very very lean.
At 260, I started religiously following CICO. I immediately started losing weight, but I was only able to lose about 20 pounds before stalling around 240. Wanting to get as close to 200 as possible, this was frustrating. At the time, I wasn't exactly eating junk food, but I was eating a SAD. This meant pasta, lots of bread (sandwiches), etc ... Being this around 2005, low carb was a brand new fad and still associated with Atkins and heart attacks. Later when i went back and looked, I was eating 250+ grams of carb per day.
After SEVERAL YEARS of yo-yo-ing around 235-255, I decided to give Paleo a try. I also decided to give low carb a try at the same time. For me, low carb was considered under 100g of carb per day. Some people refer to low carb as anything lower than 45% of daily macros. Some people are on the other side and they only consider ketosis low carb. I was somewhere in the middle, thinking low carb started around 30-35% and you could get more extreme from there.
Keeping my carbs under 100g per day, weight started to fly off. When I went up to 150g of carb or more, weight loss slowed down or stopped.
I eventually made it down to 215 pounds, was extremely happy for a while. Then some real life bad stuff happened (loss of job while I was the only income for my family) and went back to standard american diet, and gained a lot of weight back. I'm back in the 240s ... but working my way down again by staying low card and mostly paleo.
In conclusion, I think that people are different, genetically. There are a number of factors that will contribute to an inability to lose weight:
- Stress (cortisol)
- Lack of sleep (cortisol)
- Aromatase fat (having body fat lowers testosterone, makes it harder to lose weight)
- Insulin resistance
I am one of those people who is very sensitive to sugars and carbs. My entire family is .. genetically. With any of us, if you put us on low carb, great things happen. On "normal" diets (pasta, whole wheat bread), we do not fare as well. We are all prone to insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome.
So, I say, if you are someone who is genetically pre-disposed to metabolic syndrome, low card diets in my opinion are far more effective than just CICO alone.
If you are more normal in terms of insulin, metabolic syndrome and all that other stuff, then I believe you can really adhere to CICO more plainly. Juding by the original poster's picture, I'm guessing being sensitive to carbs was never an issue for him. Those sorts can just reduce calories and see results.
Again, not a scientist, just basing this off of my experience, which I have a lot of. A decade of various diets (Atkins, Body for Life, CICO, and more recently Paleo for the last few years), and none of them worked well for me until low carb Paleo, and then I lost ALL of the weight I wanted to, after 8 years of failure. I gained half of it back, but that was a choice I made with my diet at the time.
Peace
PS - I want to add another thing, which helps support the OP's point. On a lower carb diet, my body chemistry was better regulated. Cravings went away. With fewer cravings, it was easier to miss meals, or eat fewer calories. A part of my success was the massive reduction in cravings from going Paleo and low carb. This helped keep me following CICO more exactly.
thanks for your input..
I am curious when you got to 235 pounds and could not lose any more were you using a food scale and meticulously tracking all your calories???0 -
I'd be curious as to whether anyone had scientific evidence to support CICO? All I've seen is refutations, as far as actual scientific studies.
Try http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(11)60812-X/fulltext (free login required for full access). He gets into the mathematics and validates against published experimental data.0 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »So I guess in conclusion, a low carb diet is completely arbitrary and meaningless.
as is a "high protein diet" or any other subjective choice of words. Always best to define ones terms.
I don't know...it seems like those folks actually have more guidelines than what you seem to be suggesting. I mean, I'm on like 45% carbs right now...guess I'm low carb...even though that's about 225 grams per day.
From here on out, I will simply dismiss low carbers as simply not knowing what they're doing or what they're talking about.
Thanks for clearing this up for me.
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cwolfman13 wrote: »cwolfman13 wrote: »So I guess in conclusion, a low carb diet is completely arbitrary and meaningless.
as is a "high protein diet" or any other subjective choice of words. Always best to define ones terms.
I don't know...it seems like those folks actually have more guidelines than what you seem to be suggesting. I mean, I'm on like 45% carbs right now...guess I'm low carb...even though that's about 225 grams per day.
From here on out, I will simply dismiss low carbers as simply not knowing what they're doing or what they're talking about.
Thanks for clearing this up for me.
Weren't you doing so already?0 -
I'd be curious as to whether anyone had scientific evidence to support CICO? All I've seen is refutations, as far as actual scientific studies.
This is a well referenced post: http://evidencemag.com/why-calories-count/
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/79/5/899S.long
http://nutritionreviews.oxfordjournals.org/content/67/5/2490 -
Hey, new to the thread here.
Here are my thoughts. I'm no expert, and this is all pertaining to me:
A decade ago, I wanted to lose weight. I was a 6'0" guy and I was around 260. Former college athlete, but with each passing year after college I added on a few pounds. I am only mentioning this so as to set a picture - I wasn't a guy who when thin was 165. I was 200 when very very lean.
At 260, I started religiously following CICO. I immediately started losing weight, but I was only able to lose about 20 pounds before stalling around 240. Wanting to get as close to 200 as possible, this was frustrating. At the time, I wasn't exactly eating junk food, but I was eating a SAD. This meant pasta, lots of bread (sandwiches), etc ... Being this around 2005, low carb was a brand new fad and still associated with Atkins and heart attacks. Later when i went back and looked, I was eating 250+ grams of carb per day.
After SEVERAL YEARS of yo-yo-ing around 235-255, I decided to give Paleo a try. I also decided to give low carb a try at the same time. For me, low carb was considered under 100g of carb per day. Some people refer to low carb as anything lower than 45% of daily macros. Some people are on the other side and they only consider ketosis low carb. I was somewhere in the middle, thinking low carb started around 30-35% and you could get more extreme from there.
Keeping my carbs under 100g per day, weight started to fly off. When I went up to 150g of carb or more, weight loss slowed down or stopped.
I eventually made it down to 215 pounds, was extremely happy for a while. Then some real life bad stuff happened (loss of job while I was the only income for my family) and went back to standard american diet, and gained a lot of weight back. I'm back in the 240s ... but working my way down again by staying low card and mostly paleo.
In conclusion, I think that people are different, genetically. There are a number of factors that will contribute to an inability to lose weight:
- Stress (cortisol)
- Lack of sleep (cortisol)
- Aromatase fat (having body fat lowers testosterone, makes it harder to lose weight)
- Insulin resistance
I am one of those people who is very sensitive to sugars and carbs. My entire family is .. genetically. With any of us, if you put us on low carb, great things happen. On "normal" diets (pasta, whole wheat bread), we do not fare as well. We are all prone to insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome.
So, I say, if you are someone who is genetically pre-disposed to metabolic syndrome, low card diets in my opinion are far more effective than just CICO alone.
If you are more normal in terms of insulin, metabolic syndrome and all that other stuff, then I believe you can really adhere to CICO more plainly. Juding by the original poster's picture, I'm guessing being sensitive to carbs was never an issue for him. Those sorts can just reduce calories and see results.
Again, not a scientist, just basing this off of my experience, which I have a lot of. A decade of various diets (Atkins, Body for Life, CICO, and more recently Paleo for the last few years), and none of them worked well for me until low carb Paleo, and then I lost ALL of the weight I wanted to, after 8 years of failure. I gained half of it back, but that was a choice I made with my diet at the time.
Peace
PS - I want to add another thing, which helps support the OP's point. On a lower carb diet, my body chemistry was better regulated. Cravings went away. With fewer cravings, it was easier to miss meals, or eat fewer calories. A part of my success was the massive reduction in cravings from going Paleo and low carb. This helped keep me following CICO more exactly.
thanks for your input..
I am curious when you got to 235 pounds and could not lose any more were you using a food scale and meticulously tracking all your calories???
Yes. I had purchased an Escali food scale, became very adept at weights and measurements of foods. I used to round up a little to be safe, and I didn't trust the labels on things so weighed a number of things even when nutrition facts were there, to be sure. At the time I was aiming for a 500-800 calorie deficit per day. I would also allow myself to go 500 over every 4-5 days to keep from "stalling" (which I'm not even sure actually happens - but it was all the rage back then)
BTW - Chronic Cardio is another external condition that can affect CICO, as the body will create a ton of cortisol if it is over-worked, which we know acts to shut down fat burning, and enhance fat storage.
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