Fun debate about CICO
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PeachyCarol wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Maybe we should suggest a special forum "Losing Weight-IR." That would solve a lot of the conflicts on the boards.
The irony? Even with IR? You still lose weight by eating less than you burn. This is just all noise. Very whiny noise.
Oh, I know. But I'm bored of it, and I neither think that so many people are IR or unable to tell through their actual responses to food+medical diagnosis that we need to hijack every thread into an IR resistance thread, which is what sometimes seems to happen. That forum could be for people who think most obese people are IR or there's some huge number of people here for whom CICO won't work because IR or who wanted to claim that IR requires low carb (and I happen to think SOME with IR are helped by low carb) and those who want to claim that IR magically makes CICO not apply. I could ignore it. We wouldn't have perfectly good discussions derailed by someone bouncing in and insisting that a "calorie isn't a calorie if one is IR" or that no one should eat fruit (or whatever) with that later modified by "it's bad for someone with IR."
Now, I get that this would be annoying for people with IR who understand that CICO applies and who don't agree with the usual derpy posts on the topic, but they could simply participate in the other forums.0 -
These seem pretty simple to follow, not sure why it is more then this really.
http://www.howtolivealongerlife.com/2009/07/11-ways-to-reduce-insulin-resistance.html0 -
DeguelloTex wrote: »FFS, no one says "do what the calculator says forever and ever amen." For anyone. Even those with normal metabolisms.
That is said all the time - reduce your food intake by 500 calories a day and you will lose 1 pound a week - see Google results
It is seldom "reduce your intake by an initial 500 calories and then reduce further as necessary to maintain your rate of loss".0 -
WTF does your distortion of what I said have to do with what I actually said?DeguelloTex wrote: »FFS, no one says "do what the calculator says forever and ever amen." For anyone. Even those with normal metabolisms.
That is said all the time - reduce your food intake by 500 calories a day and you will lose 1 pound a week - see Google results
It is seldom "reduce your intake by an initial 500 calories and then reduce further as necessary to maintain your rate of loss".
I was responding to a post about TDEE calculators with a post about TDEE calculators. If you were any farther in left field, you'd be in the bleachers.
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VintageFeline wrote: »Well this has been fun and has gone down a path that sort of isn't even relevant to my OP. Well done MFP, you never fail me!
This isn't about how accurate calculators are, this isn't about pre-existing medical conditions. This was purely asking that regardless of dietary composition, if you can reasonably accurately work out your TDEE then CICO will always and forever work. Consuming too much salt won't disrupt your hormones one week and make you suddenly store fat when in a deficit, same goes for eating too much fat, or pizza, or fries, etc.
My friend insisted that WHAT we eat dictates our hormone responses and therefore changes CO.
So insulin resistance is a thing, is one of the pre-existing medical conditions I accepted in my OP and is not the subject up for debate. As long as you account for it and make adjustments as required CICO still applies. If you don't have IR, eating carbs isn't going to suddenly change your BMR and require you to eat less that day to maintain the same deficit.
I always wasn't asking if what we eat changes how much fat vs muscle we lose. I may eat crap sometimes but I do resistance work. Some people don't. It doesn't change CICO or my hormone responses to food.
I accept medical conditions have an impact on BMR, I accept diet content can have an impact on compliance (satiety etc). I do not accept eating a donut but being within my calorie goal will mess up my hormones and make me suddenly store those calories as fat if I'm overall in an energy deficit.
I really feel awful for you for how this devolved. It was a fun discussion in the beginning!
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lemurcat12 wrote: »PeachyCarol wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Maybe we should suggest a special forum "Losing Weight-IR." That would solve a lot of the conflicts on the boards.
The irony? Even with IR? You still lose weight by eating less than you burn. This is just all noise. Very whiny noise.
Oh, I know. But I'm bored of it, and I neither think that so many people are IR or unable to tell through their actual responses to food+medical diagnosis that we need to hijack every thread into an IR resistance thread, which is what sometimes seems to happen. That forum could be for people who think most obese people are IR or there's some huge number of people here for whom CICO won't work because IR or who wanted to claim that IR requires low carb (and I happen to think SOME with IR are helped by low carb) and those who want to claim that IR magically makes CICO not apply. I could ignore it. We wouldn't have perfectly good discussions derailed by someone bouncing in and insisting that a "calorie isn't a calorie if one is IR" or that no one should eat fruit (or whatever) with that later modified by "it's bad for someone with IR."
Now, I get that this would be annoying for people with IR who understand that CICO applies and who don't agree with the usual derpy posts on the topic, but they could simply participate in the other forums.
I so bored of it that I had a plaid IR t-shirt before plaid came back in fashion. The R was wearing horn-rimmed glasses and had a beard.
IR is just like the myriad other medical conditions that people find themselves with -- PCOS, hypothyroidism, menopause, whatever -- you either see it as an excuse, or you just go on with your life and lose weight.
For the record for the people in this thread who don't know me, I have two of those conditions. I've lost weight just fine. Eating less than I burn.
I have too many people on my friend's list with IR or diabetes who are having success with other approaches to listen to this IR/MUST low carb/CICO doesn't work ish. It's all just noise.
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VintageFeline wrote: »Well this has been fun and has gone down a path that sort of isn't even relevant to my OP. Well done MFP, you never fail me!
This isn't about how accurate calculators are, this isn't about pre-existing medical conditions. This was purely asking that regardless of dietary composition, if you can reasonably accurately work out your TDEE then CICO will always and forever work. Consuming too much salt won't disrupt your hormones one week and make you suddenly store fat when in a deficit, same goes for eating too much fat, or pizza, or fries, etc.
My friend insisted that WHAT we eat dictates our hormone responses and therefore changes CO.
So insulin resistance is a thing, is one of the pre-existing medical conditions I accepted in my OP and is not the subject up for debate. As long as you account for it and make adjustments as required CICO still applies. If you don't have IR, eating carbs isn't going to suddenly change your BMR and require you to eat less that day to maintain the same deficit.
I always wasn't asking if what we eat changes how much fat vs muscle we lose. I may eat crap sometimes but I do resistance work. Some people don't. It doesn't change CICO or my hormone responses to food.
I accept medical conditions have an impact on BMR, I accept diet content can have an impact on compliance (satiety etc). I do not accept eating a donut but being within my calorie goal will mess up my hormones and make me suddenly store those calories as fat if I'm overall in an energy deficit.
Spot on. I am sorry your thread went way out into left field.0 -
VintageFeline wrote: »Well this has been fun and has gone down a path that sort of isn't even relevant to my OP. Well done MFP, you never fail me!
This isn't about how accurate calculators are, this isn't about pre-existing medical conditions. This was purely asking that regardless of dietary composition, if you can reasonably accurately work out your TDEE then CICO will always and forever work. Consuming too much salt won't disrupt your hormones one week and make you suddenly store fat when in a deficit, same goes for eating too much fat, or pizza, or fries, etc.
My friend insisted that WHAT we eat dictates our hormone responses and therefore changes CO.
So insulin resistance is a thing, is one of the pre-existing medical conditions I accepted in my OP and is not the subject up for debate. As long as you account for it and make adjustments as required CICO still applies. If you don't have IR, eating carbs isn't going to suddenly change your BMR and require you to eat less that day to maintain the same deficit.
I always wasn't asking if what we eat changes how much fat vs muscle we lose. I may eat crap sometimes but I do resistance work. Some people don't. It doesn't change CICO or my hormone responses to food.
I accept medical conditions have an impact on BMR, I accept diet content can have an impact on compliance (satiety etc). I do not accept eating a donut but being within my calorie goal will mess up my hormones and make me suddenly store those calories as fat if I'm overall in an energy deficit.
Spot on. I am sorry your thread went way out into left field.
There's an inevitability about it round these parts, just trying to pull it back in again!0 -
Reading Lindsey's explanation of how IR affects CICO has me really confused.
She says IR makes you feel more hungry even after you've eaten and makes you feel more fatigued, so you eat more and move less and therefore lose weight more slowly than someone who didn't eat more in response to the hunger signals triggered by IR.
Does this not essentially prove the basics of CICO?
I mean, I see how it shows the difficulty of maintaining a deficit when you continue to eat because your brain keeps telling you you're not full. But I'm still confused how it's changing the effectiveness of the basic principle. Am I missing a key element of her side of the argument? If so, explain it to me like I'm 10.0 -
As near as I can tell, wading through all the "if you understood" stuff, CICO is true, it's just so haaaaaard to know CI and CO that something...Reading Lindsey's explanation of how IR affects CICO has me really confused.
She says IR makes you feel more hungry even after you've eaten and makes you feel more fatigued, so you eat more and move less and therefore lose weight more slowly than someone who didn't eat more in response to the hunger signals triggered by IR.
Does this not essentially prove the basics of CICO?
I mean, I see how it shows the difficulty of maintaining a deficit when you continue to eat because your brain keeps telling you you're not full. But I'm still confused how it's changing the effectiveness of the basic principle. Am I missing a key element of her side of the argument? If so, explain it to me like I'm 10.
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TheDudeLovesFood wrote: »lindsey1979 wrote: »That's inaPeachyCarol wrote: »lindsey1979 wrote: »UltimateRBF wrote: »lindsey1979 wrote: »CICO is a great guideline but it has its limitations when applied to the human body -- because unlike the physics law in a closed system, the human body has a lot more variables -- we literally have 1000s of chemical reactions in our metabolic pathways, and the coefficients and efficiency of those reactions can vary greatly, especially as influenced by various hormones. Plus, you have the issue that a lb of fat releases 3500 cals, but a lb of muscle releases a lot less (something like 900-1700). So depending on your fat to muscle ratio in your weight loss will greatly change your numbers on the scale -- if you're losing more muscle, the numbers will go down quicker. If you're losing more fat, the numbers will go down slower.
You also have the issue that the CO part is virtually impossible to calculate with any accuracy independently -- most calculate it based on a lot of assumptions (such as common BMR numbers) or in reverse based on their weight loss result (which once again with the fat/muscle issue is only an estimate at best). So when people talk about the law being indisputable, it is true but also not completely accurate as applied to the extremely complex system of the human body.
And then you have things like pesky hormones and how they can effect the equation -- which a lot of people don't want to admit exist because it can get soooo complicated at this point. Whether you're talking insulin, thyroid, HGH, grehlin, leptin, etc. -- it goes on and on and we really are only starting to scratch the surface of how this all works.
An easy hormone example is someone that has insulin resistance. There was a study in 2012 or so that showed that women with good insulin sensitivity lost nearly twice as much weight as their counterparts on a higher carb diet isocaloric deficit diet (protein was the same and caloric deficit was the same). But their insulin resistance counterparts had the exact opposite happen -- they lost nearly twice as much weight on the lower carb diet. Same amounts of protein, same deficit and drastically different results based on carb/fat ratio depending on the individual woman's insulin sensitivity/resistance. So, that's a powerful example of how all calories are not all equal and would produce drastically different results in different women for the same amount of total calories.
And before anyone gets all up in arms about how insulin resistance is rare -- it's not. Per the CDC, over 40% of US adults have insulin resistance at diabetic or prediabetic levels -- the vast majority of which don't know it. I think actual numbers from their 2014 report (which had data from 2010-2012 I think) was something like 9.3% had diabetes and 37% had insulin resistance at prediabetic levels -- that's over 46%, or almost half of the population of US adults! That's a LOT of people.
So, CICO is a great guideline and definitely a place to start when you're looking to lose weight. But, if you find yourself not seeing results after following it (and you're truly accurately weighing/measuring your food), then you need to start to look at issues outside of CICO such as insulin resistance, thyroid, etc. Because you might be in that half of the population that has an issue that shifts the equation from its commonly understood applications.
Oh, you're back. Insulin resistance is still your favourite topic I see.DeguelloTex wrote: »
Meal-to-meal and day-to-day don't matter for CO any more than they matter for weight. Look at the trends.TheDudeLovesFood wrote: »A bit more reading suggests that activity may be responsible at least in part, Cornier cites Levine http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9880251 as finding large variations in NEAT responsible for variations in fat gain during overfeeding :
In other words the maths only works if you measure everything rigorously and correctly and don't assume CO is a constant.
With all that said, the confusion is, CICO is still valid.
Yes, but I think the point is that CO is hard to establish because it varies so much between people, and even day to day, or meal to meal. Some foods (CI) will change what an individual's CO is for a time, and some foods (CI) make it easier or harder to eat at a caloric deficit.
Just my interpretation.
How do some foods make it harder or easier to eat at a deficit? Are you talking about caloric density and satiety or something else?
I was referring to satiety and factors like hormones (ex. insulin, cortisol, and IGF-1). Those hormones will have an effect, albeit not a huge one, on CO.
And it's not only CO but how yourbody is able to access energy.
For example, if you're storing more cals as fat (like with insulin resistance), you'll feel more fatigued. To battle the fatigue, you eat more and end up overeating. So even though you need the energy, your body isn't accessing it effectively and you either end up with people that are very fatigued or overeating. That's one of the reasons why it can be so difficult to lose/maintain with IR, especially if you have a lot of carbs in your diet. Similar issues can be seen with thyroid issues, but totally different mechanism.
The ability to metabolize foods effectively for energy is one of the variables I referenced earlier. I choose IR as an example in particular because (1) it's a metabolic condition and (2) it's incredibly widespread (at least in U.S. adults).
IR will not make you store "more" calories as fat, all things being the same unless you're eating more to begin with.
Inaccurate. If you understood how IR works, you'd understand why it lends itself to overeating. In broad strokes:
You have nutrients in your blood stream from eating, but your cells are resistant to insulin. So instead of the nutrients going into your cells like it would in an insulin sensitive person, they stay in the blood stream. Your body pumps more insulin to compensate to force the cells to take up the nutrients but that causes too swift of a change, dropping blood sugar, your signals for hunger get erroneously triggered (fatigue, light headed was, strong cravings), and you eat more because your hunger cues are triggered. Now you have more nutrients than necessary for the energy requirements and end up storing the surplus as fat. This can also contribute to imbalance in other pathways -- like cortisol in your adrenals. That's why IR folks have these big swings and can also end up with a level of adrenal insufficiency. And it's also why it can be very difficult to lose/maintain with IR -- because you either end up abnormally fatigued/hungry or you overeat to compensate for the fatigue/strong hunger cues.
There are things that can help with IR such as switching up macros (managing carbs is often helpful as that's what triggers the insulin response most strongly), medication like metformin, etc. Losing weight also helps for many -- but that's a nice little catch -22.
So the conclusion we've come to is:
1. Metabolic disorders affect CO
2. People should check with the doctor to figure out if that's an issue that may be present
3. CICO still applies regardless of the situation
What's left to debate on that front?
I'm good with this. Weight loss comes down to CI<CO, and we're all agreed that the CO of someone with health issues like hormonal imbalances will be less than the CO of a healthy person, and may require a greater food deficit and different food choices to be able to meet CI<CO.DeguelloTex wrote: »FFS, no one says "do what the calculator says forever and ever amen." For anyone. Even those with normal metabolisms.
That is said all the time - reduce your food intake by 500 calories a day and you will lose 1 pound a week - see Google results
It is seldom "reduce your intake by an initial 500 calories and then reduce further as necessary to maintain your rate of loss".
LOL And that's another good way of saying it.0 -
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Reading Lindsey's explanation of how IR affects CICO has me really confused.
She says IR makes you feel more hungry even after you've eaten and makes you feel more fatigued, so you eat more and move less and therefore lose weight more slowly than someone who didn't eat more in response to the hunger signals triggered by IR.
Does this not essentially prove the basics of CICO?
I mean, I see how it shows the difficulty of maintaining a deficit when you continue to eat because your brain keeps telling you you're not full. But I'm still confused how it's changing the effectiveness of the basic principle. Am I missing a key element of her side of the argument? If so, explain it to me like I'm 10.
Yes - this is essentially her modus operandi. While trying to disprove CICO she only reinforces the essential principle behind CICO - eat less, move more.
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VintageFeline wrote: »Well this has been fun and has gone down a path that sort of isn't even relevant to my OP. Well done MFP, you never fail me!
This isn't about how accurate calculators are, this isn't about pre-existing medical conditions. This was purely asking that regardless of dietary composition, if you can reasonably accurately work out your TDEE then CICO will always and forever work. Consuming too much salt won't disrupt your hormones one week and make you suddenly store fat when in a deficit, same goes for eating too much fat, or pizza, or fries, etc.
My friend insisted that WHAT we eat dictates our hormone responses and therefore changes CO.
So insulin resistance is a thing, is one of the pre-existing medical conditions I accepted in my OP and is not the subject up for debate. As long as you account for it and make adjustments as required CICO still applies. If you don't have IR, eating carbs isn't going to suddenly change your BMR and require you to eat less that day to maintain the same deficit.
I always wasn't asking if what we eat changes how much fat vs muscle we lose. I may eat crap sometimes but I do resistance work. Some people don't. It doesn't change CICO or my hormone responses to food.
I accept medical conditions have an impact on BMR, I accept diet content can have an impact on compliance (satiety etc). I do not accept eating a donut but being within my calorie goal will mess up my hormones and make me suddenly store those calories as fat if I'm overall in an energy deficit.
It's a shame that we cannot have healthy debate without certain people continual derailing and trolling, at least these people are in the minority. If there is proof to the contrary it is critical that we explore; however your closing paragraph sums this up quite nicely.
Being overweight messes up your hormones more than any other singular factor. What you eat is not nearly important as how much you eat.0 -
Reading Lindsey's explanation of how IR affects CICO has me really confused.
She says IR makes you feel more hungry even after you've eaten and makes you feel more fatigued, so you eat more and move less and therefore lose weight more slowly than someone who didn't eat more in response to the hunger signals triggered by IR.
Does this not essentially prove the basics of CICO?
I mean, I see how it shows the difficulty of maintaining a deficit when you continue to eat because your brain keeps telling you you're not full. But I'm still confused how it's changing the effectiveness of the basic principle. Am I missing a key element of her side of the argument? If so, explain it to me like I'm 10.
Yes - this is essentially her modus operandi. While trying to disprove CICO she only reinforces the essential principle behind CICO - eat less, move more.
I don't think she is trying to disprove CI<CO, but make the point that it is harder to attain for some. Those hormones make it more difficult to move more and eat less unless you find a way of eating (low carb for many who are IR) that puts you back on a level playing field.
JMO0 -
VintageFeline wrote: »The perennial debate has come up with a friend today about the only thing mattering being CICO.
He argues food affects how many calories are stored as fat due hormone interruption. So what you eat matters. As someone who does the moderation thing I refute this.
I argue science and that health contains can affect BMR but 3500 calories remains 1lb for everyone.
Good sources and opinion to back me up or discredit me please!
Going back to the beginning.
I don't think we can be too absolutist that what you eat doesn't matter (holding calories equal). Specifically, isn't it commonly understood that eating enough protein (to a certain point) will help prevent loss of muscle if you also do exercise (or strength training specifically)? And similarly when trying to put on muscle without putting on too much fat, macros matter.
I don't think this really changes your point -- I think we should assume rational macros and a non extreme diet (no 100% donuts) in these discussions -- but I guess a minor limitation.0 -
Reading Lindsey's explanation of how IR affects CICO has me really confused.
She says IR makes you feel more hungry even after you've eaten and makes you feel more fatigued, so you eat more and move less and therefore lose weight more slowly than someone who didn't eat more in response to the hunger signals triggered by IR.
Does this not essentially prove the basics of CICO?
I mean, I see how it shows the difficulty of maintaining a deficit when you continue to eat because your brain keeps telling you you're not full. But I'm still confused how it's changing the effectiveness of the basic principle. Am I missing a key element of her side of the argument? If so, explain it to me like I'm 10.
Yes - this is essentially her modus operandi. While trying to disprove CICO she only reinforces the essential principle behind CICO - eat less, move more.
I don't think she is trying to disprove CI<CO, but make the point that it is harder to attain for some. Those hormones make it more difficult to move more and eat less unless you find a way of eating (low carb for many who are IR) that puts you back on a level playing field.
JMO
Ah, I think I see. The hormone response is overwhelming to the point where maintaining a consistent 500 cal deficit (or whatever) is harder for some. Either from over eating or under moving. And not because the 500 cal deficit isn't resulting in no loss. Totally agree with that, if that's the point.0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »The perennial debate has come up with a friend today about the only thing mattering being CICO.
He argues food affects how many calories are stored as fat due hormone interruption. So what you eat matters. As someone who does the moderation thing I refute this.
I argue science and that health contains can affect BMR but 3500 calories remains 1lb for everyone.
Good sources and opinion to back me up or discredit me please!
Going back to the beginning.
I don't think we can be too absolutist that what you eat doesn't matter (holding calories equal). Specifically, isn't it commonly understood that eating enough protein (to a certain point) will help prevent loss of muscle if you also do exercise (or strength training specifically)? And similarly when trying to put on muscle without putting on too much fat, macros matter.
I don't think this really changes your point -- I think we should assume rational macros and a non extreme diet (no 100% donuts) in these discussions -- but I guess a minor limitation.
That is an important point but it isn't what was really being discussed. It was whether your food interrupts/alters hormones and therefore interferes with weight loss/gain etc.
It is also my understanding that unless you have very specific fitness goals the macros aren't too important on that front? As long as you have a well rounded diet it's just fine for the average person and whatever works for satiety is really the key.0 -
Reading Lindsey's explanation of how IR affects CICO has me really confused.
She says IR makes you feel more hungry even after you've eaten and makes you feel more fatigued, so you eat more and move less and therefore lose weight more slowly than someone who didn't eat more in response to the hunger signals triggered by IR.
Does this not essentially prove the basics of CICO?
I mean, I see how it shows the difficulty of maintaining a deficit when you continue to eat because your brain keeps telling you you're not full. But I'm still confused how it's changing the effectiveness of the basic principle. Am I missing a key element of her side of the argument? If so, explain it to me like I'm 10.
Yes - this is essentially her modus operandi. While trying to disprove CICO she only reinforces the essential principle behind CICO - eat less, move more.
I don't think she is trying to disprove CI<CO, but make the point that it is harder to attain for some. Those hormones make it more difficult to move more and eat less unless you find a way of eating (low carb for many who are IR) that puts you back on a level playing field.
JMO
Ah, I think I see. The hormone response is overwhelming to the point where maintaining a consistent 500 cal deficit (or whatever) is harder for some. Either from over eating or under moving. And not because the 500 cal deficit isn't resulting in no loss. Totally agree with that, if that's the point.
That is basically how I see it, and experienced it.
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