The problem with science
Replies
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Science has added *so* much to the fitness / weight loss / physique world and I feel very grateful that there are people out there publishing some really high quality studies which help us to get results but science is not the be-all and end-all that some people on these forums suggest so I wanted to mention a few points that I think it’s worth keeping in mind:
For example:
1) Science has been described as "observing the world around you”. That’s the best definition I have found. Notice it doesn’t say “listening only to people who observed results in laboratories”
2) Studies, by definition, publish averages. For example: 15 subjects did x and got y result. In reality, perhaps 8 of the subjects got almost identical results, 4 got results which were close to the 8 and 3 got totally different results. Those 3 are *20%* of the test group…. and their results are completely hidden in the averages.
3) Science is just the latest opinion on a subject, albeit a hopefully very educated one. The "science" of weight loss is totally different today compared to 10 years ago. 10 years from now it will be completely different again. Don’t get *too” attached to the studies we have today
4) CICO is a great place to start for weight loss but it is definitely not an absolute. I work in the fitness industry and know professional physique athletes who dramatically *increase* their calories to get lean for a show. Now, for an average person with 30 lbs to lose this may or may not apply to them but some people need to eat more to lose bodyfat and some people need to eat less. (I recently came across a great article on this which I will try to find and post below.)
5) The main problem with CICO relates to hormones. I have seen a few snarky comments on this forum say things like “oh so your body is breaking the laws of physics is it??” when one poster says that they lose more fat on higher calories (which I have observed in myself and others many times). The thing is that the person making the comment definitely isn’t a physicist (and doesn’t really understand the laws of physics) and isn’t a physiologist either (so definitely doesn’t understand how the laws of physics relate the the trillions of processes taking place in the human body every second) so their comment is a case of “a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing”. The confusion with CICO relates to CO. The body is actually very good at down-regulating fat loss when calorie intake is reduced (if you don’t agree, see point 2. You are alive today because a few thousand generations of your ancestors survived on very little food for most of their lives. What often produces the result is the *change*. Moving from a long period of higher calories to reduced calories or moving from a long period of lower calories to high calories. So, when someone tells you they are losing more fat on higher calories, remember that you are not a physiologist; you are a weight loss forummer; and you don’t actually have enough experience to know if someone is absolutely wrong when they are observing their own body right in front of their eyes. It’s very important to keep our minds open in this field. I can guarantee that you will have a different opinion on this subject in 10 years so why assume you are 100% correct today.
Anyway, these are a few points I wanted to put out there in case someone finds them useful. I’ve been involved in the fitness / physique world for more than 20 years so I have seen a few things along the way and whilst the current trend towards science-based fitness is extremely positive, I personally feel that we mustn’t become a slave to it.
some people need to eat more to lose bodyfat and some people need to eat less.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but body fat isn't the same as body weight, right?
Exactly.... and CICO seems to apply better to weight loss than it does to fat loss. I don't think anyone here is looking to lose any lean mass.
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"science"??? or statistical interpretation of a series of empirical observations made upon a random selection of individuals related to specific demographics? any "study" is just that... NOT a scientific conclusion... merely suggestion... a conclusion could only be made IF you could eliminate the +/- variance until it is virtually zero. and that conclusion would have to be based on an impossibly large sample of the human population.0
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ergo... scientific "studies" should be taken with a grain of salt because we all fall outside the box of average... average being that mathematical illusion where 1/2 the subjects are above it and 1/2 below it.0
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Some good points here.... and a lot of snarkiness (to be expected). Not going to argue the points because everyone is entitled to their opinion and we are, of course, all at different stages on this journey. Would certainly be interesting to see photos of the bodies on threads like this though. Not that having a great physique is necessarily a guarantee of anything but it's certainly interesting to see the physiques behind the opinions. In the fitness world there seems to be a baffling inverse correlation behind having a great physique and training "scientifically". After all these years, I admit that I still can't figure out exactly why... although I have some ideas.
I'm not showing off anything but my N7 hoodie, stained with the tears of a chemistry PhD student.
And possibly acid, but mainly (hopefully) tears.
Well there should be a strong correlation between sewing skills and chemistry lab time. My sister definately got better at sewing to cover all the acid damage to her clothes. Maybe it's a curve, the better you get at chemistry the less harmful crap you drop on yourself.
@daniip_la could you confirm? with a graph and some p values? n=1 obviously
By this logic, my college organic chemistry partner was a genius*. Bet if I could remember his name I'd find out he's a Nobel prize winner or some such.
*He managed to spill all the nasty stuff on me, including a couple of hundred mLs of boiling sulfuric acid we were using to break down bran cereal. Fortunately, I was wearing nice, heavy-weight and loose fitting jeans at the time. I was unharmed, the jeans and shoes were a total loss.2 -
reminds me of that old saw.. "I am special just like everyone else"
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Science has added *so* much to the fitness / weight loss / physique world and I feel very grateful that there are people out there publishing some really high quality studies which help us to get results but science is not the be-all and end-all that some people on these forums suggest so I wanted to mention a few points that I think it’s worth keeping in mind:
For example:
1) Science has been described as "observing the world around you”. That’s the best definition I have found. Notice it doesn’t say “listening only to people who observed results in laboratories”
2) Studies, by definition, publish averages. For example: 15 subjects did x and got y result. In reality, perhaps 8 of the subjects got almost identical results, 4 got results which were close to the 8 and 3 got totally different results. Those 3 are *20%* of the test group…. and their results are completely hidden in the averages.
3) Science is just the latest opinion on a subject, albeit a hopefully very educated one. The "science" of weight loss is totally different today compared to 10 years ago. 10 years from now it will be completely different again. Don’t get *too” attached to the studies we have today
4) CICO is a great place to start for weight loss but it is definitely not an absolute. I work in the fitness industry and know professional physique athletes who dramatically *increase* their calories to get lean for a show. Now, for an average person with 30 lbs to lose this may or may not apply to them but some people need to eat more to lose bodyfat and some people need to eat less. (I recently came across a great article on this which I will try to find and post below.)
5) The main problem with CICO relates to hormones. I have seen a few snarky comments on this forum say things like “oh so your body is breaking the laws of physics is it??” when one poster says that they lose more fat on higher calories (which I have observed in myself and others many times). The thing is that the person making the comment definitely isn’t a physicist (and doesn’t really understand the laws of physics) and isn’t a physiologist either (so definitely doesn’t understand how the laws of physics relate the the trillions of processes taking place in the human body every second) so their comment is a case of “a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing”. The confusion with CICO relates to CO. The body is actually very good at down-regulating fat loss when calorie intake is reduced (if you don’t agree, see point 2. You are alive today because a few thousand generations of your ancestors survived on very little food for most of their lives. What often produces the result is the *change*. Moving from a long period of higher calories to reduced calories or moving from a long period of lower calories to high calories. So, when someone tells you they are losing more fat on higher calories, remember that you are not a physiologist; you are a weight loss forummer; and you don’t actually have enough experience to know if someone is absolutely wrong when they are observing their own body right in front of their eyes. It’s very important to keep our minds open in this field. I can guarantee that you will have a different opinion on this subject in 10 years so why assume you are 100% correct today.
Anyway, these are a few points I wanted to put out there in case someone finds them useful. I’ve been involved in the fitness / physique world for more than 20 years so I have seen a few things along the way and whilst the current trend towards science-based fitness is extremely positive, I personally feel that we mustn’t become a slave to it.
some people need to eat more to lose bodyfat and some people need to eat less.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but body fat isn't the same as body weight, right?
Exactly.... and CICO seems to apply better to weight loss than it does to fat loss. I don't think anyone here is looking to lose any lean mass.
CICO applies to both. It doesn't imply that the weight you're losing given CI < CO is fat, or muscle, or other tissue. Obviously, it has zero to do with water weight and such.
If you want to lose mainly fat, that goes beyond counting calories, as you know. You need to have an appropriate deficit and an appropriate diet. According to a few studies, that's sufficient, but if you add strength training in, you have a bit more leeway with the deficit and diet.0 -
Science has added *so* much to the fitness / weight loss / physique world and I feel very grateful that there are people out there publishing some really high quality studies which help us to get results but science is not the be-all and end-all that some people on these forums suggest so I wanted to mention a few points that I think it’s worth keeping in mind:
For example:
1) Science has been described as "observing the world around you”. That’s the best definition I have found. Notice it doesn’t say “listening only to people who observed results in laboratories”
2) Studies, by definition, publish averages. For example: 15 subjects did x and got y result. In reality, perhaps 8 of the subjects got almost identical results, 4 got results which were close to the 8 and 3 got totally different results. Those 3 are *20%* of the test group…. and their results are completely hidden in the averages.
3) Science is just the latest opinion on a subject, albeit a hopefully very educated one. The "science" of weight loss is totally different today compared to 10 years ago. 10 years from now it will be completely different again. Don’t get *too” attached to the studies we have today
4) CICO is a great place to start for weight loss but it is definitely not an absolute. I work in the fitness industry and know professional physique athletes who dramatically *increase* their calories to get lean for a show. Now, for an average person with 30 lbs to lose this may or may not apply to them but some people need to eat more to lose bodyfat and some people need to eat less. (I recently came across a great article on this which I will try to find and post below.)
5) The main problem with CICO relates to hormones. I have seen a few snarky comments on this forum say things like “oh so your body is breaking the laws of physics is it??” when one poster says that they lose more fat on higher calories (which I have observed in myself and others many times). The thing is that the person making the comment definitely isn’t a physicist (and doesn’t really understand the laws of physics) and isn’t a physiologist either (so definitely doesn’t understand how the laws of physics relate the the trillions of processes taking place in the human body every second) so their comment is a case of “a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing”. The confusion with CICO relates to CO. The body is actually very good at down-regulating fat loss when calorie intake is reduced (if you don’t agree, see point 2. You are alive today because a few thousand generations of your ancestors survived on very little food for most of their lives. What often produces the result is the *change*. Moving from a long period of higher calories to reduced calories or moving from a long period of lower calories to high calories. So, when someone tells you they are losing more fat on higher calories, remember that you are not a physiologist; you are a weight loss forummer; and you don’t actually have enough experience to know if someone is absolutely wrong when they are observing their own body right in front of their eyes. It’s very important to keep our minds open in this field. I can guarantee that you will have a different opinion on this subject in 10 years so why assume you are 100% correct today.
Anyway, these are a few points I wanted to put out there in case someone finds them useful. I’ve been involved in the fitness / physique world for more than 20 years so I have seen a few things along the way and whilst the current trend towards science-based fitness is extremely positive, I personally feel that we mustn’t become a slave to it.
some people need to eat more to lose bodyfat and some people need to eat less.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but body fat isn't the same as body weight, right?
Exactly.... and CICO seems to apply better to weight loss than it does to fat loss. I don't think anyone here is looking to lose any lean mass.
CICO is the basis for all loss, gain and maintenance. If you look at any metabolic ward study, what is the first variable tested? That's right, energy expended. This is where they modify calories.
Macronutrients and training effect the outcome of if it's from fat or muscle.2 -
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Science has added *so* much to the fitness / weight loss / physique world and I feel very grateful that there are people out there publishing some really high quality studies which help us to get results but science is not the be-all and end-all that some people on these forums suggest so I wanted to mention a few points that I think it’s worth keeping in mind:
For example:
1) Science has been described as "observing the world around you”. That’s the best definition I have found. Notice it doesn’t say “listening only to people who observed results in laboratories”
2) Studies, by definition, publish averages. For example: 15 subjects did x and got y result. In reality, perhaps 8 of the subjects got almost identical results, 4 got results which were close to the 8 and 3 got totally different results. Those 3 are *20%* of the test group…. and their results are completely hidden in the averages.
3) Science is just the latest opinion on a subject, albeit a hopefully very educated one. The "science" of weight loss is totally different today compared to 10 years ago. 10 years from now it will be completely different again. Don’t get *too” attached to the studies we have today
4) CICO is a great place to start for weight loss but it is definitely not an absolute. I work in the fitness industry and know professional physique athletes who dramatically *increase* their calories to get lean for a show. Now, for an average person with 30 lbs to lose this may or may not apply to them but some people need to eat more to lose bodyfat and some people need to eat less. (I recently came across a great article on this which I will try to find and post below.)
5) The main problem with CICO relates to hormones. I have seen a few snarky comments on this forum say things like “oh so your body is breaking the laws of physics is it??” when one poster says that they lose more fat on higher calories (which I have observed in myself and others many times). The thing is that the person making the comment definitely isn’t a physicist (and doesn’t really understand the laws of physics) and isn’t a physiologist either (so definitely doesn’t understand how the laws of physics relate the the trillions of processes taking place in the human body every second) so their comment is a case of “a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing”. The confusion with CICO relates to CO. The body is actually very good at down-regulating fat loss when calorie intake is reduced (if you don’t agree, see point 2. You are alive today because a few thousand generations of your ancestors survived on very little food for most of their lives. What often produces the result is the *change*. Moving from a long period of higher calories to reduced calories or moving from a long period of lower calories to high calories. So, when someone tells you they are losing more fat on higher calories, remember that you are not a physiologist; you are a weight loss forummer; and you don’t actually have enough experience to know if someone is absolutely wrong when they are observing their own body right in front of their eyes. It’s very important to keep our minds open in this field. I can guarantee that you will have a different opinion on this subject in 10 years so why assume you are 100% correct today.
Anyway, these are a few points I wanted to put out there in case someone finds them useful. I’ve been involved in the fitness / physique world for more than 20 years so I have seen a few things along the way and whilst the current trend towards science-based fitness is extremely positive, I personally feel that we mustn’t become a slave to it.
some people need to eat more to lose bodyfat and some people need to eat less.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but body fat isn't the same as body weight, right?
Exactly.... and CICO seems to apply better to weight loss than it does to fat loss. I don't think anyone here is looking to lose any lean mass.
Well....yeah, but who is claiming otherwise? CICO states that if your caloric intake is less that your caloric expenditure then your body will make up for that difference via processing its own macros. If your intake is greater than your expenditure then your body will store those additional macros and/or use them to build mass within the body. That is it. What about that definition do you disagree?
If you disagree with how people APPLY that and what conclusions they draw from that then fine, but that isn't disagree with CICO...that's disagreeing with people's interpretations of what CICO means for them or for others.3 -
Some good points here.... and a lot of snarkiness (to be expected). Not going to argue the points because everyone is entitled to their opinion and we are, of course, all at different stages on this journey. Would certainly be interesting to see photos of the bodies on threads like this though. Not that having a great physique is necessarily a guarantee of anything but it's certainly interesting to see the physiques behind the opinions. In the fitness world there seems to be a baffling inverse correlation behind having a great physique and training "scientifically". After all these years, I admit that I still can't figure out exactly why... although I have some ideas.
90% of the people (over 12000 in the group) in the Intermittent Fasting Group I follow are in excellent shape. Three of the admins even compete in bodybuilding competition. They all believe in CICO and only allow things to be posted in their group if there is peer reviewed scientific research to back it up.2 -
RavenLibra wrote: »reminds me of that old saw.. "I am special just like everyone else"
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/you-are-not-different.html/3 -
1) the studies are almost all short term. The CICO idea (which I generally agree with - a lot of people missed that I said that) seems to break down over longer periods of time
You're telling us that ... and we have to take your word on it ... but you also told us that studies only publish averages and hide individual data points, which is patently false.5 -
Some good points here.... and a lot of snarkiness (to be expected). Not going to argue the points because everyone is entitled to their opinion and we are, of course, all at different stages on this journey. Would certainly be interesting to see photos of the bodies on threads like this though. Not that having a great physique is necessarily a guarantee of anything but it's certainly interesting to see the physiques behind the opinions. In the fitness world there seems to be a baffling inverse correlation behind having a great physique and training "scientifically". After all these years, I admit that I still can't figure out exactly why... although I have some ideas.
I'm not showing off anything but my N7 hoodie, stained with the tears of a chemistry PhD student.
And possibly acid, but mainly (hopefully) tears.
Well there should be a strong correlation between sewing skills and chemistry lab time. My sister definately got better at sewing to cover all the acid damage to her clothes. Maybe it's a curve, the better you get at chemistry the less harmful crap you drop on yourself.
@daniip_la could you confirm? with a graph and some p values? n=1 obviously
By this logic, my college organic chemistry partner was a genius*. Bet if I could remember his name I'd find out he's a Nobel prize winner or some such.
*He managed to spill all the nasty stuff on me, including a couple of hundred mLs of boiling sulfuric acid we were using to break down bran cereal. Fortunately, I was wearing nice, heavy-weight and loose fitting jeans at the time. I was unharmed, the jeans and shoes were a total loss.
I made a graph of the number of accidents I remember having per semester. 0's all through undergrad with a steady increase once hitting grad school. For my n=1, the better I get at chemistry, the more accidents I have.4 -
Some good points here.... and a lot of snarkiness (to be expected). Not going to argue the points because everyone is entitled to their opinion and we are, of course, all at different stages on this journey. Would certainly be interesting to see photos of the bodies on threads like this though. Not that having a great physique is necessarily a guarantee of anything but it's certainly interesting to see the physiques behind the opinions. In the fitness world there seems to be a baffling inverse correlation behind having a great physique and training "scientifically". After all these years, I admit that I still can't figure out exactly why... although I have some ideas.
I'm not showing off anything but my N7 hoodie, stained with the tears of a chemistry PhD student.
And possibly acid, but mainly (hopefully) tears.
Well there should be a strong correlation between sewing skills and chemistry lab time. My sister definately got better at sewing to cover all the acid damage to her clothes. Maybe it's a curve, the better you get at chemistry the less harmful crap you drop on yourself.
@daniip_la could you confirm? with a graph and some p values? n=1 obviously
By this logic, my college organic chemistry partner was a genius*. Bet if I could remember his name I'd find out he's a Nobel prize winner or some such.
*He managed to spill all the nasty stuff on me, including a couple of hundred mLs of boiling sulfuric acid we were using to break down bran cereal. Fortunately, I was wearing nice, heavy-weight and loose fitting jeans at the time. I was unharmed, the jeans and shoes were a total loss.
I made a graph of the number of accidents I remember having per semester. 0's all through undergrad with a steady increase once hitting grad school. For my n=1, the better I get at chemistry, the more accidents I have.
In high school chemistry, we threw a chunk of sodium into a sink filled with water. The chemistry teacher was not at all pleased and they had to replace the ceiling tiles above the sink. 5 -
Some good points here.... and a lot of snarkiness (to be expected). Not going to argue the points because everyone is entitled to their opinion and we are, of course, all at different stages on this journey. Would certainly be interesting to see photos of the bodies on threads like this though. Not that having a great physique is necessarily a guarantee of anything but it's certainly interesting to see the physiques behind the opinions. In the fitness world there seems to be a baffling inverse correlation behind having a great physique and training "scientifically". After all these years, I admit that I still can't figure out exactly why... although I have some ideas.
I'm not showing off anything but my N7 hoodie, stained with the tears of a chemistry PhD student.
And possibly acid, but mainly (hopefully) tears.
Well there should be a strong correlation between sewing skills and chemistry lab time. My sister definately got better at sewing to cover all the acid damage to her clothes. Maybe it's a curve, the better you get at chemistry the less harmful crap you drop on yourself.
@daniip_la could you confirm? with a graph and some p values? n=1 obviously
By this logic, my college organic chemistry partner was a genius*. Bet if I could remember his name I'd find out he's a Nobel prize winner or some such.
*He managed to spill all the nasty stuff on me, including a couple of hundred mLs of boiling sulfuric acid we were using to break down bran cereal. Fortunately, I was wearing nice, heavy-weight and loose fitting jeans at the time. I was unharmed, the jeans and shoes were a total loss.
I made a graph of the number of accidents I remember having per semester. 0's all through undergrad with a steady increase once hitting grad school. For my n=1, the better I get at chemistry, the more accidents I have.
Never had a chemical accident myself although I did manage to freeze my hand by deciding to hold a mortar with my bare hand while I was grinding leaves in liquid nitrogen. I thought I'd feel it if it was too much but as it turns out, cold kind of numbs you...who knew. Did feel it after when my hand went back to pink from being sheet white.
Have also witnessed the aftermath of a centrifuge critical faliure. Haven't been lax about balancing them ever since.
Most cringeworthy lab accident I heard of in my job was someone trying to open a 2 liter glass bottle of acetic acid by trying to open it by wedging the cap in a door near the hinges to get some leverage. What they managed to do was snap the neck of the bottle, dig the jagged edge deep into their arm and then immediately pass out in a puddle of acid and blood as the acetic acid poured out into their wound. Good way to make people very nervous about glass bottles though.
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Science has added *so* much to the fitness / weight loss / physique world and I feel very grateful that there are people out there publishing some really high quality studies which help us to get results but science is not the be-all and end-all that some people on these forums suggest so I wanted to mention a few points that I think it’s worth keeping in mind:
For example:
1) Science has been described as "observing the world around you”. That’s the best definition I have found. Notice it doesn’t say “listening only to people who observed results in laboratories”
2) Studies, by definition, publish averages. For example: 15 subjects did x and got y result. In reality, perhaps 8 of the subjects got almost identical results, 4 got results which were close to the 8 and 3 got totally different results. Those 3 are *20%* of the test group…. and their results are completely hidden in the averages.
3) Science is just the latest opinion on a subject, albeit a hopefully very educated one. The "science" of weight loss is totally different today compared to 10 years ago. 10 years from now it will be completely different again. Don’t get *too” attached to the studies we have today
4) CICO is a great place to start for weight loss but it is definitely not an absolute. I work in the fitness industry and know professional physique athletes who dramatically *increase* their calories to get lean for a show. Now, for an average person with 30 lbs to lose this may or may not apply to them but some people need to eat more to lose bodyfat and some people need to eat less. (I recently came across a great article on this which I will try to find and post below.)
5) The main problem with CICO relates to hormones. I have seen a few snarky comments on this forum say things like “oh so your body is breaking the laws of physics is it??” when one poster says that they lose more fat on higher calories (which I have observed in myself and others many times). The thing is that the person making the comment definitely isn’t a physicist (and doesn’t really understand the laws of physics) and isn’t a physiologist either (so definitely doesn’t understand how the laws of physics relate the the trillions of processes taking place in the human body every second) so their comment is a case of “a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing”. The confusion with CICO relates to CO. The body is actually very good at down-regulating fat loss when calorie intake is reduced (if you don’t agree, see point 2. You are alive today because a few thousand generations of your ancestors survived on very little food for most of their lives. What often produces the result is the *change*. Moving from a long period of higher calories to reduced calories or moving from a long period of lower calories to high calories. So, when someone tells you they are losing more fat on higher calories, remember that you are not a physiologist; you are a weight loss forummer; and you don’t actually have enough experience to know if someone is absolutely wrong when they are observing their own body right in front of their eyes. It’s very important to keep our minds open in this field. I can guarantee that you will have a different opinion on this subject in 10 years so why assume you are 100% correct today.
Anyway, these are a few points I wanted to put out there in case someone finds them useful. I’ve been involved in the fitness / physique world for more than 20 years so I have seen a few things along the way and whilst the current trend towards science-based fitness is extremely positive, I personally feel that we mustn’t become a slave to it.
some people need to eat more to lose bodyfat and some people need to eat less.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but body fat isn't the same as body weight, right?
Exactly.... and CICO seems to apply better to weight loss than it does to fat loss. I don't think anyone here is looking to lose any lean mass.
How so or are you referring to a weight neutral situation like recomping? CICO is the umbrella under which optimizing fat loss (protein intake, resistance training) occurs. You can have a spot on protein intake and train all you want, but if your calories aren't on point, you aren't going to lose fat.0 -
GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »Science has added *so* much to the fitness / weight loss / physique world and I feel very grateful that there are people out there publishing some really high quality studies which help us to get results but science is not the be-all and end-all that some people on these forums suggest so I wanted to mention a few points that I think it’s worth keeping in mind:
For example:
1) Science has been described as "observing the world around you”. That’s the best definition I have found. Notice it doesn’t say “listening only to people who observed results in laboratories”
2) Studies, by definition, publish averages. For example: 15 subjects did x and got y result. In reality, perhaps 8 of the subjects got almost identical results, 4 got results which were close to the 8 and 3 got totally different results. Those 3 are *20%* of the test group…. and their results are completely hidden in the averages.
3) Science is just the latest opinion on a subject, albeit a hopefully very educated one. The "science" of weight loss is totally different today compared to 10 years ago. 10 years from now it will be completely different again. Don’t get *too” attached to the studies we have today
4) CICO is a great place to start for weight loss but it is definitely not an absolute. I work in the fitness industry and know professional physique athletes who dramatically *increase* their calories to get lean for a show. Now, for an average person with 30 lbs to lose this may or may not apply to them but some people need to eat more to lose bodyfat and some people need to eat less. (I recently came across a great article on this which I will try to find and post below.)
5) The main problem with CICO relates to hormones. I have seen a few snarky comments on this forum say things like “oh so your body is breaking the laws of physics is it??” when one poster says that they lose more fat on higher calories (which I have observed in myself and others many times). The thing is that the person making the comment definitely isn’t a physicist (and doesn’t really understand the laws of physics) and isn’t a physiologist either (so definitely doesn’t understand how the laws of physics relate the the trillions of processes taking place in the human body every second) so their comment is a case of “a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing”. The confusion with CICO relates to CO. The body is actually very good at down-regulating fat loss when calorie intake is reduced (if you don’t agree, see point 2. You are alive today because a few thousand generations of your ancestors survived on very little food for most of their lives. What often produces the result is the *change*. Moving from a long period of higher calories to reduced calories or moving from a long period of lower calories to high calories. So, when someone tells you they are losing more fat on higher calories, remember that you are not a physiologist; you are a weight loss forummer; and you don’t actually have enough experience to know if someone is absolutely wrong when they are observing their own body right in front of their eyes. It’s very important to keep our minds open in this field. I can guarantee that you will have a different opinion on this subject in 10 years so why assume you are 100% correct today.
Anyway, these are a few points I wanted to put out there in case someone finds them useful. I’ve been involved in the fitness / physique world for more than 20 years so I have seen a few things along the way and whilst the current trend towards science-based fitness is extremely positive, I personally feel that we mustn’t become a slave to it.
some people need to eat more to lose bodyfat and some people need to eat less.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but body fat isn't the same as body weight, right?
Exactly.... and CICO seems to apply better to weight loss than it does to fat loss. I don't think anyone here is looking to lose any lean mass.
How so or are you referring to a weight neutral situation like recomping? CICO is the umbrella under which optimizing fat loss (protein intake, resistance training) occurs. You can have a spot on protein intake and train all you want, but if your calories aren't on point, you aren't going to lose fat.
I think his point is that if you assume all you have to do to lose fat and ONLY fat is just eat whatever amount below your intake (even a huge deficit) because CICO then you are fooling yourself. I'd agree with that, you will likely also lose muscle unless you take steps that are unrelated to CICO, but that isn't because CICO is wrong...its just a misapplication of it or misunderstanding of its meaning.
If you eat less than you consume then you will lose mass. How much of that mass is from fat and how much is from muscle is determined by other factors.2 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »Some good points here.... and a lot of snarkiness (to be expected). Not going to argue the points because everyone is entitled to their opinion and we are, of course, all at different stages on this journey. Would certainly be interesting to see photos of the bodies on threads like this though. Not that having a great physique is necessarily a guarantee of anything but it's certainly interesting to see the physiques behind the opinions. In the fitness world there seems to be a baffling inverse correlation behind having a great physique and training "scientifically". After all these years, I admit that I still can't figure out exactly why... although I have some ideas.
I'm not showing off anything but my N7 hoodie, stained with the tears of a chemistry PhD student.
And possibly acid, but mainly (hopefully) tears.
Well there should be a strong correlation between sewing skills and chemistry lab time. My sister definately got better at sewing to cover all the acid damage to her clothes. Maybe it's a curve, the better you get at chemistry the less harmful crap you drop on yourself.
@daniip_la could you confirm? with a graph and some p values? n=1 obviously
By this logic, my college organic chemistry partner was a genius*. Bet if I could remember his name I'd find out he's a Nobel prize winner or some such.
*He managed to spill all the nasty stuff on me, including a couple of hundred mLs of boiling sulfuric acid we were using to break down bran cereal. Fortunately, I was wearing nice, heavy-weight and loose fitting jeans at the time. I was unharmed, the jeans and shoes were a total loss.
I made a graph of the number of accidents I remember having per semester. 0's all through undergrad with a steady increase once hitting grad school. For my n=1, the better I get at chemistry, the more accidents I have.
Never had a chemical accident myself although I did manage to freeze my hand by deciding to hold a mortar with my bare hand while I was grinding leaves in liquid nitrogen. I thought I'd feel it if it was too much but as it turns out, cold kind of numbs you...who knew. Did feel it after when my hand went back to pink from being sheet white.
Have also witnessed the aftermath of a centrifuge critical faliure. Haven't been lax about balancing them ever since.
Most cringeworthy lab accident I heard of in my job was someone trying to open a 2 liter glass bottle of acetic acid by trying to open it by wedging the cap in a door near the hinges to get some leverage. What they managed to do was snap the neck of the bottle, dig the jagged edge deep into their arm and then immediately pass out in a puddle of acid and blood as the acetic acid poured out into their wound. Good way to make people very nervous about glass bottles though.
I actually managed something slightly similar a few months ago, though from a freak accident instead of negligence. The neck of a flask I was using snapped off while I was pulling a vacuum funnel out of it, and the jagged edge cut my hand open pretty badly.
Instead of passing out, I was yelling for a lab mate to come rescue my experiment while I was trying to wash phosphoric acid and blood off of everything. I was going to try and bandage it up, until my advisor made me get stitches.0
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