Is CICO the real deal?
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ShammersPink wrote: »4. They don't want to believe it, because it makes it their responsibility for eating too much and doing too little.
5. Not believing in it sells books and magic weight loss products or program (i.e., Dr. Fung, Dr. Oz, etc...).10 -
So I'm not really convinced that CICO is the formula for weight loss/gain. I'm not questioning the ability to lose weight counting calories and eating healthy (I lost 18 kg counting calories over 15 years ago); I just don't believe excess calories are the thing that makes us fat. My parents' generation for example never knew what calories even were and they used to eat normally and still were slim. And we all have friends who eat like crazy and never workout, but are TOO thin, or at least normal weight. It's just too overwhelming counting every single thing you eat and monitoring your CICO every single day.
So what's the real deal?
Update: I know that counting calories is how you monitor your CICO (and CICO is not equal to counting calories) and I know it works, but I also lost a hell lot of weight with a nutritionist who would let me eat unlimited quantities of food, and even have vanilla ice-cream for dinner if I wanted to! So my point is there must be something else.
Apples still fall from trees whether you've heard of gravity or not. An older generation might not have understood calories, yet they were still a thing, just as they mightn't have understood germ theory but still got sick. Not understanding the mechanism, does not mean that the mechanism isn't the same.
Physiologies and behaviors of individuals may differ, but CICO still applies.8 -
Also wanted to say that though I'm not sure this is relevant for this particular conversation, there is a sense in which calories are an invention and once upon a time did not exist (just as inches or metres are an invention), but the energy which calories measure has always existed. We could theoretically measure energy intake and output in units other than calories but it's six of one, half dozen of the other.9
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You know, I hate the acronym CICO.
But conservation of energy is the governing principle of weight loss. It is fact one of the governing principles of the physical universe.3 -
Counting calories is just counting calories...counting calories =/= CICO...CICO is just the energy equation.
Also, you don't have to know exactly XXXX calories to maintain a healthy weight...I haven't counted calories in years and only have a rough idea of what I'm taking in but I maintain...just because I don't know doesn't mean CICO isn't in play.
Also, my parents were both obese at one time...so were my grandparents and great grandparents...I really don't know this magical generation of which you speak. Yes, obesity is more prevalent now, but that has more to do with the vast availability of cheap, calorie dense foods than whether or not our parents, grandparents, etc understood anything about energy balance.1 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »Counting calories is just counting calories...counting calories =/= CICO...CICO is just the energy equation.
Also, you don't have to know exactly XXXX calories to maintain a healthy weight...I haven't counted calories in years and only have a rough idea of what I'm taking in but I maintain...just because I don't know doesn't mean CICO isn't in play.
Also, my parents were both obese at one time...so were my grandparents and great grandparents...I really don't know this magical generation of which you speak. Yes, obesity is more prevalent now, but that has more to do with the vast availability of cheap, calorie dense foods than whether or not our parents, grandparents, etc understood anything about energy balance.
I would add - and our increasingly sedentary lifestyles - to your comment about why obesity is more prevalent today than in past generations.
Agree with everything else - whether a person counts calories or not doesn't validate or invalidate CICO. It's like gravity - it's always there whether you pay attention to it or not.1 -
So I'm not really convinced that CICO is the formula for weight loss/gain. I'm not questioning the ability to lose weight counting calories and eating healthy (I lost 18 kg counting calories over 15 years ago); I just don't believe excess calories are the thing that makes us fat. My parents' generation for example never knew what calories even were and they used to eat normally and still were slim. And we all have friends who eat like crazy and never workout, but are TOO thin, or at least normal weight. It's just too overwhelming counting every single thing you eat and monitoring your CICO every single day.
So what's the real deal?
Update: I know that counting calories is how you monitor your CICO (and CICO is not equal to counting calories) and I know it works, but I also lost a hell lot of weight with a nutritionist who would let me eat unlimited quantities of food, and even have vanilla ice-cream for dinner if I wanted to! So my point is there must be something else.
What does "unlimited quantities of food"? How many calories are in this? What was your energy output? If you lost weight during this time you were in a caloric deficit. The fact you were ignorant of the details does not invalidate a physical principle.
You've essentially answered your own question. This is something that was not tracked previously. Life in Western society takes very limited physical effort. Everyone thinks of gross motor movements, but even little things like power steering, TV remotes, telecommuting, etc. have removed the need for the necessary action for good health.4 -
Yes, it's the real deal. How you achieve the deficit can vary, though. It could be done by counting calories, by applying certain rules that lead to lowered calorie consumption with flashy words such as "unlimited", or by many other means that lead to you eating fewer calories (like the good old crash diets of limiting your food to a couple of items until you are sick of it and don't want to eat much of it anymore).
As for your parents, they lived in a more active world with less calorific foods, smaller portions, worse food convenience, and more need for physical movement (just compare today's fully automatic washers to the washers back then). Even then, some people still managed to overconsume food.
As for your friends, they may appear to be eating a lot when in reality they are either not eating as much as you think they are or are much more active than you think they are (exercising is not the only way you burn calories). If anyone saw my dinner today would marvel at my ability to lose weight eating as much as I did. What they don't know is that I did not have breakfast and my lunch was just a couple of fruits. When I was out on an all day event I ate like the best of them, but what people didn't know is that I consumed fewer calories for a few days before the event. A few days ago I had a huge slice of pie, but what you might not know is that I had a long run that day where I burned nearly 600 calories. Now I do this consciously and plan for it, naturally thin people are either consciously careful or have habits/mechanisms that downregulate their calories if they happen to overeat without having to think about it.
Only on MFP do I see people questioning calories. I have yet to see a scientist worth their salt that doesn't take the way calories work as an indisputable fact. Of course there are many factors that influence either side of the equation and may even make it tricky to finetune sometimes with a certain margin of variance among people, but the CICO principle is still true. (unless you believe that "CALORIES DON'T EXIST, FEYNMAN SAID SO!", in that case you need help beyond what this forum can provide)7 -
Barring literally a legitimate and extremely serious medical condition (I have hypothyroidism, BTW, so I'm not being cavalier about this statement), generally, yes. Legitimate and serious meaning: the issue doesn't just affect your weight...because metabolism DOESN'T just affect your weight. So come on now. Someone who legitimately has such a slow metabolism that s/he can "eat 800 calories" (or whatever you'll see people say) "and still gain" is probably currently hospitalized, facing renal shutdown and possibly with a breathing tube (or else is on his/her way there). You don't have a metabolism so seriously damaged that you can eat toddler calories but are still walking around (and typing on the internet to complain).
That sounds mean and is severely truncated but you get the idea. If people literally, actually, realistically could consistently eat tiny amounts but "still gain," then in former periods in history, you would see 75% overweight people just like you see today (in the U.S. and I believe the UK is catching up, as are some other countries). You'd have seen the Allies releasing chubby people from Buchenwald.
Beyond that, CICO will indeed be slightly different for everyone - meaning, other things being equal, perhaps you can eat 50 more calories than I can and you'll lose weight and I'll come to a halt. But that STILL means I have to eat those 50 fewer calories...it is still CICO. I still have to eat less than I expend in order to lose weight. So do you.
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My parents generation included my parents. Mom was born 1929 and by the time I was aware by about 1967 she was obese. Dad was born 1920 and was overweight until 1974 when primitive medical treatment of an ulcer was treated by removal of 2/3 of his stomach. Nowadays this is called something like "gastric bypass". There's my anecdote, which sees your anecdote and I raise you a CICO.4
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So I'm not really convinced that CICO is the formula for weight loss/gain. I'm not questioning the ability to lose weight counting calories and eating healthy (I lost 18 kg counting calories over 15 years ago); I just don't believe excess calories are the thing that makes us fat. My parents' generation for example never knew what calories even were and they used to eat normally and still were slim. And we all have friends who eat like crazy and never workout, but are TOO thin, or at least normal weight. It's just too overwhelming counting every single thing you eat and monitoring your CICO every single day.
So what's the real deal?
Update: I know that counting calories is how you monitor your CICO (and CICO is not equal to counting calories) and I know it works, but I also lost a hell lot of weight with a nutritionist who would let me eat unlimited quantities of food, and even have vanilla ice-cream for dinner if I wanted to! So my point is there must be something else.
I wanted to address the following (bolded/italicized above).
I wonder how your parents did eat at that time? You say "normally." Do you have some sort of quantification for that? It could be interesting and revealing for you to investigate it further. I say that because I was born in the late 60s. In the 70s and through at least the mid-80s, our "normally" WAS NOT today's "normally". "A lot" at dinner was not the giant-size plates we see today. Neither were eating-out and take-out portions, although even those were much much rarer than I see today. I remember a "small" drink was actually small. Twelve ounces was NOT small, LOL. Maybe six ounces? Anybody remember getting Cokes in the glass bottles? Those were six ounces. I mean...literally. I think they went up to eight ounces at some point right before glass bottles went out of common usage.
Another thing: we did not snack constantly. A lot of kids got an after-school snack, but at least where the mom wasn't working and could oversee, LOL, I remember two small cookies (which we didn't see as small...we thought an Oreo-size cookie was normal, go figure) being a snack. That was it unless maybe with a small glass of milk. If you snacked it was because you hadn't been fed properly for your "three square meals," according to the beliefs of the time. Other than that, only toddlers and kindergartners needed a snack on a regular basis. When you got bigger, and had either an allowance or got paid for chores if your parents did that, you might bike your butt three miles to the Wawa to buy junk, eat or drink that junk, then pedal the three miles back to your friend's house to play PHYSICALLY outside until you were forced to come in long enough to have your dinner, then you WALKED OR RAN (yes, with feet) back outside to play (using your whole body...not just your fingers) until it got dark.
We didn't have "a treat" after every freakin' meal. We didn't even have dessert every day. When we did have it, it might be two small cookies or a small dish of ice cream...like literally the half-cup that *is* a serving, but which people laugh at today saying "That's not a serving!" Or, it might be an orange.
That was a long post, but no, IME, anyway, people in the past did not "eat normally and stay slim" if you're considering today's eating habits "eating normally." Not even close. There's no way in hell that even with big Sunday dinners and our "three square" meals a day with meat and potatoes for dinner, we ate anywhere close to the amount of calories that a "normal" eater consumes today.
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So I'm not really convinced that CICO is the formula for weight loss/gain. I'm not questioning the ability to lose weight counting calories and eating healthy (I lost 18 kg counting calories over 15 years ago); I just don't believe excess calories are the thing that makes us fat. My parents' generation for example never knew what calories even were and they used to eat normally and still were slim. And we all have friends who eat like crazy and never workout, but are TOO thin, or at least normal weight. It's just too overwhelming counting every single thing you eat and monitoring your CICO every single day.
So what's the real deal?
Update: I know that counting calories is how you monitor your CICO (and CICO is not equal to counting calories) and I know it works, but I also lost a hell lot of weight with a nutritionist who would let me eat unlimited quantities of food, and even have vanilla ice-cream for dinner if I wanted to! So my point is there must be something else.
What does "unlimited quantities of food"? How many calories are in this? What was your energy output? If you lost weight during this time you were in a caloric deficit. The fact you were ignorant of the details does not invalidate a physical principle.
You've essentially answered your own question. This is something that was not tracked previously. Life in Western society takes very limited physical effort. Everyone thinks of gross motor movements, but even little things like power steering, TV remotes, telecommuting, etc. have removed the need for the necessary action for good health.
These thin people eating "unlimited quantities of food" but too thin could be bulimic.0 -
ShammersPink wrote: »crzycatlady1 wrote: »I keep hearing about this magical generation that wasn't overweight, but in my family we have overweight/obese people going way back-my parents, grandparents, great-grandparents etc, When we do our big family reunion (oldest person there is in their late 80s), I stick out like a sore thumb
Whatever your family history, there is no doubt at all that the current prevalence of obesity is unprecedented. Look at the graph on the right. The thinnest state today is way fatter than the fattest state of 25 years ago:
http://stateofobesity.org/adult-obesity/
Love this link! I wonder how New York, Montana, Ohio and Minnesota did it. From the link:U.S. adult obesity rates decreased in four states (Minnesota, Montana, New York and Ohio), increased in two (Kansas and Kentucky) and remained stable in the rest, between 2014 and 2015. This marks the first time in the past decade that any states have experienced decreases — aside from a decline in Washington, D.C. in 2010.1 -
I think you cannot argue against CICO without knowing what others ate and expended as well as your own energy exchange, even if you want to disregard the science or perhaps I should say if you want to look for answers other than CICO.
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Barring literally a legitimate and extremely serious medical condition (I have hypothyroidism, BTW, so I'm not being cavalier about this statement), generally, yes. Legitimate and serious meaning: the issue doesn't just affect your weight...because metabolism DOESN'T just affect your weight. So come on now. Someone who legitimately has such a slow metabolism that s/he can "eat 800 calories" (or whatever you'll see people say) "and still gain" is probably currently hospitalized, facing renal shutdown and possibly with a breathing tube (or else is on his/her way there). You don't have a metabolism so seriously damaged that you can eat toddler calories but are still walking around (and typing on the internet to complain).
That sounds mean and is severely truncated but you get the idea. If people literally, actually, realistically could consistently eat tiny amounts but "still gain," then in former periods in history, you would see 75% overweight people just like you see today (in the U.S. and I believe the UK is catching up, as are some other countries). You'd have seen the Allies releasing chubby people from Buchenwald.
Beyond that, CICO will indeed be slightly different for everyone - meaning, other things being equal, perhaps you can eat 50 more calories than I can and you'll lose weight and I'll come to a halt. But that STILL means I have to eat those 50 fewer calories...it is still CICO. I still have to eat less than I expend in order to lose weight. So do you.
To add to this, if anyone is interested in the statistics of metabolism:
https://examine.com/faq/does-metabolism-vary-between-two-people/Extending this into practical terms and assuming an average expenditure of 2000kcal a day, 68% of the population falls into the range of 1840-2160kcal daily while 96% of the population is in the range of 1680-2320kcal daily. Comparing somebody at or below the 5th percentile with somebody at or above the 95th percentile would yield a difference of possibly 600kcal daily, and the chance of this occurring (comparing the self to a friend) is 0.50%, assuming two completely random persons.
So as you can tell, there variations in metabolism alone, then you also have to factor in medical conditions and other components of TDEE.2 -
singingflutelady wrote: »So I'm not really convinced that CICO is the formula for weight loss/gain. I'm not questioning the ability to lose weight counting calories and eating healthy (I lost 18 kg counting calories over 15 years ago); I just don't believe excess calories are the thing that makes us fat. My parents' generation for example never knew what calories even were and they used to eat normally and still were slim. And we all have friends who eat like crazy and never workout, but are TOO thin, or at least normal weight. It's just too overwhelming counting every single thing you eat and monitoring your CICO every single day.
So what's the real deal?
Update: I know that counting calories is how you monitor your CICO (and CICO is not equal to counting calories) and I know it works, but I also lost a hell lot of weight with a nutritionist who would let me eat unlimited quantities of food, and even have vanilla ice-cream for dinner if I wanted to! So my point is there must be something else.
What does "unlimited quantities of food"? How many calories are in this? What was your energy output? If you lost weight during this time you were in a caloric deficit. The fact you were ignorant of the details does not invalidate a physical principle.
You've essentially answered your own question. This is something that was not tracked previously. Life in Western society takes very limited physical effort. Everyone thinks of gross motor movements, but even little things like power steering, TV remotes, telecommuting, etc. have removed the need for the necessary action for good health.
These thin people eating "unlimited quantities of food" but too thin could be bulimic.
I'd say EDs make up a miniscule percentage of it. IMO the more likely scenarios are:
1) If you're not with them 24 hours a day, you don't know what/how much they eat in the big picture. Being with somebody for one meal a couple times a week or whatever isn't representative of their overall diet. I know a number of people who only eat one big meal a day, with a couple tiny snacks thrown in at other times. If I based my opinion of their eating habits on the occasional meal I share with them, I might think they were huge eaters - when the actual fact is that they eat a lot less than I'd think.
2) They're most likely a lot more active - both NEAT and exercise. Some people are on their feet all day, exercise regularly and fidget even when they're (rarely) sitting still. They don't have "faster metabolisms", they just move more, so they're burning more calories than a sedentary person.
3) One's concept of "eating unlimited quantities of food" is skewed. There are some people who would freak at seeing somebody eat a hamburger, or a few cookies. "OMGZZZZZ, he/she eats ALL teh foodz!". Read through the multitudes of posts here on MFP by people who claim they're eating 800 calories a day and can't possibly eat anymore because they're just stuffed. To somebody with such a twisted perspective of food, a normal dinner for many people would be "unlimited quantities of food" to them.
As to the OP - whether you count and log them or not, or whether you even acknowledge their existence, it's a simple and well-established fact that calories are what drive weight gain/loss. It doesn't matter if your dinner is vanilla ice cream or kale which was tenderly hand-raised in your organic garden and watered with elves' tears - in the overall picture, if you're eating more calories than you're expending, you'll gain weight; if you eat less calories than you're expending, you'll lose weight. Period.9 -
^ #1 above: I saw this with my skinny friend in high school. She was 5'8" and 108 pounds. We all thought she ate like a pig but when we did sleep-overs, which generally extended to the next day - we'd all have breakfast, then go to the mall or just mess around - I'd see that, for example, she'd eat three greasy pieces of pizza for lunch out, but then at dinnertime she'd just not be hungry and she'd eat like half a cup of vegetables and a bite of chicken. She wasn't deliberately restricting in order to stay thin; she just legitimately wasn't hungry after eating a larger meal. She also naturally seemed to like some very low-calorie foods; we all balked at vegetables but she liked broccoli and would eat a large portion of that and just a small bit of the rest of what was on the table. And so on. Then at the next meal it would be something that would make our eyes roll again...a giant burger or something. It was all just balancing out, and keeping her, without her being conscious about it, at her quite low weight.
Another thing she did often was to leave food on her plate. The rest of us, who were constantly "dieting" as was the fad, would swallow up every last one of "our calories," all the while feeling like saints because it was only X amount of calories...but you see, we'd do that even if we didn't want what was in front of us. We just HAD TO eat up to that amount. My skinny friend? She'd order French fries and eat a few at a rapid "God, look at the way she EATS" pace...then leave the rest. Just not even think about them. Because she had eaten enough; she was full, and that was it.
The illusion: "That girl eats like a pig but she's seriously skinny! She has a supernatural metabolism." The reality: she was eating a very small amount of calories over the course of any given day or week.13 -
singingflutelady wrote: »So I'm not really convinced that CICO is the formula for weight loss/gain. I'm not questioning the ability to lose weight counting calories and eating healthy (I lost 18 kg counting calories over 15 years ago); I just don't believe excess calories are the thing that makes us fat. My parents' generation for example never knew what calories even were and they used to eat normally and still were slim. And we all have friends who eat like crazy and never workout, but are TOO thin, or at least normal weight. It's just too overwhelming counting every single thing you eat and monitoring your CICO every single day.
So what's the real deal?
Update: I know that counting calories is how you monitor your CICO (and CICO is not equal to counting calories) and I know it works, but I also lost a hell lot of weight with a nutritionist who would let me eat unlimited quantities of food, and even have vanilla ice-cream for dinner if I wanted to! So my point is there must be something else.
What does "unlimited quantities of food"? How many calories are in this? What was your energy output? If you lost weight during this time you were in a caloric deficit. The fact you were ignorant of the details does not invalidate a physical principle.
You've essentially answered your own question. This is something that was not tracked previously. Life in Western society takes very limited physical effort. Everyone thinks of gross motor movements, but even little things like power steering, TV remotes, telecommuting, etc. have removed the need for the necessary action for good health.
These thin people eating "unlimited quantities of food" but too thin could be bulimic.
I'd say EDs make up a miniscule percentage of it. IMO the more likely scenarios are:
1) If you're not with them 24 hours a day, you don't know what/how much they eat in the big picture. Being with somebody for one meal a couple times a week or whatever isn't representative of their overall diet. I know a number of people who only eat one big meal a day, with a couple tiny snacks thrown in at other times. If I based my opinion of their eating habits on the occasional meal I share with them, I might think they were huge eaters - when the actual fact is that they eat a lot less than I'd think.
2) They're most likely a lot more active - both NEAT and exercise. Some people are on their feet all day, exercise regularly and fidget even when they're (rarely) sitting still. They don't have "faster metabolisms", they just move more, so they're burning more calories than a sedentary person.
3) One's concept of "eating unlimited quantities of food" is skewed. There are some people who would freak at seeing somebody eat a hamburger, or a few cookies. "OMGZZZZZ, he/she eats ALL teh foodz!". Read through the multitudes of posts here on MFP by people who claim they're eating 800 calories a day and can't possibly eat anymore because they're just stuffed. To somebody with such a twisted perspective of food, a normal dinner for many people would be "unlimited quantities of food" to them.
As to the OP - whether you count and log them or not, or whether you even acknowledge their existence, it's a simple and well-established fact that calories are what drive weight gain/loss. It doesn't matter if your dinner is vanilla ice cream or kale which was tenderly hand-raised in your organic garden and watered with elves' tears - in the overall picture, if you're eating more calories than you're expending, you'll gain weight; if you eat less calories than you're expending, you'll lose weight. Period.
I do agree just putting that out there that there are thin people who eat unlimited quantities they um just don't keep it.0 -
^ #1 above: I saw this with my skinny friend in high school. She was 5'8" and 108 pounds. We all thought she ate like a pig but when we did sleep-overs, which generally extended to the next day - we'd all have breakfast, then go to the mall or just mess around - I'd see that, for example, she'd eat three greasy pieces of pizza for lunch out, but then at dinnertime she'd just not be hungry and she'd eat like half a cup of vegetables and a bite of chicken. She wasn't deliberately restricting in order to stay thin; she just legitimately wasn't hungry after eating a larger meal. She also naturally seemed to like some very low-calorie foods; we all balked at vegetables but she liked broccoli and would eat a large portion of that and just a small bit of the rest of what was on the table. And so on. Then at the next meal it would be something that would make our eyes roll again...a giant burger or something. It was all just balancing out, and keeping her, without her being conscious about it, at her quite low weight.
Another thing she did often was to leave food on her plate. The rest of us, who were constantly "dieting" as was the fad, would swallow up every last one of "our calories," all the while feeling like saints because it was only X amount of calories...but you see, we'd do that even if we didn't want what was in front of us. We just HAD TO eat up to that amount. My skinny friend? She'd order French fries and eat a few at a rapid "God, look at the way she EATS" pace...then leave the rest. Just not even think about them. Because she had eaten enough; she was full, and that was it.
The illusion: "That girl eats like a pig but she's seriously skinny! She has a supernatural metabolism." The reality: she was eating a very small amount of calories over the course of any given day or week.
Yep. My ex was clinically underweight and I got to see firsthand how it works. I'm a big eater and he could easily match me for a meal, but then he's just not hungry. There were days where he would totally forget to eat or just have a snickers bar and call it a meal. Our other friends still saw him as the big eater who never gains weight, but they had no idea how much of a social eater he was. If he didn't have people around him he would probably starve to death before he remembers that eating is a think humans need to do, and not just a social pastime.8
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