Does the math of CICO always work?
mehreen_xo
Posts: 78 Member
Ofc it's a law of physics and is not wrong but what I mean is if I was to work out my deficit from food and my burn from excercise for the entire week, and eat like this for many weeks, will the deficit divided by 3500 definitely be how many pounds I will lose? I know things like TOM/unexpected meals out etc come into play but roughly?! Thank you!
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Replies
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I think, even the 3500 calories are a rough estimate.4
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For me, it depends on the food I choose and my health. 3500 kcals is a lb of fat but there are factors that affect my TDEE which affect how much food I need to eat to get that deficit.9
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If you are looking at weight lost over the course of many weeks, the answer is yes. For a shorter period of time the answer is maybe. Water weight changes can obscure things.9
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I refuse to say about you, but when I did it for me it was under the following condition: It was Sunday through Saturday, and the preceding week did not have a high-calorie binge day in it.
It worked out that my calorie deficit that week from eating and exercise divided by 3500 produced a number that was within 0.1 of my actual weight change that week.
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Possibly, maybe.... CI/CO is not a 100% perfect formula. There are too many variables for it to be spot on precise. Did you burn exactly what you thought you did each and every day? Did you log every single crumb perfectly and meticulously? Are the calories in everything you ate exactly what it says on the package/database etc?6
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Calorie counting is just an estimate or prediction of how many calories you consumed in a given day. Nothing is exact. Even nutrition labels can be off by 10%. The amount of food in a prepackaged item can be more than the weight on the label.7
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My experience is that it varies. I chose to eat at maintenance for two weeks and lost normally. My first week back to deficit, I was up slightly (0.2). The next week I stayed the same, then had a modest loss (something like 0.4 or 0.6) and went back to losing normally.
Could I have been slightly over my maintenance calories and my body just didn't catch up for a few days? Oh, yeah. It was Passover and I couldn't write stuff down or weigh/measure, so as much as I tried to estimate along the lines of "This recipe makes 4 servings and I'm taking 1/4 of it", etc., there was plenty of room to be off/over. I wasn't exercising as much as usual. It was also TOM.
Could've been a change to my sodium intake; I was visiting my parents and they go low-salt. When I went home and went back to 'normal' for me, it could have sparked extra water retention. I also started stepping up my workouts a bit, adding dumbbells to resistance tubes. More water retention potential.
But all this started happening the week after I'd brought my calories back down from maintenance, where I was actually expecting to stabilize/gain slightly.
My n=1? Your body may not bill/credit you promptly, but it will eventually demand you settle the account.4 -
The formula always works. Where it gets messed up is us. We don't know exactly how many calories we burn during exercise or exactly what our activity level is each day or how many calories are burned digesting different foods or how much waste is in our system or how hydrated we are and our calorie counting isn't perfect. There are lots of variables but over the long term, it works very well if you do.11
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Sometimes there are delayed results but it balances out and the vast majority of the time it is accurate enough for my purposes.1
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CICO as a concept is valid. The problem is that we can't accurately calculate either CI or CO. We're always working with estimates. Over a long enough period of time, you can be fairly accurate, but not over a matter of weeks.10
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Add the fact that not all the food you eat gets digested-and that varies for each person....CICO is not science at all- its approximates.7
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Awesome article.1 -
CICO is a concept that works. Only problem is that it is all estimates and maybe estimating the wrong activity level1
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The math is going to be only as good as the values used for each variable. Calories in is still an estimate, although you can get kind of close by measuring and weighing everything. Calories out is a lot harder to estimate, MFP and all other calculators use general averages. The calorie burn on machines can be off by a lot; even HRMs can give you readings that aren't especially close. You can get a better idea, over time, of your calories out by closely tracking the intake and monitoring what's happening with your weight.
Add to that the fact that not all weight lost or gained is fat. 3500 calories a pound equates to fat specifically, it will be different for muscle. And, as you already mentioned, water retention/release as well as different amounts of material in the digestive tract can also throw off your readings. That's why we weigh periodically: to make sure our efforts are on track to lose or maintain (or gain, if that's a goal).
There's nothing wrong with the formula itself; it's the estimates where you have problems.2 -
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Yes. I have kept spreadsheets with data and with one exception where I started taking hormones my total loss over, say, 6 months was EXACTLY equal to the deficit over those 6 months.3
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Read the article in this thread
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10576091/energy-equation-the-best-article-ive-ever-read
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The problem with doing the math yourself is that everything on both sides of the = is estimated. We know more and more about the values that we're estimating, but we also know that they're not exact, and they vary enough that people have to figure otu their own balance.
But yes, science approximates. Math approximates. Mathematical modelling is based on a set of assumptions and approximations, and scientific discoveries of relationships between events often are not "X causes Y" but X and Y are statistically related in the followin gway."
So: We estimate the number of calories a specific food provides, but it can vary based on how the food is prepared (cooked or not, chopped or mashed or whole, growing conditions at the farm). We estimate the number of calories a specific person needs to live, but it can vary based on the individual (lean mass, metabolism, hormones), and we estimate the number of calories a specific exercise will burn, but that also varies (some people develop more efficient movements, and "effort expended" measurements are very subjective).3 -
mehreen_xo wrote: »Ofc it's a law of physics and is not wrong but what I mean is if I was to work out my deficit from food and my burn from excercise for the entire week, and eat like this for many weeks, will the deficit divided by 3500 definitely be how many pounds I will lose? I know things like TOM/unexpected meals out etc come into play but roughly?! Thank you!
No. The issue is accuracy. Calorie counts in foods are estimates and not 100% accurate for each and every serving you eat. Calorie counts for exercise is also an estimate. So is your RMR and BMR and TDEE. So it's pretty rare that the math will ever work out exactly right.
BUT... It is a great guideline and it can be adjusted as you learn how your tracking tends to vary.
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The problem with doing the math yourself is that everything on both sides of the = is estimated. We know more and more about the values that we're estimating, but we also know that they're not exact, and they vary enough that people have to figure otu their own balance.
But yes, science approximates. Math approximates. Mathematical modelling is based on a set of assumptions and approximations, and scientific discoveries of relationships between events often are not "X causes Y" but X and Y are statistically related in the followin gway."
So: We estimate the number of calories a specific food provides, but it can vary based on how the food is prepared (cooked or not, chopped or mashed or whole, growing conditions at the farm). We estimate the number of calories a specific person needs to live, but it can vary based on the individual (lean mass, metabolism, hormones), and we estimate the number of calories a specific exercise will burn, but that also varies (some people develop more efficient movements, and "effort expended" measurements are very subjective).
Chopping/mashing don't change caloric content of food.0 -
stanmann571 wrote: »The problem with doing the math yourself is that everything on both sides of the = is estimated. We know more and more about the values that we're estimating, but we also know that they're not exact, and they vary enough that people have to figure otu their own balance.
But yes, science approximates. Math approximates. Mathematical modelling is based on a set of assumptions and approximations, and scientific discoveries of relationships between events often are not "X causes Y" but X and Y are statistically related in the following way."
So: We estimate the number of calories a specific food provides, but it can vary based on how the food is prepared (cooked or not, chopped or mashed or whole, growing conditions at the farm). We estimate the number of calories a specific person needs to live, but it can vary based on the individual (lean mass, metabolism, hormones), and we estimate the number of calories a specific exercise will burn, but that also varies (some people develop more efficient movements, and "effort expended" measurements are very subjective).
Chopping/mashing don't change caloric content of food.
It changes the availability of carbohydrate and how fast we respond to it:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268005X11000725
Cooking and breaking down cell walls changes how much nutrition we extract from food:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2011/12/08/why-calorie-counts-are-wrong-cooked-food-provides-a-lot-more-energy/#.WW4DpaIgSEw
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stanmann571 wrote: »The problem with doing the math yourself is that everything on both sides of the = is estimated. We know more and more about the values that we're estimating, but we also know that they're not exact, and they vary enough that people have to figure otu their own balance.
But yes, science approximates. Math approximates. Mathematical modelling is based on a set of assumptions and approximations, and scientific discoveries of relationships between events often are not "X causes Y" but X and Y are statistically related in the following way."
So: We estimate the number of calories a specific food provides, but it can vary based on how the food is prepared (cooked or not, chopped or mashed or whole, growing conditions at the farm). We estimate the number of calories a specific person needs to live, but it can vary based on the individual (lean mass, metabolism, hormones), and we estimate the number of calories a specific exercise will burn, but that also varies (some people develop more efficient movements, and "effort expended" measurements are very subjective).
Chopping/mashing don't change caloric content of food.
It changes the availability of carbohydrate and how fast we respond to it:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268005X11000725
Cooking and breaking down cell walls changes how much nutrition we extract from food:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2011/12/08/why-calorie-counts-are-wrong-cooked-food-provides-a-lot-more-energy/#.WW4DpaIgSEw
Neither of those addresses chopping or mashing.
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The first refers to "influenced by processing," and refers out to several other articles in which "processing" includes breaking down particle size as well as heating.
https://www.intechopen.com/books/carbohydrates-comprehensive-studies-on-glycobiology-and-glycotechnology/food-structure-and-carbohydrate-digestibility
"Mechanical disruption of food structure is one of the most effective ways of increasing carbohydrate energy availability from foods, and milling, crushing, pounding and such processes have been used for thousands of years to improve energy extraction from all types of plant tissue, but especially from the wellprotected form of seeds. On the other hand, reducing tissue disruption to lower carbohydrate digestibility of grain products has been found to be an effective strategy in reducing the glycemic impact of foods in populations with excessive energy intakes, obesity and diabetes"
Would a skeptics site be a reasonable resource? If they agree that breaking food up changes what we can extract from it (in this case, carotenoids?) is that legit to you?
https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/26559/does-blending-food-to-break-down-the-cell-walls-make-it-healthier
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Note that I"m not arguing against CICO. I'm a big proponent of it. I'm not arguing for woo or clean diets or any of that crap. I'm arguing that the math on both sides is based on estimates, as most research in complex systems is. Biochemistry at the cell level is pretty straightforward; biochemistry at the organism level is more complicated, and biochemistry at the societal level (once you include farms and agricultural practices) is even more so.
Human beings are not bomb calorimeters. We don't burn our food to ash and efficiently use it all.
Neither are we special snowflakes. this isn't an argument that some people are exempt from CICO. It's an argument that CICO requires understanding where those numbers come from on both sides of the equal sign.
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Note that I"m not arguing against CICO. I'm a big proponent of it. I'm not arguing for woo or clean diets or any of that crap. I'm arguing that the math on both sides is based on estimates, as most research in complex systems is. Biochemistry at the cell level is pretty straightforward; biochemistry at the organism level is more complicated, and biochemistry at the societal level (once you include farms and agricultural practices) is even more so.
Human beings are not bomb calorimeters. We don't burn our food to ash and efficiently use it all.
Neither are we special snowflakes. this isn't an argument that some people are exempt from CICO. It's an argument that CICO requires understanding where those numbers come from on both sides of the equal sign.
You're claiming that slicing a cucumber(for example) changes the caloric content.
You may not have intended to make that claim, but it's what you said.The problem with doing the math yourself is that everything on both sides of the = is estimated. We know more and more about the values that we're estimating, but we also know that they're not exact, and they vary enough that people have to figure otu their own balance.
But yes, science approximates. Math approximates. Mathematical modelling is based on a set of assumptions and approximations, and scientific discoveries of relationships between events often are not "X causes Y" but X and Y are statistically related in the followin gway."
So: We estimate the number of calories a specific food provides, but it can vary based on how the food is prepared (cooked or not, chopped or mashed or whole, growing conditions at the farm). We estimate the number of calories a specific person needs to live, but it can vary based on the individual (lean mass, metabolism, hormones), and we estimate the number of calories a specific exercise will burn, but that also varies (some people develop more efficient movements, and "effort expended" measurements are very subjective).
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No mathematical concept exists in perfection in the real world. Math is an abstract concept and perfection only exists in the abstract.
For a simple answer this is more of a short term/long term issue as we are attempting to isolate the variable of behavior. Few will see any level of accuracy or precision in the short term, but over long term this increases. I can attest to losing ~1 lb/week over a year following a moderate 500 kcal/week deficit. Of course reviewing my diary will show days eating under/days eating over and a changing exercise regimen, which are just three variables out of the countless variables we ignore every day.
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Simply put, all other things being equal, on average, the average person will lose an average of 1 pound per week if they consume an average of 3500 calories per week less than they expend on average over the long haul.0
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