CICO the lastest fad diet

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Replies

  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited December 2017
    joemac1988 wrote: »
    joemac1988 wrote: »
    I got called a liar on another MFP discussion for saying there's people that just count calories and disregard nutrition.

    And the author of this article is as confused on the subject as you are.

    " Sandon pointed out that "canned diet plans rarely work and are hard to stick with."

    Instead, she advocates forgoing the "quick-fix mentality" in favor of a long-term resolution to embrace a "combination of healthy eating and exercise."

    For example, Sandon said, "Reduce calories by cutting back on portion sizes or use pre-portioned foods, such as frozen meals, to cut back on total food intake.""

    Pretty much the standard advice given here.

    Different person quoted

    ""Severely restricting calories or food groups, along with rapid weight loss, are likely to backfire for many reasons, and the dieter will be left feeling frustrated," she added."

    Again, this seems to be the tone of those promoting calorie counting.

    I'm not confused at all. I was just told previously "Literally no one on earth tracks CICO and ignores nutrition" and that's not true. I'm totally on board with CICO being a surefire way to lose weight; no argument there.

    I think there are more than few that track calories and ignore nutrition. Especially when just starting out. I think some add lower calorie nutrient dense foods as much for volume as they do for nutrients.

    I think there are lots who start just focusing on calories (and it still beats many of the goofy fad diets for nutrition, I'd bet). But just focusing on calories does not mean you are nutrient deficient or (as joemac seems to think) super low protein.

    I also think that tracking is a learning experience, and many who do just focus on calories will learn that some foods aren't worth the calories and what foods are filling and make them feel good on a calorie deficit (or maintenance). And many will likely get interested in nutrition through tracking and start looking at other things once calories are down.

    What I think was said to joemac (truthfully) is that no one recommends eating a junk food only diet. I have a hard time imagining that anyone would even want to, although I know realistically some likely would. For me, even if I'm not focusing on nutrition at all, any regular meal needs some protein and some vegetables, that's how I grew up, and I think it's weird that people think you need to do anything particular to get basic nutrition in your diet beyond eat regular, normal foods.

    I do think it's clearly true that lots of people in the US eat nutrition-poor diets, but I don't think that's something pushed by those who say that calories are what matters for weight loss. And (obviously!) CICO is not a way of eating.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    Nikion901 wrote: »
    joemac1988 wrote: »
    joemac1988 wrote: »
    I got called a liar on another MFP discussion for saying there's people that just count calories and disregard nutrition.

    And the author of this article is as confused on the subject as you are.

    " Sandon pointed out that "canned diet plans rarely work and are hard to stick with."

    Instead, she advocates forgoing the "quick-fix mentality" in favor of a long-term resolution to embrace a "combination of healthy eating and exercise."

    For example, Sandon said, "Reduce calories by cutting back on portion sizes or use pre-portioned foods, such as frozen meals, to cut back on total food intake.""

    Pretty much the standard advice given here.

    Different person quoted

    ""Severely restricting calories or food groups, along with rapid weight loss, are likely to backfire for many reasons, and the dieter will be left feeling frustrated," she added."

    Again, this seems to be the tone of those promoting calorie counting.

    I'm not confused at all. I was just told previously "Literally no one on earth tracks CICO and ignores nutrition" and that's not true. I'm totally on board with CICO being a surefire way to lose weight; no argument there.

    I think there are more than few that track calories and ignore nutrition. Especially when just starting out. I think some add lower calorie nutrient dense foods as much for volume as they do for nutrients.

    When I was first starting out ... a very long time ago ... to lose weight, I did it by just counting calories ... for a couple of reasons ....
    1. I needed to know how many I was actually taking in. Yes, I read the labels and saw that a Snickers bar was 240 calories ... which didn't seem like so much, since a glass of whole milk was 150 calories ... and the snickers bar tasted much better than a glass of milk ...
    2. My first line of focus after step 1 was to see how many calories I could knock off my daily intake and still enjoy eating ... and the only way I knew how to do that was to .... a) log everything I ate, b) compare what I took in over the course of time to what was happening with my weight ... and c) start to drop some stuff I normally ate in favor of others that filled me up better on less calories. ....

    It was only 'along the way' that I also noticed that if I had a better nutritional profile from the food choices I made that I received other benefits besides weight loss ... like better hair, better nails, better skin, less bloat, better bowel habits, less swelling in my feet and legs .... So ... long way to it ... My current belief is that calories in - calories out IS the way to lose weight but that WHAT I eat is the way to good health.

    Yes, I bet for those not already interested in nutrition, this is really common as a result of logging.

    I was interested in nutrition already, but logging (or just writing down everything I ate) was eye-opening and I was able to knock off lots of calories without sacrificing any enjoyment (or nutrition).
  • CarvedTones
    CarvedTones Posts: 2,340 Member
    joemac1988 wrote: »
    joemac1988 wrote: »
    I got called a liar on another MFP discussion for saying there's people that just count calories and disregard nutrition.

    And the author of this article is as confused on the subject as you are.

    " Sandon pointed out that "canned diet plans rarely work and are hard to stick with."

    Instead, she advocates forgoing the "quick-fix mentality" in favor of a long-term resolution to embrace a "combination of healthy eating and exercise."

    For example, Sandon said, "Reduce calories by cutting back on portion sizes or use pre-portioned foods, such as frozen meals, to cut back on total food intake.""

    Pretty much the standard advice given here.

    Different person quoted

    ""Severely restricting calories or food groups, along with rapid weight loss, are likely to backfire for many reasons, and the dieter will be left feeling frustrated," she added."

    Again, this seems to be the tone of those promoting calorie counting.

    I'm not confused at all. I was just told previously "Literally no one on earth tracks CICO and ignores nutrition" and that's not true. I'm totally on board with CICO being a surefire way to lose weight; no argument there.

    I think there are more than few that track calories and ignore nutrition. Especially when just starting out. I think some add lower calorie nutrient dense foods as much for volume as they do for nutrients.

    I don't ignore macros totally, but I will let them slide a bit some days. I do try to get enough protein and have plenty of fruit and veggies in the mix. Because so many of my carbs are fruit, I tend to come in low for carbs and go over on sugar. I was going no starch for a while and now I am eating some starches, but not a lot; that's why so much fruit and sugar.
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
    CICO is not a way of eating? Not sure I agree with that. Yes, it's about energy balance but it's about balancing calories consumed (aka eating) with calories expended. Eating at a deficit is a way of eating.

    Pet peeve of mine but CICO is not calorie counting. The two are not the same. Too often when people refer to CICO, they are really talking about calorie counting.

    Eating at a deficit can be calorie counting. Losing weight through a deficit via a KETO diet still means CI<CO. CICO is the underlying energy balance, but is not a way of eating, is not a diet, is not a fad. It is the underlying physics behind weight management.

    It's why I think the article is so out to lunch. They are talking about calorie counting, not CICO.

    Just for fun, I googled CICO. And honestly now I'd say that the term does fit a fad diet. Not surprising really I guess. The diet industry is pretty quick to jump on terms and adopt them as their own.

    My pet peeve is "plant based" which apparently now means vegan.
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
    edited December 2017
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    CICO is not a way of eating? Not sure I agree with that. Yes, it's about energy balance but it's about balancing calories consumed (aka eating) with calories expended. Eating at a deficit is a way of eating.

    We will have to agree to disagree, then. CICO is a statement of how weight loss works. One may choose to eat in a way that creates a calorie deficit (or maintenance), but the ways to do that are basically infinite, and how much one thinks specifically about calories (and what else one thinks about) will vary a lot.

    The article suggests that CICO is a way of eating that ignores nutrition, and that is certainly not true. I would say that I accept CICO as a truth, and so when I decided to lose I chose to eat in a way that would reduce calories (as I was not then losing -- basically eat less, more move). I added movement (part of CICO, not a way of eating) and reduced what I was eating by lowering calories (by looking at where I was wasting calories).

    The people in the article are giving all these warnings about CICO that has nothing to do with how I was eating (I was concerned with nutrition, didn't go super low cal, etc.), so clearly they think it's a way of eating that has certain problem qualities. Just trying to eat less than you burn (whether by focusing on more filling foods or counting or moving more) does not have any specific qualities and, again, I think it's way to diverse and vague to consider a specific way of eating.
    Also, I think this statement (below) is true, though it makes it sound as if people believe them equal in terms of nutrition when nutrition is not the subject.
    It's a simplified approach to eating that essentially views fruits and vegetables through the same prism as candies and soda. All that matters is the total caloric tally.

    But that's exactly why it's not true (misleading). For calorie purposes, yes, the fruit and veg calories count, but that does not mean -- as the person suggests -- that anyone considers them nutritionally the same or that a "CICO approach" would consider them interchangeable. Even if we are talking about counting calories (which is only a subset of CICO approaches), they wouldn't be interchangeable, since nothing about CICO says that nutrition does not ALSO matter or that how filling foods are does not matter.

    The overall impression given by the article -- purposefully, I believe -- is that CICO is not simply a truth, but a way of dieting that involves eating lots of junk food, ignoring nutrition, and going for super fast weight loss (and, oddly, not eating pasta and olive oil and cutting food groups and being restrictive). Makes no sense.

    re: the bold section - the article is about CICO and therefore about calories. It does not say that the foods are viewed the same nutritionally. You are interpreting that from it.

    I actually think they are talking calories here, and they are correct. For CICO the source of the calories does not matter. If CI < CO then weight loss occurs. That's the premise of CICO. You see it on MFP all the time. "It doesn't matter what you eat, if you are in a deficit you'll lose weight" "There is no difference in the sugar in an apple or sugar in candy" "Every heard of the Twinkie diet?"
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    CICO is not a way of eating? Not sure I agree with that. Yes, it's about energy balance but it's about balancing calories consumed (aka eating) with calories expended. Eating at a deficit is a way of eating.

    We will have to agree to disagree, then. CICO is a statement of how weight loss works. One may choose to eat in a way that creates a calorie deficit (or maintenance), but the ways to do that are basically infinite, and how much one thinks specifically about calories (and what else one thinks about) will vary a lot.

    The article suggests that CICO is a way of eating that ignores nutrition, and that is certainly not true. I would say that I accept CICO as a truth, and so when I decided to lose I chose to eat in a way that would reduce calories (as I was not then losing -- basically eat less, more move). I added movement (part of CICO, not a way of eating) and reduced what I was eating by lowering calories (by looking at where I was wasting calories).

    The people in the article are giving all these warnings about CICO that has nothing to do with how I was eating (I was concerned with nutrition, didn't go super low cal, etc.), so clearly they think it's a way of eating that has certain problem qualities. Just trying to eat less than you burn (whether by focusing on more filling foods or counting or moving more) does not have any specific qualities and, again, I think it's way to diverse and vague to consider a specific way of eating.
    Also, I think this statement (below) is true, though it makes it sound as if people believe them equal in terms of nutrition when nutrition is not the subject.
    It's a simplified approach to eating that essentially views fruits and vegetables through the same prism as candies and soda. All that matters is the total caloric tally.

    But that's exactly why it's not true (misleading). For calorie purposes, yes, the fruit and veg calories count, but that does not mean -- as the person suggests -- that anyone considers them nutritionally the same or that a "CICO approach" would consider them interchangeable. Even if we are talking about counting calories (which is only a subset of CICO approaches), they wouldn't be interchangeable, since nothing about CICO says that nutrition does not ALSO matter or that how filling foods are does not matter.

    The overall impression given by the article -- purposefully, I believe -- is that CICO is not simply a truth, but a way of dieting that involves eating lots of junk food, ignoring nutrition, and going for super fast weight loss (and, oddly, not eating pasta and olive oil and cutting food groups and being restrictive). Makes no sense.

    re: the bold section - the article is about CICO and therefore about calories. It does not say that the foods are viewed the same nutritionally. You are interpreting that from it.

    I actually think they are talking calories here, and they are correct. For CICO the source of the calories does not matter. If CI < CO then weight loss occurs. That's the premise of CICO. You see it on MFP all the time. "It doesn't matter what you eat, if you are in a deficit you'll lose weight" "There is no difference in the sugar in an apple or sugar in candy" "Every heard of the Twinkie diet?"

    Watch the Mike Israetel video. Weight is the primary driver of health, actually. You have to worry about getting the excess weight off, and the caloric content of your diet matters more for that than the nutritional content does. Nutrition is important, but it's not as important as weight.

    I agree.
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    CICO is not a way of eating? Not sure I agree with that. Yes, it's about energy balance but it's about balancing calories consumed (aka eating) with calories expended. Eating at a deficit is a way of eating.

    We will have to agree to disagree, then. CICO is a statement of how weight loss works. One may choose to eat in a way that creates a calorie deficit (or maintenance), but the ways to do that are basically infinite, and how much one thinks specifically about calories (and what else one thinks about) will vary a lot.

    The article suggests that CICO is a way of eating that ignores nutrition, and that is certainly not true. I would say that I accept CICO as a truth, and so when I decided to lose I chose to eat in a way that would reduce calories (as I was not then losing -- basically eat less, more move). I added movement (part of CICO, not a way of eating) and reduced what I was eating by lowering calories (by looking at where I was wasting calories).

    The people in the article are giving all these warnings about CICO that has nothing to do with how I was eating (I was concerned with nutrition, didn't go super low cal, etc.), so clearly they think it's a way of eating that has certain problem qualities. Just trying to eat less than you burn (whether by focusing on more filling foods or counting or moving more) does not have any specific qualities and, again, I think it's way to diverse and vague to consider a specific way of eating.
    Also, I think this statement (below) is true, though it makes it sound as if people believe them equal in terms of nutrition when nutrition is not the subject.
    It's a simplified approach to eating that essentially views fruits and vegetables through the same prism as candies and soda. All that matters is the total caloric tally.

    But that's exactly why it's not true (misleading). For calorie purposes, yes, the fruit and veg calories count, but that does not mean -- as the person suggests -- that anyone considers them nutritionally the same or that a "CICO approach" would consider them interchangeable. Even if we are talking about counting calories (which is only a subset of CICO approaches), they wouldn't be interchangeable, since nothing about CICO says that nutrition does not ALSO matter or that how filling foods are does not matter.

    The overall impression given by the article -- purposefully, I believe -- is that CICO is not simply a truth, but a way of dieting that involves eating lots of junk food, ignoring nutrition, and going for super fast weight loss (and, oddly, not eating pasta and olive oil and cutting food groups and being restrictive). Makes no sense.

    re: the bold section - the article is about CICO and therefore about calories. It does not say that the foods are viewed the same nutritionally. You are interpreting that from it.

    I actually think they are talking calories here, and they are correct. For CICO the source of the calories does not matter. If CI < CO then weight loss occurs. That's the premise of CICO. You see it on MFP all the time. "It doesn't matter what you eat, if you are in a deficit you'll lose weight" "There is no difference in the sugar in an apple or sugar in candy" "Every heard of the Twinkie diet?"

    Either they are not talking about calories, or they're implying that equal calories = equal calories is somehow wrong.
    Both would be wrong.

    Just to be sure we are on the same page, we are talking about this paragraph - "It's a simplified approach to eating that essentially views fruits and vegetables through the same prism as candies and soda. All that matters is the total caloric tally."

    In which case, yes they are saying equal calories = equal calories. Which is true, and is the foundation of CICO.

    Then they start assuming all types of things. But after reading some of 'The CICO Diet' nonsense on the internet the article does make a little more sense.
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    CICO is not a way of eating? Not sure I agree with that. Yes, it's about energy balance but it's about balancing calories consumed (aka eating) with calories expended. Eating at a deficit is a way of eating.

    We will have to agree to disagree, then. CICO is a statement of how weight loss works. One may choose to eat in a way that creates a calorie deficit (or maintenance), but the ways to do that are basically infinite, and how much one thinks specifically about calories (and what else one thinks about) will vary a lot.

    The article suggests that CICO is a way of eating that ignores nutrition, and that is certainly not true. I would say that I accept CICO as a truth, and so when I decided to lose I chose to eat in a way that would reduce calories (as I was not then losing -- basically eat less, more move). I added movement (part of CICO, not a way of eating) and reduced what I was eating by lowering calories (by looking at where I was wasting calories).

    The people in the article are giving all these warnings about CICO that has nothing to do with how I was eating (I was concerned with nutrition, didn't go super low cal, etc.), so clearly they think it's a way of eating that has certain problem qualities. Just trying to eat less than you burn (whether by focusing on more filling foods or counting or moving more) does not have any specific qualities and, again, I think it's way to diverse and vague to consider a specific way of eating.
    Also, I think this statement (below) is true, though it makes it sound as if people believe them equal in terms of nutrition when nutrition is not the subject.
    It's a simplified approach to eating that essentially views fruits and vegetables through the same prism as candies and soda. All that matters is the total caloric tally.

    But that's exactly why it's not true (misleading). For calorie purposes, yes, the fruit and veg calories count, but that does not mean -- as the person suggests -- that anyone considers them nutritionally the same or that a "CICO approach" would consider them interchangeable. Even if we are talking about counting calories (which is only a subset of CICO approaches), they wouldn't be interchangeable, since nothing about CICO says that nutrition does not ALSO matter or that how filling foods are does not matter.

    The overall impression given by the article -- purposefully, I believe -- is that CICO is not simply a truth, but a way of dieting that involves eating lots of junk food, ignoring nutrition, and going for super fast weight loss (and, oddly, not eating pasta and olive oil and cutting food groups and being restrictive). Makes no sense.

    re: the bold section - the article is about CICO and therefore about calories. It does not say that the foods are viewed the same nutritionally. You are interpreting that from it.

    I actually think they are talking calories here, and they are correct. For CICO the source of the calories does not matter. If CI < CO then weight loss occurs. That's the premise of CICO. You see it on MFP all the time. "It doesn't matter what you eat, if you are in a deficit you'll lose weight" "There is no difference in the sugar in an apple or sugar in candy" "Every heard of the Twinkie diet?"

    Either they are not talking about calories, or they're implying that equal calories = equal calories is somehow wrong.
    Both would be wrong.

    Just to be sure we are on the same page, we are talking about this paragraph - "It's a simplified approach to eating that essentially views fruits and vegetables through the same prism as candies and soda. All that matters is the total caloric tally."

    In which case, yes they are saying equal calories = equal calories. Which is true, and is the foundation of CICO.

    Then they start assuming all types of things. But after reading some of 'The CICO Diet' nonsense on the internet the article does make a little more sense.

    Yeah that thing. Which they go on to say that "experts disagree" and the whole piece is written in a "aren't those people silly? It can't possibly be that easy" fashion, from the very beginning.

    Yeah, I wasn't really sure what exactly they were disagreeing with. And maybe they are playing loose and free with the term "expert".
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