What is CICO
bmeadows380
Posts: 2,981 Member
@Dad4Myla asked this in another thread, and I wanted to respond in length but didn't want to hijack that thread, so I decided to answer in a new one 
CICO is NOT a diet, though you'll hear that it is from all sorts of people, including dieticians. It often gets confused with calorie counting, which IS a diet style, but its not a diet by itself. Sadly, its treated as though its a fad diet by some dieticians - there was even an article recently on Fox News and in outlets in Britain and Australia from a supposed professional dietician who claimed that the trend of CICO as the newest diet fad on redit was actually a "horrible diet that no dietician would recommend" *shakes head* She instead went on in the article to claim that people just needed to eat mindfully and spouted the same old tired, outdated advice that's been given since the 80's such as eat low fat dairy and lean meats, lots of fruits and vegetables, exercise, and just cut down. (newer research has found that fat isn't the demon it was thought to be and the new recommendations are to go for fuller fat dairy like whole milk and use butter instead of margarine).
The whole "just eat mindfully" recommendation really burns me up because it comes across as being so self righteous. Some folks can just eat mindfully and they naturally stop at a portion size. The problem with most of us who are obese is that those signals aren't functioning very well! For one, I can't judge easily what a serving size is just by eyeballing something and for two, my body is slow to realize that I've gotten full, so I can eat a serving size and still feel very hungry. And eating slower doesn't help. I need the structure provided by weighing and measuring that comes with calorie counting to keep myself from overeating.
CICO, however, is NOT a diet, not like Keto or Adkins or Paleo or Weight Watchers or such. CICO is the underlying mathematical principle behind losing weight - you lose weight by eating fewer calories than your body consumes. The balance point varies from person to person and even from day to day, and there are many factors that can affect that balance, such as hormones, but in the end, to lose weight, you must eat less than your body consumes, or create a deficit.
There's a lot of good threads here about the subject to better explain it, and this one is decent (its from the debate thread, though, so be prepared for the arguing!)
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10348650/cico-still-skeptical-come-inside-for-a-meticulous-log-that-proves-it#latest
CICO is the underlying principle behind any diet. the point is to lose weight sustainably, you find a method that will work best for you individually, but no matter what diet plan you choose, whether you are cutting carbs, cutting fat, or just watching calorie intake, the only way you lose weight is to eat less than you consume. Some folks do much better on low carb - if they cut carbs to moderate low like in Adkins or to very low like with Keto, they find that they feel better and are better able to feel satiated and thus are better able to keep to their deficit. Other folks feel better with a lower fat, high carb diet. Some folks have found that limiting certain food groups or items like high sugary sweets or going lower sugar really helps them. For some folks, intermittent fasting helps them by limiting the hours in which they eat. For me personally, low carb doesn't work and leaves me tired and cranky and starving. I fight cravings and will power, so I've learned how to compromise with myself by allowing what it is I'm craving but in a smaller, controlled portion. And there are some things I just can't keep in my house.
Weight loss comes down to eating less than you consume, but please remember that the calculators are estimates at best and no calculator is going to be able to give you precise numbers, though in general, they are good enough. There are some folks who come here and say calorie counting doesn't work because they tried it and didn't lose weight. If after a few weeks at one calorie limit setting you don't see results, than its probably because either a) your body's calorie expenditure is actually lower than the MFP setting, so try lowering it by 100 calories and try again or b) you aren't properly recording your calorie intake (meaning CI is too high) either because you aren't accurately weighing your foods, or you are using inaccurate foods from the database (and the database is filled with all kinds of inaccuracies) or c) you are overestimating your your calorie expenditure (CO is too low) so either change your setting back down or don't count as many exercise calories.
MFP's calculator is based on an estimated baseline depending on what setting you use (sedentary, lightly active, etc). If you use sedentary as your baseline, you need to eat back a portion of your exercise calories, but don't eat hem all back, because MFP acknowledges that their calories burned estimates can be off quite a bit. Its usually recommended that you eat back half of your exercise calories. That's a recommendation, of course and you aren't required to do so.
if you have regular light activity per week, then use the lightly active setting and DON'T eat back your exercise calories at all - the lightly active setting takes that into account.
That's just trying to boil some things down in a nutshell! There's a lot of arguing back and forth here, especially as there is a lot of diet woo (woo in this case meaning pseudo-science and propaganda) out there; unfortunately, the diet industry is a money racket in the extreme, and there's all kinds of snack-oil salesmen ready to peddle their magic elixir or diet plan to make a buck, which makes it really confusing for those of us who desperately want to lose weight. And there are a lot of groups here that are passionate about their chosen method and may pass on things they heard or read which aren't always accurate.
but there are a lot of other good, solid threads by folks with sound, well-backed up research who can give you reasonable answers; just make sure you put on a flak jacket and a helmet before wading into the forums on here lol
But truthfully, the principles behind weight loss isn't hard - the math is straight forward. What's hard is putting it into practice, because our bodies and our minds fight us every step of the way - when you go on a diet, especially those of us who need to lose a lot of weight - its an all out war with ourselves!
CICO is NOT a diet, though you'll hear that it is from all sorts of people, including dieticians. It often gets confused with calorie counting, which IS a diet style, but its not a diet by itself. Sadly, its treated as though its a fad diet by some dieticians - there was even an article recently on Fox News and in outlets in Britain and Australia from a supposed professional dietician who claimed that the trend of CICO as the newest diet fad on redit was actually a "horrible diet that no dietician would recommend" *shakes head* She instead went on in the article to claim that people just needed to eat mindfully and spouted the same old tired, outdated advice that's been given since the 80's such as eat low fat dairy and lean meats, lots of fruits and vegetables, exercise, and just cut down. (newer research has found that fat isn't the demon it was thought to be and the new recommendations are to go for fuller fat dairy like whole milk and use butter instead of margarine).
The whole "just eat mindfully" recommendation really burns me up because it comes across as being so self righteous. Some folks can just eat mindfully and they naturally stop at a portion size. The problem with most of us who are obese is that those signals aren't functioning very well! For one, I can't judge easily what a serving size is just by eyeballing something and for two, my body is slow to realize that I've gotten full, so I can eat a serving size and still feel very hungry. And eating slower doesn't help. I need the structure provided by weighing and measuring that comes with calorie counting to keep myself from overeating.
CICO, however, is NOT a diet, not like Keto or Adkins or Paleo or Weight Watchers or such. CICO is the underlying mathematical principle behind losing weight - you lose weight by eating fewer calories than your body consumes. The balance point varies from person to person and even from day to day, and there are many factors that can affect that balance, such as hormones, but in the end, to lose weight, you must eat less than your body consumes, or create a deficit.
There's a lot of good threads here about the subject to better explain it, and this one is decent (its from the debate thread, though, so be prepared for the arguing!)
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10348650/cico-still-skeptical-come-inside-for-a-meticulous-log-that-proves-it#latest
CICO is the underlying principle behind any diet. the point is to lose weight sustainably, you find a method that will work best for you individually, but no matter what diet plan you choose, whether you are cutting carbs, cutting fat, or just watching calorie intake, the only way you lose weight is to eat less than you consume. Some folks do much better on low carb - if they cut carbs to moderate low like in Adkins or to very low like with Keto, they find that they feel better and are better able to feel satiated and thus are better able to keep to their deficit. Other folks feel better with a lower fat, high carb diet. Some folks have found that limiting certain food groups or items like high sugary sweets or going lower sugar really helps them. For some folks, intermittent fasting helps them by limiting the hours in which they eat. For me personally, low carb doesn't work and leaves me tired and cranky and starving. I fight cravings and will power, so I've learned how to compromise with myself by allowing what it is I'm craving but in a smaller, controlled portion. And there are some things I just can't keep in my house.
Weight loss comes down to eating less than you consume, but please remember that the calculators are estimates at best and no calculator is going to be able to give you precise numbers, though in general, they are good enough. There are some folks who come here and say calorie counting doesn't work because they tried it and didn't lose weight. If after a few weeks at one calorie limit setting you don't see results, than its probably because either a) your body's calorie expenditure is actually lower than the MFP setting, so try lowering it by 100 calories and try again or b) you aren't properly recording your calorie intake (meaning CI is too high) either because you aren't accurately weighing your foods, or you are using inaccurate foods from the database (and the database is filled with all kinds of inaccuracies) or c) you are overestimating your your calorie expenditure (CO is too low) so either change your setting back down or don't count as many exercise calories.
MFP's calculator is based on an estimated baseline depending on what setting you use (sedentary, lightly active, etc). If you use sedentary as your baseline, you need to eat back a portion of your exercise calories, but don't eat hem all back, because MFP acknowledges that their calories burned estimates can be off quite a bit. Its usually recommended that you eat back half of your exercise calories. That's a recommendation, of course and you aren't required to do so.
if you have regular light activity per week, then use the lightly active setting and DON'T eat back your exercise calories at all - the lightly active setting takes that into account.
That's just trying to boil some things down in a nutshell! There's a lot of arguing back and forth here, especially as there is a lot of diet woo (woo in this case meaning pseudo-science and propaganda) out there; unfortunately, the diet industry is a money racket in the extreme, and there's all kinds of snack-oil salesmen ready to peddle their magic elixir or diet plan to make a buck, which makes it really confusing for those of us who desperately want to lose weight. And there are a lot of groups here that are passionate about their chosen method and may pass on things they heard or read which aren't always accurate.
but there are a lot of other good, solid threads by folks with sound, well-backed up research who can give you reasonable answers; just make sure you put on a flak jacket and a helmet before wading into the forums on here lol
But truthfully, the principles behind weight loss isn't hard - the math is straight forward. What's hard is putting it into practice, because our bodies and our minds fight us every step of the way - when you go on a diet, especially those of us who need to lose a lot of weight - its an all out war with ourselves!
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Replies
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Thank you. Calories in Calories out1
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Really great post!! Thank you!0
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Well put! Explained far better than I could have done!0
