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Why do people deny CICO ?
Replies
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tbright1965 wrote: »
I have no idea who you are arguing with. Because literally no one here said that you can explain day to day fluctuations with CICO. We tell people not to worry about day to day fluctuations because CICO will determine success long term. So I mean, yeah, I agree with you, and you seem to agree with OP, and the veteran posters who are constantly accused of being in a CICO cult.
Who is arguing?
The title of the topic is "Why do people deny CICO?"
Answers are given.
Somehow, that's an argument?
They deny CICO because it doesn't explain what is happening in a short time quantum.
CICO CAN work in the long term and still be unable to explain to people what is happening to them in the short term, correct?
It is not inconsistent for BOTH to be true.
Is the short term relevant? This is an issue many have as results are not immediate, hence why you will also find the cultist mantra on here as well "Have patience".
We are discussing biological processes with several variables at play. The primary concern for the majority is fat loss, which is not apparent in the short term, so why focus on this? It's largely water weight fluctuation and irrelevant in terms of fat loss.
Part of understanding the application of CICO in your life is that you will not be able to detect fat loss in the short term. I have access to a full metabolics lab and even with this I cannot detect fat or muscle mass change with any degree of confidence due to the degree of error in the instruments.
Autopsy works.
But the repeatability aspect kind of sucks.
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tbright1965 wrote: »
I have no idea who you are arguing with. Because literally no one here said that you can explain day to day fluctuations with CICO. We tell people not to worry about day to day fluctuations because CICO will determine success long term. So I mean, yeah, I agree with you, and you seem to agree with OP, and the veteran posters who are constantly accused of being in a CICO cult.
Who is arguing?
The title of the topic is "Why do people deny CICO?"
Answers are given.
Somehow, that's an argument?
They deny CICO because it doesn't explain what is happening in a short time quantum.
CICO CAN work in the long term and still be unable to explain to people what is happening to them in the short term, correct?
It is not inconsistent for BOTH to be true.
Is the short term relevant? This is an issue many have as results are not immediate, hence why you will also find the cultist mantra on here as well "Have patience".
Probably depends on the person trying to lose weight.
We live in a "microwave" and disposable generation. We want results now. If our spouse doesn't make us happy, there must be something wrong with them, get rid of it.
If I'm only eating 1000 calories/day and not losing weight, there must be something wrong with the diet. For gosh sakes, I ate kale and broccoli yesterday, why didn't I lose 20 pounds? <- a slight exaggeration, but it's not too hard for any of us to imagine these people exist.
Some people just need more instant results and hand holding. Doesn't mean there is anything wrong with CICO. But it does explain why people abandon it, even when they are accurately measuring CI and CO. They give up too soon.
It also explains why certain fads take off. Someone who eats 300g of carbs/day and moves to a ketogenic diet and loses a metric butt-ton of water weight thinks they are doing something.
Can't sustain it. But it's hooked them.
CICO isn't always fast and sexy. It's the slow moving boat competing in a world of fast supercars. The problem is it's not sexy, so people get off the boat and hop into one of those sexy supercars and then find out they can't afford to maintain it.
I do reserve the right to be wrong
See above, we want microwave results, not delivery weeks or months later.
We are discussing biological processes with several variables at play. The primary concern for the majority is fat loss, which is not apparent in the short term, so why focus on this? It's largely water weight fluctuation and irrelevant in terms of fat loss.
Part of understanding the application of CICO in your life is that you will not be able to detect fat loss in the short term. I have access to a full metabolics lab and even with this I cannot detect fat or muscle mass change with any degree of confidence due to the degree of error in the instruments.
And you have a better understanding. I can at least understand the science and math, even if my training is engineering, not biology or chemistry, or similar.
The only tool most "civilians" have to measure results is the scale. If the scale doesn't move, their tool doesn't reflect what is happening. So from that very limited perspective, it's not working in those short time periods.
Many don't stay with it and throw it away as we are want to do in this day and age.6 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »Also, it's already been well covered that many people misunderstand what CICO is. This is not a new idea in the conversation, and I assume most agree.
A follow up question is why, after the misunderstanding is cleared up, do some continue to deny CICO. Why cling to ideas that make no sense and that would rob you of the understanding that you do have control?
Answered above, I believe.
Why do people make other poor choices?
Why do people borrow money to buy a car when it's cheaper to save up and then buy one?
Why do people buy $5 candy at the movies when they can buy the same box at Wal*Mart and bring it in?
Why do people eat junk food when fruits, vegetables and lean proteins are better for you?
Why does advertising work?
People want instant gratification and are bad at critical reasoning.
Half the population has below average intelligence. I'm not shocked at all that people deny CICO. People deny the earth is a sphere. People believe their political party is working in their best interests. People believe all sorts of things despite evidence to the contrary.
They fight for their ideas. If you disagree, the fight or flight response is often triggered, not the rational thought centers.
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tbright1965 wrote: »tbright1965 wrote: »
I have no idea who you are arguing with. Because literally no one here said that you can explain day to day fluctuations with CICO. We tell people not to worry about day to day fluctuations because CICO will determine success long term. So I mean, yeah, I agree with you, and you seem to agree with OP, and the veteran posters who are constantly accused of being in a CICO cult.
Who is arguing?
The title of the topic is "Why do people deny CICO?"
Answers are given.
Somehow, that's an argument?
They deny CICO because it doesn't explain what is happening in a short time quantum.
CICO CAN work in the long term and still be unable to explain to people what is happening to them in the short term, correct?
It is not inconsistent for BOTH to be true.
Is the short term relevant? This is an issue many have as results are not immediate, hence why you will also find the cultist mantra on here as well "Have patience".
Probably depends on the person trying to lose weight.
We live in a "microwave" and disposable generation. We want results now. If our spouse doesn't make us happy, there must be something wrong with them, get rid of it.
If I'm only eating 1000 calories/day and not losing weight, there must be something wrong with the diet. For gosh sakes, I ate kale and broccoli yesterday, why didn't I lose 20 pounds? <- a slight exaggeration, but it's not too hard for any of us to imagine these people exist.
Some people just need more instant results and hand holding. Doesn't mean there is anything wrong with CICO. But it does explain why people abandon it, even when they are accurately measuring CI and CO. They give up too soon.
It also explains why certain fads take off. Someone who eats 300g of carbs/day and moves to a ketogenic diet and loses a metric butt-ton of water weight thinks they are doing something.
Can't sustain it. But it's hooked them.
CICO isn't always fast and sexy. It's the slow moving boat competing in a world of fast supercars. The problem is it's not sexy, so people get off the boat and hop into one of those sexy supercars and then find out they can't afford to maintain it.
I do reserve the right to be wrong
See above, we want microwave results, not delivery weeks or months later.
We are discussing biological processes with several variables at play. The primary concern for the majority is fat loss, which is not apparent in the short term, so why focus on this? It's largely water weight fluctuation and irrelevant in terms of fat loss.
Part of understanding the application of CICO in your life is that you will not be able to detect fat loss in the short term. I have access to a full metabolics lab and even with this I cannot detect fat or muscle mass change with any degree of confidence due to the degree of error in the instruments.
And you have a better understanding. I can at least understand the science and math, even if my training is engineering, not biology or chemistry, or similar.
The only tool most "civilians" have to measure results is the scale. If the scale doesn't move, their tool doesn't reflect what is happening. So from that very limited perspective, it's not working in those short time periods.
Many don't stay with it and throw it away as we are want to do in this day and age.
I didn't have this understanding until coming to terms with my own bovine excrement. When I finally accepted that I was in control things started moving in the desired direction.
I've mentioned this in the past, but many weight management experts don't like calorie counting for the specific reasons you mention. I do not agree with this and see this as a bigotry of low expectations. You cannot manage finances without understanding the debits and credits and this is defined. Eating is far less defined and there are few immediate ramifications. There is nothing intuitive about eating. Your weight is an output of your behavior.
I've also noticed that there is a natural degree of sloppiness that us biologists have come to expect in systems, whereas chemists, engineers, physicists struggle with this as the accounting does not work out to the penny/pound.9 -
tbright1965 wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »tbright1965 wrote: »If there is one thing I've learned from the MFP Debate forum, it's that there are a lot of people out there who aren't familiar with the concept of "debate". I guess it explains our current political climate (at least in the US) where if someone disagrees with you they are assumed to be evil, stupid, unpatriotic, criminal, and barely fit to live without a second thought.
Debate is healthy and actually necessary. Having your opinion challenged gives you the opportunity to ensure you fully understand the issue and determine how firmly you hold your opinion. And it opens the door to the idea that changing your mind when confronted with facts you weren't aware of is not necessarily a bad thing. Disagreeing with someone isn't rude, disrespectful, or an attack. It's a part of thoughtful conversation.
The demise of debate, compromise, and understanding of the scientific process are all leading us as a society down a dangerous path. This is my deep thought of the day, and it was brought to you by "Why Do People Deny CICO?". I really hope there are some ACV or starvation mode threads today, I need to lighten up a little here
I don't mind people debating what someone says. We run into problems when people either attribute something completely different, or debate based on faulty understanding.
I've seen many variations of, "I'm not saying CICO doesn't work, just it's not the complete picture."
Weight is a very course measure of health and fitness. It doesn't tell the whole story. But many seem to jump on that and suggest the person saying it is trying to say CICO doesn't work.
Odd, I didn't see that said at all. But there are those who will begin arguing that someone said just that, when they didn't.
Weight isn't meant to be a measure of health and fitness. Why are you suggesting that it is?
Because I've observed that people treat weight as an aspect of health and fitness. So I'm not sure I'm suggesting anything. Is it true or false that there are values presented that indicate healthy and unhealthy weights?
I know that, you know that. However, the topic is WHY do people deny CICO? I've offered some explanations WHY they do that.GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »
There are separate issues that correlate and interweave, but they are still separate. Your weight impacts your health and can impact your fitness, but it's still a separate issue.GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »
Similarly, the people who seem to have problems with CICO have trouble separating calories from food and nutrients.
Broccoli is a food. As a food, it has properties. Some of those properties can be quantified in certain ways. One way is as a measure of the nutrients it supplies. Another is as a measure of the energy it supplies. Those measures are not the same thing. They are not the same property.
Agreed. I'm certainly not suggesting otherwise.GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »
Certain foods have certain properties for certain people that make them feel certain things physiologically. This is another property that could stem from the food having either fiber, fat, starch, protein, or whatever thing it is in a particular food that works to make a particular individual get a feeling of fullness of satiety. This is not a function of the food but a reaction that varies among individuals (yes, some people are perfectly satiated by snack cakes) to the particular components of the food and has nothing to do with invalidating CICO.
And yes, I'm rambling, because I really am tired of people taking things that aren't calories and conflating them with calories. You did it here with weight. You're conflating weight with things that aren't weight. Weight isn't meant to be those things in the first place.
I did it, or I am observing and commenting on what people do?
I'm conflating nothing. Or at least didn't mean to. After all, I think I was saying CICO doesn't cover all those things and doesn't do a good job in the short term. Never said it was false or useless.
My explanation of WHY people deny CICO was rooted in using it to measure things it wasn't meant to measure, or at least how the scale and CICO cannot account for other factors as suggested.
I can explain WHY people (remember, others) may not buy CICO without being in the camp of not buying it.
Just because I can place myself in their shoes and describe their motivations or what MAY be happening in a short time quantum doesn't mean I buy their arguments.
Okay, I feel you, you're trying to get into their heads, but you're muddying the waters.
Scale readings =/= CICO and this is made clear many times on the board. The argument that you seem to be making that CICO isn't useful in the short term doesn't really bear out. Any time someone asserts an argument about short term, it's immediately rebutted (just saw a thread about this today, in fact).8 -
People want a quick fix. They don't want to believe that it's CICO...that take works and effort. I've lost 170 pounds and get asked quite a bit what my secret is. The eyes glaze over when I say it's a matter of calories in vs. calories out.4
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GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »tbright1965 wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »tbright1965 wrote: »If there is one thing I've learned from the MFP Debate forum, it's that there are a lot of people out there who aren't familiar with the concept of "debate". I guess it explains our current political climate (at least in the US) where if someone disagrees with you they are assumed to be evil, stupid, unpatriotic, criminal, and barely fit to live without a second thought.
Debate is healthy and actually necessary. Having your opinion challenged gives you the opportunity to ensure you fully understand the issue and determine how firmly you hold your opinion. And it opens the door to the idea that changing your mind when confronted with facts you weren't aware of is not necessarily a bad thing. Disagreeing with someone isn't rude, disrespectful, or an attack. It's a part of thoughtful conversation.
The demise of debate, compromise, and understanding of the scientific process are all leading us as a society down a dangerous path. This is my deep thought of the day, and it was brought to you by "Why Do People Deny CICO?". I really hope there are some ACV or starvation mode threads today, I need to lighten up a little here
I don't mind people debating what someone says. We run into problems when people either attribute something completely different, or debate based on faulty understanding.
I've seen many variations of, "I'm not saying CICO doesn't work, just it's not the complete picture."
Weight is a very course measure of health and fitness. It doesn't tell the whole story. But many seem to jump on that and suggest the person saying it is trying to say CICO doesn't work.
Odd, I didn't see that said at all. But there are those who will begin arguing that someone said just that, when they didn't.
Weight isn't meant to be a measure of health and fitness. Why are you suggesting that it is?
Because I've observed that people treat weight as an aspect of health and fitness. So I'm not sure I'm suggesting anything. Is it true or false that there are values presented that indicate healthy and unhealthy weights?
I know that, you know that. However, the topic is WHY do people deny CICO? I've offered some explanations WHY they do that.GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »
There are separate issues that correlate and interweave, but they are still separate. Your weight impacts your health and can impact your fitness, but it's still a separate issue.GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »
Similarly, the people who seem to have problems with CICO have trouble separating calories from food and nutrients.
Broccoli is a food. As a food, it has properties. Some of those properties can be quantified in certain ways. One way is as a measure of the nutrients it supplies. Another is as a measure of the energy it supplies. Those measures are not the same thing. They are not the same property.
Agreed. I'm certainly not suggesting otherwise.GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »
Certain foods have certain properties for certain people that make them feel certain things physiologically. This is another property that could stem from the food having either fiber, fat, starch, protein, or whatever thing it is in a particular food that works to make a particular individual get a feeling of fullness of satiety. This is not a function of the food but a reaction that varies among individuals (yes, some people are perfectly satiated by snack cakes) to the particular components of the food and has nothing to do with invalidating CICO.
And yes, I'm rambling, because I really am tired of people taking things that aren't calories and conflating them with calories. You did it here with weight. You're conflating weight with things that aren't weight. Weight isn't meant to be those things in the first place.
I did it, or I am observing and commenting on what people do?
I'm conflating nothing. Or at least didn't mean to. After all, I think I was saying CICO doesn't cover all those things and doesn't do a good job in the short term. Never said it was false or useless.
My explanation of WHY people deny CICO was rooted in using it to measure things it wasn't meant to measure, or at least how the scale and CICO cannot account for other factors as suggested.
I can explain WHY people (remember, others) may not buy CICO without being in the camp of not buying it.
Just because I can place myself in their shoes and describe their motivations or what MAY be happening in a short time quantum doesn't mean I buy their arguments.
Okay, I feel you, you're trying to get into their heads, but you're muddying the waters.
Scale readings =/= CICO and this is made clear many times on the board. The argument that you seem to be making that CICO isn't useful in the short term doesn't really bear out. Any time someone asserts an argument about short term, it's immediately rebutted (just saw a thread about this today, in fact).
The topic is a HEAD topic.
Why do people choose the behaviors they choose? I'd estimate that's 99.44% what's going on in their head.
I'd suggest arguing the validity of numbers is off base when asking why people choose the behaviors they choose.
Edited to add:
An anecdote for consideration.
Back in the stone ages of home entertainment, in the 1980s, there were two competing technologies for video tape in the home, Betamax and VHS.
Technically speaking, Betamax had many advantages over VHS, better resolution and sound quality and higher quality VCRs.
VHS had longer duration cassettes and porn. Seems porn chose VHS over Betamax and Betamax died off in the home VCR market.
Or at least that's one rumor. Probably more accurately, the backers of VHS, which earned 70% of the market supported the rental market and did other non-technical things to make VHS, a technology that didn't give the high quality picture and sound of Betamax, advantages that were not technical.
The bottom line take away is one can have the technically superior answer, but due to non-technical factors, people will make other choices.4 -
So many people just don't grasp the concept of calories in calories out. They tell me that not all calories are equal and that you have to eat healthy to lose weight. I used to argue with these people but lately I just smile and nod. It's worked for me.. I eat basically anything I want and have lost 5 kg. I feel so many more people would be successful at weight loss if they just grasped this simple scientific concept. I'm hoping to reach my ultimate weight and then write a blog list about how I did it and prove all the CICO deniers wrong
Lots of reasons ... because no weight loss show says here is your 1200 calorie diet of junk and highly processed foods, because no professional athlete says they eat meals of 85% sugar/saturated fats, because their favorite celebrities tell them its the way to lose weight ... so people get confused and think they HAVE to eat healthy to lose weight or they have to exercise
Don't get me wrong I prefer to eat healthy meaning foods that balance my hormones, build muscle to fight fat, and give nutritional benefits. Plus me personally I just feel better, way more energy when I choose veggies over cookies. Same with exercise, drag myself to the gym but love it once I start and sleep so much better at night.
But none of this is needed for weigh loss. And I have days I eat badly for sure but still under maintenance because always CICO.
SO you are right... a Joule is 0.239006 small calories and 1 kilocalorie (food calorie) is the amount of energy needed to raise 1 gram of water 1°C. therefore a calorie burned is a calorie burned.
Am not sure what you mean by "I eat basically anything I want" but if you do end up eating an unhealthy ratio consistently ... 2:1 or 4:3 or heck 3:0 ... basically anything 50% plus of processed saturated sugar foods and write a blog please post pics with the blog and a daily accounting of how you feel ... I would love to know effects health wise ... and any long term issues (if any) once you continue that kind of diet with weight maintenance as well. If what you meant was you have sugar/fat/fried when you want it but its not the majority of your diet then just ignore this entire paragraph.
7 -
I had stomach flu a few times in the past. I didnt eat for days and barely drank fluids yet the scale said I gained 2 lbs. I have gained or lost 10 lbs in a month without changing my diet, but by taking birth control pills or thyroid meds. Some weight loss or gain is hormonal and defies the laws of CICO. But, for the most part it works.13
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You cannot manage finances without understanding the debits and credits and this is defined.
As an accountant, this makes me laugh. Because most people have a completely backwards idea about debits and credits. A debit to your bank account means your balance goes up. A credit means it goes down. But many of you are reading this and thinking I have it completely backwards, and I don't.
The issue is most people don't realize the statement they get from the bank every month is the banks statement of what they owe you, not your statement of what you have.
Not sure what my point is, just that this comment made me laugh.7 -
I had stomach flu a few times in the past. I didnt eat for days and barely drank fluids yet the scale said I gained 2 lbs. I have gained or lost 10 lbs in a month without changing my diet, but by taking birth control pills or thyroid meds. Some weight loss or gain is hormonal and defies the laws of CICO.
mmmmm ... your body retains fluids at various points for any number of reasons ... and sure hormones can account for one person losing 30 versus 40 lbs in a certain timeframe ... but its loss either way ... I have to say long term CICO is provable always ... you can pretty much look up any picture of people being starved and its not like there are 15 skeletons and one fat guy because you know hormones ... sorry3 -
I had stomach flu a few times in the past. I didnt eat for days and barely drank fluids yet the scale said I gained 2 lbs. I have gained or lost 10 lbs in a month without changing my diet, but by taking birth control pills or thyroid meds. Some weight loss or gain is hormonal and defies the laws of CICO. But, for the most part it works.
That’s as silly as saying gravity works for the most part. CICO isn’t a kinda sorta maybe sometimes principle. It’s a physical law, just like gravity.8 -
IzzyFlower2018 wrote: »So many people just don't grasp the concept of calories in calories out. They tell me that not all calories are equal and that you have to eat healthy to lose weight. I used to argue with these people but lately I just smile and nod. It's worked for me.. I eat basically anything I want and have lost 5 kg. I feel so many more people would be successful at weight loss if they just grasped this simple scientific concept. I'm hoping to reach my ultimate weight and then write a blog list about how I did it and prove all the CICO deniers wrong
Lots of reasons ... because no weight loss show says here is your 1200 calorie diet of junk and highly processed foods, because no professional athlete says they eat meals of 85% sugar/saturated fats, because their favorite celebrities tell them its the way to lose weight ... so people get confused and think they HAVE to eat healthy to lose weight or they have to exercise
Don't get me wrong I prefer to eat healthy meaning foods that balance my hormones, build muscle to fight fat, and give nutritional benefits. Plus me personally I just feel better, way more energy when I choose veggies over cookies. Same with exercise, drag myself to the gym but love it once I start and sleep so much better at night.
But none of this is needed for weigh loss. And I have days I eat badly for sure but still under maintenance because always CICO.
SO you are right... a Joule is 0.239006 small calories and 1 kilocalorie (food calorie) is the amount of energy needed to raise 1 gram of water 1°C. therefore a calorie burned is a calorie burned.
Am not sure what you mean by "I eat basically anything I want" but if you do end up eating an unhealthy ratio consistently ... 2:1 or 4:3 or heck 3:0 ... basically anything 50% plus of processed saturated sugar foods and write a blog please post pics with the blog and a daily accounting of how you feel ... I would love to know effects health wise ... and any long term issues (if any) once you continue that kind of diet with weight maintenance as well. If what you meant was you have sugar/fat/fried when you want it but its not the majority of your diet then just ignore this entire paragraph.
Again (endlessly again), we are not talking about nutrition and fitness (and I'd love to know where those ratios came from, because not science), we are talking about the energy balance required to gain, maintain or lose fat. The pseudo-scientific finger-wagging over what people may or may not be eating has nothing to do with how much they're eating. If you had just left it here "But none of this is needed for weigh loss. And I have days I eat badly for sure but still under maintenance because always CICO" you would have hit the nail on the head.
edited to fix quotes7 -
Tacklewasher wrote: »You cannot manage finances without understanding the debits and credits and this is defined.
As an accountant, this makes me laugh. Because most people have a completely backwards idea about debits and credits. A debit to your bank account means your balance goes up. A credit means it goes down. But many of you are reading this and thinking I have it completely backwards, and I don't.
The issue is most people don't realize the statement they get from the bank every month is the banks statement of what they owe you, not your statement of what you have.
Not sure what my point is, just that this comment made me laugh.
Money is a vector, not a scalar value. It has a direction and magnitude 4 -
tbright1965 wrote: »tbright1965 wrote: »
I have no idea who you are arguing with. Because literally no one here said that you can explain day to day fluctuations with CICO. We tell people not to worry about day to day fluctuations because CICO will determine success long term. So I mean, yeah, I agree with you, and you seem to agree with OP, and the veteran posters who are constantly accused of being in a CICO cult.
Who is arguing?
The title of the topic is "Why do people deny CICO?"
Answers are given.
Somehow, that's an argument?
They deny CICO because it doesn't explain what is happening in a short time quantum.
CICO CAN work in the long term and still be unable to explain to people what is happening to them in the short term, correct?
It is not inconsistent for BOTH to be true.
Is the short term relevant? This is an issue many have as results are not immediate, hence why you will also find the cultist mantra on here as well "Have patience".
Probably depends on the person trying to lose weight.
We live in a "microwave" and disposable generation. We want results now. If our spouse doesn't make us happy, there must be something wrong with them, get rid of it.
If I'm only eating 1000 calories/day and not losing weight, there must be something wrong with the diet. For gosh sakes, I ate kale and broccoli yesterday, why didn't I lose 20 pounds? <- a slight exaggeration, but it's not too hard for any of us to imagine these people exist.
Some people just need more instant results and hand holding. Doesn't mean there is anything wrong with CICO. But it does explain why people abandon it, even when they are accurately measuring CI and CO. They give up too soon.
It also explains why certain fads take off. Someone who eats 300g of carbs/day and moves to a ketogenic diet and loses a metric butt-ton of water weight thinks they are doing something.
Can't sustain it. But it's hooked them.
CICO isn't always fast and sexy. It's the slow moving boat competing in a world of fast supercars. The problem is it's not sexy, so people get off the boat and hop into one of those sexy supercars and then find out they can't afford to maintain it.
I do reserve the right to be wrong
See above, we want microwave results, not delivery weeks or months later.
We are discussing biological processes with several variables at play. The primary concern for the majority is fat loss, which is not apparent in the short term, so why focus on this? It's largely water weight fluctuation and irrelevant in terms of fat loss.
Part of understanding the application of CICO in your life is that you will not be able to detect fat loss in the short term. I have access to a full metabolics lab and even with this I cannot detect fat or muscle mass change with any degree of confidence due to the degree of error in the instruments.
And you have a better understanding. I can at least understand the science and math, even if my training is engineering, not biology or chemistry, or similar.
The only tool most "civilians" have to measure results is the scale. If the scale doesn't move, their tool doesn't reflect what is happening. So from that very limited perspective, it's not working in those short time periods.
Many don't stay with it and throw it away as we are want to do in this day and age.
I didn't have this understanding until coming to terms with my own bovine excrement. When I finally accepted that I was in control things started moving in the desired direction.
I've mentioned this in the past, but many weight management experts don't like calorie counting for the specific reasons you mention. I do not agree with this and see this as a bigotry of low expectations. You cannot manage finances without understanding the debits and credits and this is defined. Eating is far less defined and there are few immediate ramifications. There is nothing intuitive about eating. Your weight is an output of your behavior.
I've also noticed that there is a natural degree of sloppiness that us biologists have come to expect in systems, whereas chemists, engineers, physicists struggle with this as the accounting does not work out to the penny/pound.
Yes, exactly this!6 -
I had stomach flu a few times in the past. I didnt eat for days and barely drank fluids yet the scale said I gained 2 lbs. I have gained or lost 10 lbs in a month without changing my diet, but by taking birth control pills or thyroid meds. Some weight loss or gain is hormonal and defies the laws of CICO. But, for the most part it works.
No. Meds, illness, injury and other outside influences can alter the CO part of the equation or cause water retention, but nobody creates fat out of thin air - if you're eating at a deficit, you will lose weight.7 -
But CICO is JUST about weight loss/gain. It has absolutely nothing to do with health or fitness. No one here says CICO is the whole story for health or fitness, so what is the point in someone arguing that it's not?
Weight loss, health, and fitness are all different things. And there is no reason to assume that everyone cares about all three of them unless they specifically say they do.
I honestly don't understand how someone can spend enough time on the boards to have an opinion, and honestly say we only tell people CICO CICO CICO. We are constantly posting and having discussions about satiety, different options for meal timing, which macros some people find filling, etc. And when asked for examples of threads where this myopic CICO with no nuance is obvious, we never get one.
So I'm still falling back on - people who say CICO isn't the complete picture either don't understand what CICO is, have a need to evangelize about their diet whether it's topical or not, or haven't spent enough time here to have an accurate read of what goes on.
I'm one of those people who said 'CICO MAY not be the complete picture'.
What I was trying to say is not the CICO doesn't work at a base level - it does.
But that the weight-loss method of eating at a nutritionally reasonable deficit may not work the same for different people - even if you take, say, two people with the exact same stats and BMR and place them on a controlled diet. Before someone jumps on me, I'm not saying this is definitely the case - I'm not a scientist and I haven't conducted any studies on the subject, but neither have I seen any that disprove it - though there are studies on mice which were similar and that suggested that hormones and gut microbes may play a part, where one mouse would become obese and one wouldn't in spite of the same diet and activity.
Now, for the people that like to bring in the anorexic and starvation strawmen: obviously, if you stop eating full-stop; or, eat extremely minimal amounts, YOU WILL LOSE WEIGHT, no doubt.
Unfortunately most of us can't just stop eating to lose weight. And that's where the rest of that 'picture' comes in. Trying to lose weight on what is a reasonable intake that still provides adequate nutrition and energy.
What if when two women of the same BMR eat a surplus of, say, 300 calories, one woman's BMR revs up by those 300 calories to burn the excess, keeping her at the same weight; while the other woman's BMR remains the same, and these 300 calories get deposited as fat?
Conversely, if they're both eating in a 300 calories deficit, one women's BMR may remain the same and burn these 300 calories to function; while the other's metabolic rate will downregulate by 300 calories and remain in maintenance?
Why is that not possible?
Again, I'm not talking about extremes like the Minessota study here. Yes, maybe if that second woman eats at a 1000 deficit for weeks she will eventually lose weight. But her deficit may always need to be much bigger than someone else's. Is that not a possibility?
There are also issues with insulin and other hormonal and metabolic pathways. The body doesn't just directly burn fat, it does so through a complex process. Since we talk about dying from starvation, does that mean an obese person could essentially sustain themselves with NO food for months while fueling their body through their fat reserves? Is it not possible for someone to die from starvation while still being overweight? Why or why not?
I'm not pushing 'woo' or being ornery here, honestly; I'm sincerely just throwing these questions out there because they're in my head, and because from what I've read and seen, science is just beginning to tap the iceberg of some these issues and doctors themselves admit that there is still a LOT they don't know about some of the biological processes around obesity. If it was proven that it simply came down solely to caloric restriction and nothing else, why would things like gut biomes or the role of leptin or insulin even be a field of research?16 -
IzzyFlower2018 wrote: »So many people just don't grasp the concept of calories in calories out. They tell me that not all calories are equal and that you have to eat healthy to lose weight. I used to argue with these people but lately I just smile and nod. It's worked for me.. I eat basically anything I want and have lost 5 kg. I feel so many more people would be successful at weight loss if they just grasped this simple scientific concept. I'm hoping to reach my ultimate weight and then write a blog list about how I did it and prove all the CICO deniers wrong
Lots of reasons ... because no weight loss show says here is your 1200 calorie diet of junk and highly processed foods, because no professional athlete says they eat meals of 85% sugar/saturated fats, because their favorite celebrities tell them its the way to lose weight ... so people get confused and think they HAVE to eat healthy to lose weight or they have to exercise
Don't get me wrong I prefer to eat healthy meaning foods that balance my hormones, build muscle to fight fat, and give nutritional benefits. Plus me personally I just feel better, way more energy when I choose veggies over cookies. Same with exercise, drag myself to the gym but love it once I start and sleep so much better at night.
But none of this is needed for weigh loss. And I have days I eat badly for sure but still under maintenance because always CICO.
SO you are right... a Joule is 0.239006 small calories and 1 kilocalorie (food calorie) is the amount of energy needed to raise 1 gram of water 1°C. therefore a calorie burned is a calorie burned.
Am not sure what you mean by "I eat basically anything I want" but if you do end up eating an unhealthy ratio consistently ... 2:1 or 4:3 or heck 3:0 ... basically anything 50% plus of processed saturated sugar foods and write a blog please post pics with the blog and a daily accounting of how you feel ... I would love to know effects health wise ... and any long term issues (if any) once you continue that kind of diet with weight maintenance as well. If what you meant was you have sugar/fat/fried when you want it but its not the majority of your diet then just ignore this entire paragraph.
Again (endlessly again), we are not talking about nutrition and fitness (and I'd love to know where those ratios came from, because not science), we are talking about the energy balance required to gain, maintain or lose fat. The pseudo-scientific finger-wagging over what people may or may not be eating has nothing to do with how much they're eating. If you had just left it here "But none of this is needed for weigh loss. And I have days I eat badly for sure but still under maintenance because always CICO" you would have hit the nail on the head.
edited to fix quotes
I know we are not talking nutrition/fitness, I just wanted to be at full disclosure that I am nutrition and fitness oriented ... and I still agree for weight loss its CICO ...
Science ratios? I think you misread my paragraph.
I was giving examples ratios that represent over 50% of calorie intake.
I was asking her if she intends to eat 'unhealthy' the majority of the time... and if so can she please thoroughly document it.
Not to prove or disprove CICO because she WILL lose weight. I literally want to know if she has any short or long term effects from it... from her perspective.
That is all I was asking. And if not then to ignore the request. That's it ... just my curious side.
1 -
I had stomach flu a few times in the past. I didnt eat for days and barely drank fluids yet the scale said I gained 2 lbs. I have gained or lost 10 lbs in a month without changing my diet, but by taking birth control pills or thyroid meds. Some weight loss or gain is hormonal and defies the laws of CICO. But, for the most part it works.
No. Meds, illness, injury and other outside influences can alter the CO part of the equation or cause water retention, but nobody creates fat out of thin air - if you're eating at a deficit, you will lose weight.
But if those meds or hormonal issues are causing the body to function on 800 calories a day when someone without those issues and same weight and body composition would normally require 1300 to function, then someone could gain weight on 1200 calories a day. Thats not normal.
10 -
tbright1965 wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »tbright1965 wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »tbright1965 wrote: »If there is one thing I've learned from the MFP Debate forum, it's that there are a lot of people out there who aren't familiar with the concept of "debate". I guess it explains our current political climate (at least in the US) where if someone disagrees with you they are assumed to be evil, stupid, unpatriotic, criminal, and barely fit to live without a second thought.
Debate is healthy and actually necessary. Having your opinion challenged gives you the opportunity to ensure you fully understand the issue and determine how firmly you hold your opinion. And it opens the door to the idea that changing your mind when confronted with facts you weren't aware of is not necessarily a bad thing. Disagreeing with someone isn't rude, disrespectful, or an attack. It's a part of thoughtful conversation.
The demise of debate, compromise, and understanding of the scientific process are all leading us as a society down a dangerous path. This is my deep thought of the day, and it was brought to you by "Why Do People Deny CICO?". I really hope there are some ACV or starvation mode threads today, I need to lighten up a little here
I don't mind people debating what someone says. We run into problems when people either attribute something completely different, or debate based on faulty understanding.
I've seen many variations of, "I'm not saying CICO doesn't work, just it's not the complete picture."
Weight is a very course measure of health and fitness. It doesn't tell the whole story. But many seem to jump on that and suggest the person saying it is trying to say CICO doesn't work.
Odd, I didn't see that said at all. But there are those who will begin arguing that someone said just that, when they didn't.
Weight isn't meant to be a measure of health and fitness. Why are you suggesting that it is?
Because I've observed that people treat weight as an aspect of health and fitness. So I'm not sure I'm suggesting anything. Is it true or false that there are values presented that indicate healthy and unhealthy weights?
I know that, you know that. However, the topic is WHY do people deny CICO? I've offered some explanations WHY they do that.GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »
There are separate issues that correlate and interweave, but they are still separate. Your weight impacts your health and can impact your fitness, but it's still a separate issue.GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »
Similarly, the people who seem to have problems with CICO have trouble separating calories from food and nutrients.
Broccoli is a food. As a food, it has properties. Some of those properties can be quantified in certain ways. One way is as a measure of the nutrients it supplies. Another is as a measure of the energy it supplies. Those measures are not the same thing. They are not the same property.
Agreed. I'm certainly not suggesting otherwise.GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »
Certain foods have certain properties for certain people that make them feel certain things physiologically. This is another property that could stem from the food having either fiber, fat, starch, protein, or whatever thing it is in a particular food that works to make a particular individual get a feeling of fullness of satiety. This is not a function of the food but a reaction that varies among individuals (yes, some people are perfectly satiated by snack cakes) to the particular components of the food and has nothing to do with invalidating CICO.
And yes, I'm rambling, because I really am tired of people taking things that aren't calories and conflating them with calories. You did it here with weight. You're conflating weight with things that aren't weight. Weight isn't meant to be those things in the first place.
I did it, or I am observing and commenting on what people do?
I'm conflating nothing. Or at least didn't mean to. After all, I think I was saying CICO doesn't cover all those things and doesn't do a good job in the short term. Never said it was false or useless.
My explanation of WHY people deny CICO was rooted in using it to measure things it wasn't meant to measure, or at least how the scale and CICO cannot account for other factors as suggested.
I can explain WHY people (remember, others) may not buy CICO without being in the camp of not buying it.
Just because I can place myself in their shoes and describe their motivations or what MAY be happening in a short time quantum doesn't mean I buy their arguments.
Okay, I feel you, you're trying to get into their heads, but you're muddying the waters.
Scale readings =/= CICO and this is made clear many times on the board. The argument that you seem to be making that CICO isn't useful in the short term doesn't really bear out. Any time someone asserts an argument about short term, it's immediately rebutted (just saw a thread about this today, in fact).
The topic is a HEAD topic.
Why do people choose the behaviors they choose? I'd estimate that's 99.44% what's going on in their head.
I'd suggest arguing the validity of numbers is off base when asking why people choose the behaviors they choose.
Edited to add:
An anecdote for consideration.
Back in the stone ages of home entertainment, in the 1980s, there were two competing technologies for video tape in the home, Betamax and VHS.
Technically speaking, Betamax had many advantages over VHS, better resolution and sound quality and higher quality VCRs.
VHS had longer duration cassettes and porn. Seems porn chose VHS over Betamax and Betamax died off in the home VCR market.
Or at least that's one rumor. Probably more accurately, the backers of VHS, which earned 70% of the market supported the rental market and did other non-technical things to make VHS, a technology that didn't give the high quality picture and sound of Betamax, advantages that were not technical.
The bottom line take away is one can have the technically superior answer, but due to non-technical factors, people will make other choices.
Did you ever think that there might be more than one reason people deny CICO?5 -
nettiklive wrote: »
But CICO is JUST about weight loss/gain. It has absolutely nothing to do with health or fitness. No one here says CICO is the whole story for health or fitness, so what is the point in someone arguing that it's not?
Weight loss, health, and fitness are all different things. And there is no reason to assume that everyone cares about all three of them unless they specifically say they do.
I honestly don't understand how someone can spend enough time on the boards to have an opinion, and honestly say we only tell people CICO CICO CICO. We are constantly posting and having discussions about satiety, different options for meal timing, which macros some people find filling, etc. And when asked for examples of threads where this myopic CICO with no nuance is obvious, we never get one.
So I'm still falling back on - people who say CICO isn't the complete picture either don't understand what CICO is, have a need to evangelize about their diet whether it's topical or not, or haven't spent enough time here to have an accurate read of what goes on.
I'm one of those people who said 'CICO MAY not be the complete picture'.
What I was trying to say is not the CICO doesn't work at a base level - it does.
But that the weight-loss method of eating at a nutritionally reasonable deficit may not work the same for different people - even if you take, say, two people with the exact same stats and BMR and place them on a controlled diet. Before someone jumps on me, I'm not saying this is definitely the case - I'm not a scientist and I haven't conducted any studies on the subject, but neither have I seen any that disprove it - though there are studies on mice which were similar and that suggested that hormones and gut microbes may play a part, where one mouse would become obese and one wouldn't in spite of the same diet and activity.
Now, for the people that like to bring in the anorexic and starvation strawmen: obviously, if you stop eating full-stop; or, eat extremely minimal amounts, YOU WILL LOSE WEIGHT, no doubt.
Unfortunately most of us can't just stop eating to lose weight. And that's where the rest of that 'picture' comes in. Trying to lose weight on what is a reasonable intake that still provides adequate nutrition and energy.
What if when two women of the same BMR eat a surplus of, say, 300 calories, one woman's BMR revs up by those 300 calories to burn the excess, keeping her at the same weight; while the other woman's BMR remains the same, and these 300 calories get deposited as fat?
Conversely, if they're both eating in a 300 calories deficit, one women's BMR may remain the same and burn these 300 calories to function; while the other's metabolic rate will downregulate by 300 calories and remain in maintenance?
Why is that not possible?
Again, I'm not talking about extremes like the Minessota study here. Yes, maybe if that second woman eats at a 1000 deficit for weeks she will eventually lose weight. But her deficit may always need to be much bigger than someone else's. Is that not a possibility?
There are also issues with insulin and other hormonal and metabolic pathways. The body doesn't just directly burn fat, it does so through a complex process. Since we talk about dying from starvation, does that mean an obese person could essentially sustain themselves with NO food for months while fueling their body through their fat reserves? Is it not possible for someone to die from starvation while still being overweight? Why or why not?
I'm not pushing 'woo' or being ornery here, honestly; I'm sincerely just throwing these questions out there because they're in my head, and because from what I've read and seen, science is just beginning to tap the iceberg of some these issues and doctors themselves admit that there is still a LOT they don't know about some of the biological processes around obesity. If it was proven that it simply came down solely to caloric restriction and nothing else, why would things like gut biomes or the role of leptin or insulin even be a field of research?
I have to wonder if you're not reading all the replies, or reading regular posts in these forums at all.
OF COURSE, different people with the same stats may have a different BMR. Calculators can only give you a starting point.
You need to start with what they give you, log accurately and consistently for at least 4-6 weeks, and then tweak your calories up or down from there based on what your weight is doing. We tell people that constantly.
NO ONE says that the number a calculator spits out based on your stats is 100% correct. That doesn't mean "CICO" doesn't work. It means the calculator isn't a fortune teller. It doesn't mean it's impossible for the vast majority of people to lose weight, it just means you have to do some basic math and be patient.
I honestly don't even understand the stuff you asked about insulin, but I feel like you are grasping at worst case, one in a million possibilities and trying to argue that something bizarre being theoretically possible means the whole system is corrupt.12 -
I had stomach flu a few times in the past. I didnt eat for days and barely drank fluids yet the scale said I gained 2 lbs. I have gained or lost 10 lbs in a month without changing my diet, but by taking birth control pills or thyroid meds. Some weight loss or gain is hormonal and defies the laws of CICO. But, for the most part it works.
Scale weight over a long time reflects CICO, but fluctuations in the short term can be due to a host of other factors of which you likely aren't aware. The body retains water for an astonishing number of reasons, and this is reflected on the scale and is independent of caloric intake.
Most people who have been here a long time are familiar with these reasons.
As for the weight loss?
Hormones? No, more likely increased activity due to those pills affecting your hormones which burned more calories, and additionally, I sincerely doubt you were accurately tracing your food intake to make a statement that your food intake was exactly the same with any certainty.
People don't defy they laws of CICO, they just fail to understand some of the finer nuances of fluid retention and factors that can impact their daily living.7 -
I had stomach flu a few times in the past. I didnt eat for days and barely drank fluids yet the scale said I gained 2 lbs. I have gained or lost 10 lbs in a month without changing my diet, but by taking birth control pills or thyroid meds. Some weight loss or gain is hormonal and defies the laws of CICO. But, for the most part it works.
No. Meds, illness, injury and other outside influences can alter the CO part of the equation or cause water retention, but nobody creates fat out of thin air - if you're eating at a deficit, you will lose weight.
But if those meds or hormonal issues are causing the body to function on 800 calories a day when someone without those issues and same weight and body composition would normally require 1300 to function, then someone could gain weight on 1200 calories a day. Thats not normal.
CICO still applies. In that hypothetical instance, that hypothetical woman would need to eat less than 800 cals to lose weight, and would need to see a hypothetical doctor to get her condition squared away so she wouldn't be hypothetically malnourished. If a medical condition causes the body to only need 800 cals to run (and I have no idea if that's possible) that is affecting the CO part of the equation. It's CICO.10 -
I had stomach flu a few times in the past. I didnt eat for days and barely drank fluids yet the scale said I gained 2 lbs. I have gained or lost 10 lbs in a month without changing my diet, but by taking birth control pills or thyroid meds. Some weight loss or gain is hormonal and defies the laws of CICO. But, for the most part it works.
No. Meds, illness, injury and other outside influences can alter the CO part of the equation or cause water retention, but nobody creates fat out of thin air - if you're eating at a deficit, you will lose weight.
But if those meds or hormonal issues are causing the body to function on 800 calories a day when someone without those issues and same weight and body composition would normally require 1300 to function, then someone could gain weight on 1200 calories a day. Thats not normal.
Those numbers don't happen unless you are around 4'5" and 70 years old.8 -
nettiklive wrote: »
But CICO is JUST about weight loss/gain. It has absolutely nothing to do with health or fitness. No one here says CICO is the whole story for health or fitness, so what is the point in someone arguing that it's not?
Weight loss, health, and fitness are all different things. And there is no reason to assume that everyone cares about all three of them unless they specifically say they do.
I honestly don't understand how someone can spend enough time on the boards to have an opinion, and honestly say we only tell people CICO CICO CICO. We are constantly posting and having discussions about satiety, different options for meal timing, which macros some people find filling, etc. And when asked for examples of threads where this myopic CICO with no nuance is obvious, we never get one.
So I'm still falling back on - people who say CICO isn't the complete picture either don't understand what CICO is, have a need to evangelize about their diet whether it's topical or not, or haven't spent enough time here to have an accurate read of what goes on.
I'm one of those people who said 'CICO MAY not be the complete picture'.
What I was trying to say is not the CICO doesn't work at a base level - it does.
But that the weight-loss method of eating at a nutritionally reasonable deficit may not work the same for different people - even if you take, say, two people with the exact same stats and BMR and place them on a controlled diet. Before someone jumps on me, I'm not saying this is definitely the case - I'm not a scientist and I haven't conducted any studies on the subject, but neither have I seen any that disprove it - though there are studies on mice which were similar and that suggested that hormones and gut microbes may play a part, where one mouse would become obese and one wouldn't in spite of the same diet and activity.
Now, for the people that like to bring in the anorexic and starvation strawmen: obviously, if you stop eating full-stop; or, eat extremely minimal amounts, YOU WILL LOSE WEIGHT, no doubt.
Unfortunately most of us can't just stop eating to lose weight. And that's where the rest of that 'picture' comes in. Trying to lose weight on what is a reasonable intake that still provides adequate nutrition and energy.
What if when two women of the same BMR eat a surplus of, say, 300 calories, one woman's BMR revs up by those 300 calories to burn the excess, keeping her at the same weight; while the other woman's BMR remains the same, and these 300 calories get deposited as fat?
Conversely, if they're both eating in a 300 calories deficit, one women's BMR may remain the same and burn these 300 calories to function; while the other's metabolic rate will downregulate by 300 calories and remain in maintenance?
Why is that not possible?
Again, I'm not talking about extremes like the Minessota study here. Yes, maybe if that second woman eats at a 1000 deficit for weeks she will eventually lose weight. But her deficit may always need to be much bigger than someone else's. Is that not a possibility?
There are also issues with insulin and other hormonal and metabolic pathways. The body doesn't just directly burn fat, it does so through a complex process. Since we talk about dying from starvation, does that mean an obese person could essentially sustain themselves with NO food for months while fueling their body through their fat reserves? Is it not possible for someone to die from starvation while still being overweight? Why or why not?
I'm not pushing 'woo' or being ornery here, honestly; I'm sincerely just throwing these questions out there because they're in my head, and because from what I've read and seen, science is just beginning to tap the iceberg of some these issues and doctors themselves admit that there is still a LOT they don't know about some of the biological processes around obesity. If it was proven that it simply came down solely to caloric restriction and nothing else, why would things like gut biomes or the role of leptin or insulin even be a field of research?
I'm going to be honest with you. You posted a picture of yourself in another thread and I'm concerned for you. You are a very slender individual who wondered if she needed to lose weight who is frightened to the point of scouring the internet looking for every worst case scenario imaginable about failing metabolisms, difficulty losing weight, and all sorts of out there things.
I am writing this as a mother, okay. Not a troll, or a forum bully or anything like that, but I see in you a young woman who is on the brink of very disordered behavior if not fully there already and I think you need to take a deep breath, an honest look at yourself, and go talk to your doctor and maybe ask for some help.25 -
I have to wonder if you're not reading all the replies, or reading regular posts in these forums at all.
OF COURSE, different people with the same stats may have a different BMR. Calculators can only give you a starting point.
You need to start with what they give you, log accurately and consistently for at least 4-6 weeks, and then tweak your calories up or down from there based on what your weight is doing. We tell people that constantly.
NO ONE says that the number a calculator spits out based on your stats is 100% correct. That doesn't mean "CICO" doesn't work. It means the calculator isn't a fortune teller. It doesn't mean it's impossible for the vast majority of people to lose weight, it just means you have to do some basic math and be patient.
I honestly don't even understand the stuff you asked about insulin, but I feel like you are grasping at worst case, one in a million possibilities and trying to argue that something bizarre being theoretically possible means the whole system is corrupt.
That's not what I was saying. I didn't even touch the fact that people will have different BMRs, because that can be explained by many factors such as muscle mass, NEAT, etc.
I'm suggesting the possibility (suggesting, not stating for a fact), that even for two people of the SAME, say lab-measured RMR, their metabolic response and the rate of metabolic adaptation may vary a lot. So that one person could lose with a deficit of 300 calories, while another with the same stats and RMR would need a deficit twice as big, because their metabolism would adapt faster and more drastically. That would in part explain the difference between people who seem to gain weight easily and have trouble losing, and those who are 'naturally' slim and have trouble gaining. I know everyone blames NEAT and poor tracking, but it's really difficult to believe that's the end-all in accounting for such dramatic differences.
The insulin - again, I don't know, I'm not an expert; but I have read literature that said that insulin resistance impedes weight loss because while there is glucose in the blood, the body will not be burning fat. How true or not it is, I have no idea.11 -
I had stomach flu a few times in the past. I didnt eat for days and barely drank fluids yet the scale said I gained 2 lbs. I have gained or lost 10 lbs in a month without changing my diet, but by taking birth control pills or thyroid meds. Some weight loss or gain is hormonal and defies the laws of CICO. But, for the most part it works.
No. Meds, illness, injury and other outside influences can alter the CO part of the equation or cause water retention, but nobody creates fat out of thin air - if you're eating at a deficit, you will lose weight.
But if those meds or hormonal issues are causing the body to function on 800 calories a day when someone without those issues and same weight and body composition would normally require 1300 to function, then someone could gain weight on 1200 calories a day. Thats not normal.
If someone who is the same weight, height and body composition as someone who maintains on 1300 calories is maintaining at 800 calories they are most likely in a coma. Do you mean that some meds or hormone imbalances (like uncorrected thyroid issues) can cause one person's CO to be less than another similar person without that issue - sure. CO can be affected to some degree by those things. It doesn't mean "Some weight loss or gain is hormonal and defies the laws of CICO.", it means some people in these circumstances expend fewer calories than standard CICO calculations would predict.3 -
nettiklive wrote: »But that the weight-loss method of eating at a nutritionally reasonable deficit may not work the same for different people - even if you take, say, two people with the exact same stats and BMR and place them on a controlled diet. Before someone jumps on me, I'm not saying this is definitely the case - I'm not a scientist and I haven't conducted any studies on the subject, but neither have I seen any that disprove it - though there are studies on mice which were similar and that suggested that hormones and gut microbes may play a part, where one mouse would become obese and one wouldn't in spite of the same diet and activity.
The bolded is true, I think (almost certainly so), although I don't think the differences are as significant as I think you are assuming, and I also don't think we know what anyone's BMR is anyway -- one of the mistakes people make is this idea that a calculator can tell you your BMR.
But the problem is that this has NOTHING to do with CICO. That people have different TDEEs and may have their CI or CO affected differently by activity or what they eat or having a calorie deficit (again, not to a dramatic degree for the most part, but yes, differently), doesn't at ALL go against CICO if you understand what CICO is.
Why you got pushback was not for saying this, I don't think, but for the idea that some people have their metabolism (their TDEE) so dramatically affected by a deficit, even a mild one, that they cannot lose weight and cannot counter the reduction by increased activity. There's nothing I've ever seen to suggest that's true, and it makes no sense. The studies (like the Minnesota starvation experiment, where the men were eating at a deficit, not nothing), demonstrate otherwise, in fact, even though they were of normal weight and then thinner, and we know that having less body fat is going to make fat loss harder, normally (this is why obese people can worry less about having a mild deficit and eating protein and still not lose much muscle).
Also, you seem really fixated by the ideas that (1) some people may lose/gain weight easier than others (which I think is a pointless things to focus on and is irrelevant to CICO), and (2) that some people's metabolisms wipe out deficits, even when first dropping calories and obese, for which there is exactly no evidence.
It should be easy to prove -- take a group of obese people and put them in a metabolic ward study.4 -
nettiklive wrote: »
I'm one of those people who said 'CICO MAY not be the complete picture'.
What I was trying to say is not the CICO doesn't work at a base level - it does.
But that the weight-loss method of eating at a nutritionally reasonable deficit may not work the same for different people - even if you take, say, two people with the exact same stats and BMR and place them on a controlled diet. Before someone jumps on me, I'm not saying this is definitely the case - I'm not a scientist and I haven't conducted any studies on the subject, but neither have I seen any that disprove it - though there are studies on mice which were similar and that suggested that hormones and gut microbes may play a part, where one mouse would become obese and one wouldn't in spite of the same diet and activity.
Now, for the people that like to bring in the anorexic and starvation strawmen: obviously, if you stop eating full-stop; or, eat extremely minimal amounts, YOU WILL LOSE WEIGHT, no doubt.
Unfortunately most of us can't just stop eating to lose weight. And that's where the rest of that 'picture' comes in. Trying to lose weight on what is a reasonable intake that still provides adequate nutrition and energy.
What if when two women of the same BMR eat a surplus of, say, 300 calories, one woman's BMR revs up by those 300 calories to burn the excess, keeping her at the same weight; while the other woman's BMR remains the same, and these 300 calories get deposited as fat?
Conversely, if they're both eating in a 300 calories deficit, one women's BMR may remain the same and burn these 300 calories to function; while the other's metabolic rate will downregulate by 300 calories and remain in maintenance?
Why is that not possible?
Again, I'm not talking about extremes like the Minessota study here. Yes, maybe if that second woman eats at a 1000 deficit for weeks she will eventually lose weight. But her deficit may always need to be much bigger than someone else's. Is that not a possibility?
There are also issues with insulin and other hormonal and metabolic pathways. The body doesn't just directly burn fat, it does so through a complex process. Since we talk about dying from starvation, does that mean an obese person could essentially sustain themselves with NO food for months while fueling their body through their fat reserves? Is it not possible for someone to die from starvation while still being overweight? Why or why not?
I'm not pushing 'woo' or being ornery here, honestly; I'm sincerely just throwing these questions out there because they're in my head, and because from what I've read and seen, science is just beginning to tap the iceberg of some these issues and doctors themselves admit that there is still a LOT they don't know about some of the biological processes around obesity. If it was proven that it simply came down solely to caloric restriction and nothing else, why would things like gut biomes or the role of leptin or insulin even be a field of research?
Yes, mice have some very interesting field tests across the board, and if science could easily translate it to human DNA then there would be many problems solved. Until then, CICO.
I agree that two people can eat the same and end up different weights assuming all else is equal.... but no its not going to be like one person ends up 120lbs and the other is 170lbs.
I think of all the studies I read average was like 3-7lbs difference and still that was short term, i.e. less than 6 months. Long term like a year they might have all ended up the same with no difference.
I also want to note that not one person here guaranteed an amount of weight you will lose or when it will process... just that CICO works. One person might lose 1 pound a week and another person 3 ... still both lose.
"What if when two women of the same BMR eat a surplus of, say, 300 calories, one woman's BMR revs up by those 300 calories to burn the excess, keeping her at the same weight; while the other woman's BMR remains the same, and these 300 calories get deposited as fat?"
Then one person was off when calculating their BMR. But even so, if both maintain the same calories every day the one "gaining" fat would even out as her extra weight would increase her BMR and she would be at maintenance, then when she decreases she will lose.
"Conversely, if they're both eating in a 300 calories deficit, one women's BMR may remain the same and burn these 300 calories to function; while the other's metabolic rate will downregulate by 300 calories and remain in maintenance? "
Same thing, the one not losing can adjust again and she will lose... although again BMR is BMR so probably calculated wrong but whatevs.
"There are also issues with insulin and other hormonal and metabolic pathways. The body doesn't just directly burn fat, it does so through a complex process."
Your right ... your body will burn whatever it can, usually muscle first but also fat which is why people protein load in an attempt to maintain muscle.
More than that when there is nothing left to burn but stored fat that is what will happen.
"why would things like gut biomes or the role of leptin or insulin even be a field of research?"
"The effect of diet on the pathogenesis of obesity is a key contributing factor; however, the impact of diet on the gut microbiome structure remains poorly understood. Studies using high-throughput sequencing to compare variations in microbial community composition in animals and humans following different diets13,97 suggest that differences in the diet modify the relative abundance of gut microorganisms. High-fat, high-sugar (ie, Western-type diet), or high-plant polysaccharide-containing diets have been shown to significantly alter the microbiome composition at different phylogenetic levels."
Meaning we possibly alter our bodies when we eat poorly on a genetic level, which has nothing to do with weight loss.
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GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »nettiklive wrote: »
But CICO is JUST about weight loss/gain. It has absolutely nothing to do with health or fitness. No one here says CICO is the whole story for health or fitness, so what is the point in someone arguing that it's not?
Weight loss, health, and fitness are all different things. And there is no reason to assume that everyone cares about all three of them unless they specifically say they do.
I honestly don't understand how someone can spend enough time on the boards to have an opinion, and honestly say we only tell people CICO CICO CICO. We are constantly posting and having discussions about satiety, different options for meal timing, which macros some people find filling, etc. And when asked for examples of threads where this myopic CICO with no nuance is obvious, we never get one.
So I'm still falling back on - people who say CICO isn't the complete picture either don't understand what CICO is, have a need to evangelize about their diet whether it's topical or not, or haven't spent enough time here to have an accurate read of what goes on.
I'm one of those people who said 'CICO MAY not be the complete picture'.
What I was trying to say is not the CICO doesn't work at a base level - it does.
But that the weight-loss method of eating at a nutritionally reasonable deficit may not work the same for different people - even if you take, say, two people with the exact same stats and BMR and place them on a controlled diet. Before someone jumps on me, I'm not saying this is definitely the case - I'm not a scientist and I haven't conducted any studies on the subject, but neither have I seen any that disprove it - though there are studies on mice which were similar and that suggested that hormones and gut microbes may play a part, where one mouse would become obese and one wouldn't in spite of the same diet and activity.
Now, for the people that like to bring in the anorexic and starvation strawmen: obviously, if you stop eating full-stop; or, eat extremely minimal amounts, YOU WILL LOSE WEIGHT, no doubt.
Unfortunately most of us can't just stop eating to lose weight. And that's where the rest of that 'picture' comes in. Trying to lose weight on what is a reasonable intake that still provides adequate nutrition and energy.
What if when two women of the same BMR eat a surplus of, say, 300 calories, one woman's BMR revs up by those 300 calories to burn the excess, keeping her at the same weight; while the other woman's BMR remains the same, and these 300 calories get deposited as fat?
Conversely, if they're both eating in a 300 calories deficit, one women's BMR may remain the same and burn these 300 calories to function; while the other's metabolic rate will downregulate by 300 calories and remain in maintenance?
Why is that not possible?
Again, I'm not talking about extremes like the Minessota study here. Yes, maybe if that second woman eats at a 1000 deficit for weeks she will eventually lose weight. But her deficit may always need to be much bigger than someone else's. Is that not a possibility?
There are also issues with insulin and other hormonal and metabolic pathways. The body doesn't just directly burn fat, it does so through a complex process. Since we talk about dying from starvation, does that mean an obese person could essentially sustain themselves with NO food for months while fueling their body through their fat reserves? Is it not possible for someone to die from starvation while still being overweight? Why or why not?
I'm not pushing 'woo' or being ornery here, honestly; I'm sincerely just throwing these questions out there because they're in my head, and because from what I've read and seen, science is just beginning to tap the iceberg of some these issues and doctors themselves admit that there is still a LOT they don't know about some of the biological processes around obesity. If it was proven that it simply came down solely to caloric restriction and nothing else, why would things like gut biomes or the role of leptin or insulin even be a field of research?
I'm going to be honest with you. You posted a picture of yourself in another thread and I'm concerned for you. You are a very slender individual who wondered if she needed to lose weight who is frightened to the point of scouring the internet looking for every worst case scenario imaginable about failing metabolisms, difficulty losing weight, and all sorts of out there things.
I am writing this as a mother, okay. Not a troll, or a forum bully or anything like that, but I see in you a young woman who is on the brink of very disordered behavior if not fully there already and I think you need to take a deep breath, an honest look at yourself, and go talk to your doctor and maybe ask for some help.
Lol. Thank you for your concern, but I'm really not on the brink of anorexia in any way (and at almost 35 and a mother myself, not quite that young of a woman haha). This is a debate forum on weight loss and fitness, it makes sense that this is what I write about here. I'm a researcher and I read about many, many different topics, most of which don't exactly apply to me personally but that I have an interest in. In this case, I'm not yet applying any of these worst case scenarios to myself, nor am I even that worried about my own weight at the moment. I have maintained a weight I was happy with for over ten years without difficulty, pretty much eating intuitively. However, I guess that may be part of the problem, as I am always on the lookout for the other shoe to fall,so to speak; feeling that my intake was already fairly low all these years (according to appetite however), I'm afraid of potential issues that getting older may bring as I feel I don't have the wiggle room in my diet for any slowdown in metabolism. I also want to be as informed about different issues, including the worst case scenarios, as, I mentioned earlier, my grandmother suffered from obesity starting only in her late thirties, and she did not overeat but she was prediabetic and had some sort of hormonal issues after a pregnancy, which is when the weight gain began; I inherited her body type exactly (very pear shaped), so I'm understandably concerned whether I will also be prone to similar health issues and what that may mean for me in the future. Also, I had several periods in my life where I felt my weight was not under my control in spite of my best efforts - incidentally, all correlated again to hormonal fluctuations - puberty, birth control pills which made me gain ten lbs that would not budge and then disappeared within months of going off, and one of my pregnancies, which was very different weight gain wise from my first in spite of watching my diet more closely. And on the other hand, during the years I maintained, I did not do it by tracking or weighing food. I did it through normal days, vacations, holidays, one pregnancy, periods of working out and not working out at all, there had to be many many times where I would eat in a surplus, and yet my weight never changed beyond regular water fluctuations. Which makes me think that there had to be something going on with metabolism where it adjusts to subtle changes in order to maintain a static weight. All these experiences naturally make me wary of weight gain that may be influenced by factors other than simple overeating (again because I'm not prone to overeating, having intuitively maintained a bmi of 19 for years). So I want to be informed and prepared. And the complete dismissal of the possibility of such issues on this forum is kind of frustrating.8
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