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Calorie in calorie out method is outdated

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  • 4legsRbetterthan2
    4legsRbetterthan2 Posts: 19,590 MFP Moderator
    edited May 2018
    Just a few friendly reminders:
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    if you have not found your way to the forum guidelines please read them:
    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/welcome/guidelines

    2. This is the debate section, it was created so posters could respectfully argue their position and explore new information. Please post thought out responses, prepare to support your opinion, and plan to respond to other posters. If you don't want to do that this is not the board for you.

    Thanks,

    4legs
    MFP moderator

    p.s. sorry if my "clean up" is a bit spotty, I am experiencing technical difficulties this morning.
  • J72FIT
    J72FIT Posts: 6,008 Member
    BayouMoon wrote: »
    "Oh, it's just calories in versus calories out" is so flippant. The brain controls the flow in and out of those calories. Emotions, hormones, environmental conditions, all sorts of things play into how and what we eat. So saying the model of simply looking at calories in versus calories out is outdated. It doesn't work. You have to consider how you eat, when you eat and what you eat. I'm sure everyone on this site knows how much more complicated it is. If you don't deal with the brain and all it's glory, you will not suceed.

    Wether you gain, lose or maintain, CICO is always "working"...
  • BayouMoon
    BayouMoon Posts: 37 Member
    BayouMoon wrote: »
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    BayouMoon wrote: »
    And, for all you people who keep saying "there are no scientific studies..." you should consider opening up your mind just a little bit.

    Just be careful you dont open your mind too much or your brain will fall out.

    I understand the points that you are making. The debate started with the following: "I've seen some articles about how calories in and calories out isn't efficient in the long run. Some studies have shown that certain foods do metabolize faster and turn into energy faster than other. Any thoughts?"

    I gave my thoughts as an agreement with the sentiment that not all calories have the same effect on your long-term weight loss. I agree that some food metobolizes differently than others. So, because of the way your body uses the energy, I believe that certain foods, even thought they may have the same number of calories, will not have the same long term effect on weight loss as others.

    So maybe if you consume a lot of sugar, it could change how your body reacts to sugar when it is consumed. At first, your body handles sugar like any other calorie. But after a period of time your body would become sensative to sugar. Maybe your cells can only absorb a certain amount of sugar and when it reaches that tipping point it will push out the extra sugar as waste without metabolizing it. So, in that case, the calories in did not translate directly, so the equation does not work. It may work in the beginning, if you eat 1500 calories of sugar vs 1500 calories of kale you will have the same effect, but not in the long run.

    Do you disagree with any of that?

    In a concept called Calories In, Calories Out, what do you think the italicized and bolded would fall under?

    That it would go into the "calories out" side of the equation. So you're saying when you apply the CICO equation you must factor in your waste?
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    BayouMoon wrote: »
    BayouMoon wrote: »
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    BayouMoon wrote: »
    And, for all you people who keep saying "there are no scientific studies..." you should consider opening up your mind just a little bit.

    Just be careful you dont open your mind too much or your brain will fall out.

    I understand the points that you are making. The debate started with the following: "I've seen some articles about how calories in and calories out isn't efficient in the long run. Some studies have shown that certain foods do metabolize faster and turn into energy faster than other. Any thoughts?"

    I gave my thoughts as an agreement with the sentiment that not all calories have the same effect on your long-term weight loss. I agree that some food metobolizes differently than others. So, because of the way your body uses the energy, I believe that certain foods, even thought they may have the same number of calories, will not have the same long term effect on weight loss as others.

    So maybe if you consume a lot of sugar, it could change how your body reacts to sugar when it is consumed. At first, your body handles sugar like any other calorie. But after a period of time your body would become sensative to sugar. Maybe your cells can only absorb a certain amount of sugar and when it reaches that tipping point it will push out the extra sugar as waste without metabolizing it. So, in that case, the calories in did not translate directly, so the equation does not work. It may work in the beginning, if you eat 1500 calories of sugar vs 1500 calories of kale you will have the same effect, but not in the long run.

    Do you disagree with any of that?

    In a concept called Calories In, Calories Out, what do you think the italicized and bolded would fall under?

    That it would go into the "calories out" side of the equation. So you're saying when you apply the CICO equation you must factor in your waste?

    If the only focus was "calories in," we'd just call it CI instead of CICO. That's what people were getting at with your initial example of someone eating 10,000 calories of wood. Since our bodies can't process a lot of what is in the wood, CICO already accounts for this (and so do food labels -- the calories that aren't available to our bodies are already subtracted from the count).
  • annaskiski
    annaskiski Posts: 1,212 Member
    BayouMoon wrote: »
    To wrap up my thoughts on this debate, I do still believe that the types of calories matter and that the CICO equation is outdated. I know, I know..."It's math!! It can't be outdated!!". If that is your rebuttal to the debate, then I don't think your understood the question. She wasn't asking a math question, she was asking about the effects of what you eat long term. The majority of the rebuttals to the initial ascertion seem to be along the lines of "that's included in the calculation". So if some calories burn faster, that's in the calculation, if some calories don't get metabolized, that's in the calculation, if the way your body metabolizes calories changes over time, that's included in the calculation. If certain foods trigger hormones and other reactions, that's in the calculation. Even if all these things are included in the calculation, they matter and updating and expanding the equation to include them will help in the long term.

    I’m not sure if you don’t understand math, or the equation.

    CI< CO (for weight loss) is the whole equation

    It’s the equation of energy balance.

    If you are asking to expand the equation, that’s something else entirely.

    In other words:
    CO= RMR + NEAT + etc

    Hormones would be in the NEAT part of the equation,
    I.e.
    NEAT= X(ghrelin) + estrogen-levels etc. etc
  • BayouMoon
    BayouMoon Posts: 37 Member
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    BayouMoon wrote: »
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    BayouMoon wrote: »
    And, for all you people who keep saying "there are no scientific studies..." you should consider opening up your mind just a little bit.

    Just be careful you dont open your mind too much or your brain will fall out.

    I understand the points that you are making. The debate started with the following: "I've seen some articles about how calories in and calories out isn't efficient in the long run. Some studies have shown that certain foods do metabolize faster and turn into energy faster than other. Any thoughts?"

    I gave my thoughts as an agreement with the sentiment that not all calories have the same effect on your long-term weight loss. I agree that some food metobolizes differently than others. So, because of the way your body uses the energy, I believe that certain foods, even thought they may have the same number of calories, will not have the same long term effect on weight loss as others.

    On the bold -- I think you are assuming "calories" is a synonym for food, and that not all foods are the same (which is obviously true, and again you'd know this had been discussed if you'd read the thread) means that not all calories are the same, but it does not. A calorie is a calorie, but yes food choice can make weight loss and sustaining weight loss easier or harder. The thing is that what food choice works best is NOT because somehow CICO is wrong or can be avoided. It's about individual things like what is satisfying, why you tend to overeat, how much you want to watch calories, so on.

    With respect to CICO "not being efficient in the long run," that makes no sense and seems to me to be based on a misunderstanding of what CICO. As discussed (again) at great length earlier in the thread, it doesn't mean calorie counting (which in fact IS efficient, but may not be the right choice for everyone). How do you think one even loses weight without having CI<CO?
    So maybe if you consume a lot of sugar, it could change how your body reacts to sugar when it is consumed. At first, your body handles sugar like any other calorie. But after a period of time your body would become sensative to sugar. Maybe your cells can only absorb a certain amount of sugar and when it reaches that tipping point it will push out the extra sugar as waste without metabolizing it. So, in that case, the calories in did not translate directly, so the equation does not work. It may work in the beginning, if you eat 1500 calories of sugar vs 1500 calories of kale you will have the same effect, but not in the long run.

    If your body pushed out sugar without metabolising it, you wouldn't gain weight from consuming sugar, even if presumed calories were in excess. It would be a food/calories your body could not use for energy (and fat is stored energy). You see why that wouldn't support the argument you are trying to make?

    Also, I responded to the silliness of the 1500 cal of kale vs. sugar example upthread, so would love your thoughts on that post if you want to keep using the example.

    You also seem to think that there's something about how the food is metabolized (how fast) that affects longterm weight loss. What would this be? There's one idea that if you eat only quickly metabolized foods you will be hungrier, but what if you acted like a rational, sensible person and if hungry you ate foods that made you less hungry and learned from experience. Why assume that people won't use that degree of common sense?

    My personal belief is that actual hunger has little to do with why people are obese now, in part because it's not actually that difficult -- IF you are trying to lose or maintain -- to figure out how not to be hungry. None of that is contrary to CICO.

    Okay LemurCat12, I'm going to go back and respond to your response to my 1500 cal kale vs. sugar example only because something about your writing reminds me of my sister so imaging you really enjoying this. Give me a minute to find it.......
  • mph323
    mph323 Posts: 3,563 Member
    BayouMoon wrote: »
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    BayouMoon wrote: »
    To wrap up my thoughts on this debate, I do still believe that the types of calories matter and that the CICO equation is outdated. I know, I know..."It's math!! It can't be outdated!!". If that is your rebuttal to the debate, then I don't think your understood the question. She wasn't asking a math question, she was asking about the effects of what you eat long term. The majority of the rebuttals to the initial ascertion seem to be along the lines of "that's included in the calculation". So if some calories burn faster, that's in the calculation, if some calories don't get metabolized, that's in the calculation, if the way your body metabolizes calories changes over time, that's included in the calculation. If certain foods trigger hormones and other reactions, that's in the calculation. Even if all these things are included in the calculation, they matter and updating and expanding the equation to include them will help in the long term.

    That is because it is included in the calculation. The recommended daily calorie intakes and the calculators that predict your calorie requirements and suggest how much you should eat take that into account because they are statistical models based on large studies of actual people eating actual food. Therefore they take into account what people derive from that food. Your examples of well what if someone eats nothing but kale or nothing but sugar or they eat wood are just irrelevant because that isn't a thing...no one does that. For people who eat normal food the calorie values are very close approximations and if you track your calories in terms of your intake and use the calculators to predict your calorie requirements you will find it is a fairly close approximation. It will be off, it will not be exact...but you can find that out only if you measure the calories and track them over time and then adjust accordingly.

    Crossing your arms and saying I don't believe it I think its inaccurate offers no alternative or no improvement to a model. Saying it is "outdated" suggests we should throw it out or change it. Okay, so you don't believe tracking calories is useful for weight management....what is your suggested alternative?

    Oh, quite the contrary, I count calories. I just think it matters if it's a 100 cal oreo or a 100 cal salad.

    But you haven't answered the question I asked earlier.

    Do you believe a person can gain weight in a calorie deficit if they eat a less nutrient-dense ("junk" food) diet?

    Do you believe that a person can maintain or lose weight in a calorie surplus if they eat a more nutrient-dense diet (salad, veg, fruit, lean protein)?

    If you believe this is true, how do you believe this would work?
This discussion has been closed.