Problems with CICO - article critiquing it, not dismissing it entirely.

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Replies

  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,294 Member
    edited April 2019
    MikePTY wrote: »
    Again, I think that it's important to be clear about this because it helps people to understand what's going on and having more information can guide people in how to adjust their weight management plan with less struggle.

    CICO is not the same as calorie counting. And conflating the two, as has happened several times in this thread, is why these posts go round in circles.

    CICO is science. It's a description of what's happening in your body.
    Calorie counting is a method of observing and affecting CICO in order to get a desired outcome.

    Calorie counting is a verb. It's a thing you can do or use. CICO is a noun. It's a thing that's happening.

    So, let's get an analogy going. If I came into this thread and said that gravity doesn't work the same for everyone I suspect that I would get a whole bunch of woos and a whole bunch of posts trying to explain why I'm wrong. But aha! Some people fall faster than others. Some are more likely to trip. Cats always land on their feet! People use different types of gravimeters and some of them don't work as well as others. Some people have faulty gravimeters or no gravimeter at all. They don't experience gravity the same way that others do so gravity is not the same for everyone.

    That's preposterous, of course. Gravity on earth exerts the same force on everyone, whether they can measure it properly or not. Likewise, the CICO equation works the same way in everyone. There are many variables in that equation that make people different, but the long, drawn out, complicated equation works the same for everyone.

    The problem is not that CICO is faulty but that calorie counting can be faulty. CICO is what it is. CICO does what it does. And understanding the difference between CICO and calorie counting can help people to understand where to turn their attention and energy when their plan isn't working. You can change your calorie counting methodology. You cannot change how CICO works.



    I understand the distinction, but I think this article is taking on both to a certain extent. It is saying not only that calorie counting is flawed, but that the idea of the calorie is flawed. It is saying that there is no such thing really as a calorie, that the 4-4-9 breakdown we use isn't accurate. That different carbs, protein, etc all have different energy levels associated with them and shouldn't be treated the same. That different bodies process energy differently so a calorie for one may not be the same as a calorie for another.

    To me that goes beyond just questioning whether calorie counting can be accurate. It seems like it is taking to task using calorie as a unit of measurement at all.

    to answer the bolded... that does not mean CICO isn't correct, as that means the CI or CO side of the equation could be different person to person. But, at no time is the energy absorbed for a calorie consumed greater than one calorie. If you don't absorb all the food, CI is less than you thought, or if it takes more energy to breakdown, that increases the CO, but doesn't change the fact that weight management still comes down to energy balance

    As for the second part, they don't offer a better way to measure the energy balance in the body though, until that can be accomplished CICO is the best we have, and as we currently know it, Counting Calories and watching your weight confirms this (assuming you are tracking CI and CO accurately as you can)
  • MikePTY
    MikePTY Posts: 3,814 Member
    erickirb wrote: »
    MikePTY wrote: »
    Again, I think that it's important to be clear about this because it helps people to understand what's going on and having more information can guide people in how to adjust their weight management plan with less struggle.

    CICO is not the same as calorie counting. And conflating the two, as has happened several times in this thread, is why these posts go round in circles.

    CICO is science. It's a description of what's happening in your body.
    Calorie counting is a method of observing and affecting CICO in order to get a desired outcome.

    Calorie counting is a verb. It's a thing you can do or use. CICO is a noun. It's a thing that's happening.

    So, let's get an analogy going. If I came into this thread and said that gravity doesn't work the same for everyone I suspect that I would get a whole bunch of woos and a whole bunch of posts trying to explain why I'm wrong. But aha! Some people fall faster than others. Some are more likely to trip. Cats always land on their feet! People use different types of gravimeters and some of them don't work as well as others. Some people have faulty gravimeters or no gravimeter at all. They don't experience gravity the same way that others do so gravity is not the same for everyone.

    That's preposterous, of course. Gravity on earth exerts the same force on everyone, whether they can measure it properly or not. Likewise, the CICO equation works the same way in everyone. There are many variables in that equation that make people different, but the long, drawn out, complicated equation works the same for everyone.

    The problem is not that CICO is faulty but that calorie counting can be faulty. CICO is what it is. CICO does what it does. And understanding the difference between CICO and calorie counting can help people to understand where to turn their attention and energy when their plan isn't working. You can change your calorie counting methodology. You cannot change how CICO works.



    I understand the distinction, but I think this article is taking on both to a certain extent. It is saying not only that calorie counting is flawed, but that the idea of the calorie is flawed. It is saying that there is no such thing really as a calorie, that the 4-4-9 breakdown we use isn't accurate. That different carbs, protein, etc all have different energy levels associated with them and shouldn't be treated the same. That different bodies process energy differently so a calorie for one may not be the same as a calorie for another.

    To me that goes beyond just questioning whether calorie counting can be accurate. It seems like it is taking to task using calorie as a unit of measurement at all.

    to answer the bolded... that does not mean CICO sin't correct, as that means the CI or CO side of the equation could be different person to person. But, at no time is the energy absorbed for a calorie consumed greater than one calorie. If you don't absorb all the food, CI is less than you thought, or if it takes more energy to breakdown, that increases the CO, but doesn't change the fact that weight managment still comes down to CICO

    As for the second part, they don't offer a better way to measure the energy balance in the body though, until that can be accomplished CICO is the best we have, and as we currently know it, Counting Calories and watching your weight confirms this (assuming you are tracking CI and CO accurately as you can)

    They aren't disputing the idea energy in vs energy out, but they do seem to be trying to say that calorie is not a proper measure of energy (it is titled "Death of the Calorie" after all). I am not defending their hypothesis. I don't agree with it. But I think the take that they're just questioning calorie counting is inaccurate. I think they are going after the very idea of the calorie, which I interpret as going after "C"I"C"O
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,294 Member
    edited April 2019
    MikePTY wrote: »
    erickirb wrote: »
    MikePTY wrote: »
    Again, I think that it's important to be clear about this because it helps people to understand what's going on and having more information can guide people in how to adjust their weight management plan with less struggle.

    CICO is not the same as calorie counting. And conflating the two, as has happened several times in this thread, is why these posts go round in circles.

    CICO is science. It's a description of what's happening in your body.
    Calorie counting is a method of observing and affecting CICO in order to get a desired outcome.

    Calorie counting is a verb. It's a thing you can do or use. CICO is a noun. It's a thing that's happening.

    So, let's get an analogy going. If I came into this thread and said that gravity doesn't work the same for everyone I suspect that I would get a whole bunch of woos and a whole bunch of posts trying to explain why I'm wrong. But aha! Some people fall faster than others. Some are more likely to trip. Cats always land on their feet! People use different types of gravimeters and some of them don't work as well as others. Some people have faulty gravimeters or no gravimeter at all. They don't experience gravity the same way that others do so gravity is not the same for everyone.

    That's preposterous, of course. Gravity on earth exerts the same force on everyone, whether they can measure it properly or not. Likewise, the CICO equation works the same way in everyone. There are many variables in that equation that make people different, but the long, drawn out, complicated equation works the same for everyone.

    The problem is not that CICO is faulty but that calorie counting can be faulty. CICO is what it is. CICO does what it does. And understanding the difference between CICO and calorie counting can help people to understand where to turn their attention and energy when their plan isn't working. You can change your calorie counting methodology. You cannot change how CICO works.



    I understand the distinction, but I think this article is taking on both to a certain extent. It is saying not only that calorie counting is flawed, but that the idea of the calorie is flawed. It is saying that there is no such thing really as a calorie, that the 4-4-9 breakdown we use isn't accurate. That different carbs, protein, etc all have different energy levels associated with them and shouldn't be treated the same. That different bodies process energy differently so a calorie for one may not be the same as a calorie for another.

    To me that goes beyond just questioning whether calorie counting can be accurate. It seems like it is taking to task using calorie as a unit of measurement at all.

    to answer the bolded... that does not mean CICO sin't correct, as that means the CI or CO side of the equation could be different person to person. But, at no time is the energy absorbed for a calorie consumed greater than one calorie. If you don't absorb all the food, CI is less than you thought, or if it takes more energy to breakdown, that increases the CO, but doesn't change the fact that weight managment still comes down to CICO

    As for the second part, they don't offer a better way to measure the energy balance in the body though, until that can be accomplished CICO is the best we have, and as we currently know it, Counting Calories and watching your weight confirms this (assuming you are tracking CI and CO accurately as you can)

    They aren't disputing the idea energy in vs energy out, but they do seem to be trying to say that calorie is not a proper measure of energy (it is titled "Death of the Calorie" after all). I am not defending their hypothesis. I don't agree with it. But I think the take that they're just questioning calorie counting is inaccurate. I think they are going after the very idea of the calorie, which I interpret as going after "C"I"C"O

    I get that that is what they are saying, and that you don't agree. But if it isn't that, then what is it... and why does CICO, meet expectations (when meticulously tracking) with Fat/weight loss you would expect based on CICO, after accounting for metabolic differences?
  • globalhiker
    globalhiker Posts: 1,706 Member
    Generally speaking and with the normal population (ie: people without a hormonal disorder and people not undergoing a stressful event), CICO hands down works for Fat Burning. What I want to say, is that under normal conditions CICO is pretty reliable. It's just when our bodies are "out of whack" that CICO rules do not work the same way.
  • kgeyser
    kgeyser Posts: 22,505 Member
    shaumom wrote: »
    And that's gonna be it from me. Like I said, I was just putting this up for folks to check out, research more if they want to, and maybe it might help some folks if they are struggling with weight loss with the CICO model without adding in more data points, or maybe it'll not be of use at all. Responded a bit but it seems like this is already hitting activity levels I just don't have the energy to keep up with.

    So enjoy the debate, and hope that some of ya'll may find this useful or interesting.

    @shaumom, I appreciate the share. I found the article interesting. I feel like it relate well to a lot of advice we see on the forums, particularly around what and how to eat. We have a lot of posts about things like macro breakdown, what foods to eat, what foods lead to satiety - and invariably people will say it comes down to personal preference. I think the author's suggestions about people burning calories at different rates, and processing certain foods differently, along with things like gut bacteria, might get more into the why of those personal preferences. Why some people feel full with carbs, and others are hungry 15 minutes later. Why one person feels good after eating a certain food, and another feels sluggish.

    I don't think this completely discounts CICO or calorie counting, but I think it would be interesting to see more research. I think the immediate reaction from many people would be "it's not true because I lost weight just counting calories," but even that is anecdotal because there is no comparable situation where all the factors were the same except food choices. I think it's possible that there could be more to weight loss regarding individual food choices than just improving dietary adherence.
  • grinning_chick
    grinning_chick Posts: 765 Member
    edited April 2019
    When an article titles itself "Death of the Calorie" is not hard to get the impression that it thinks that the calorie or CICO is irrelevant. It's literally in the title.

    Or... the title is a play on words vs. intending for people to take it literally. I.E., they are saying it is the "death" of the calorie as we currently know/knew it/worked it/assumed it worked/counted it/counted on it/etc./etc./etc. when it comes to human nutrition and dietetics, as there's new things on the block to consider/explore/research/rule in/rule out as possibly influencing/impacting those current dogmas. That's all. Not it's actually death or slide into obscurity, debunked and irrelevant.

    I know that's the impression it created over here, anyways. :)
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,096 Member
    kgeyser wrote: »
    shaumom wrote: »
    And that's gonna be it from me. Like I said, I was just putting this up for folks to check out, research more if they want to, and maybe it might help some folks if they are struggling with weight loss with the CICO model without adding in more data points, or maybe it'll not be of use at all. Responded a bit but it seems like this is already hitting activity levels I just don't have the energy to keep up with.

    So enjoy the debate, and hope that some of ya'll may find this useful or interesting.

    @shaumom, I appreciate the share. I found the article interesting. I feel like it relate well to a lot of advice we see on the forums, particularly around what and how to eat. We have a lot of posts about things like macro breakdown, what foods to eat, what foods lead to satiety - and invariably people will say it comes down to personal preference. I think the author's suggestions about people burning calories at different rates, and processing certain foods differently, along with things like gut bacteria, might get more into the why of those personal preferences. Why some people feel full with carbs, and others are hungry 15 minutes later. Why one person feels good after eating a certain food, and another feels sluggish.

    I don't think this completely discounts CICO or calorie counting, but I think it would be interesting to see more research. I think the immediate reaction from many people would be "it's not true because I lost weight just counting calories," but even that is anecdotal because there is no comparable situation where all the factors were the same except food choices. I think it's possible that there could be more to weight loss regarding individual food choices than just improving dietary adherence.

    Well now I feel pretty stupid wasting five years of my life on a calorie-counting site losing weight and maintaining the lose. Might as well take my eyeballs somewhere else, I guess.
  • kgeyser
    kgeyser Posts: 22,505 Member
    kgeyser wrote: »
    shaumom wrote: »
    And that's gonna be it from me. Like I said, I was just putting this up for folks to check out, research more if they want to, and maybe it might help some folks if they are struggling with weight loss with the CICO model without adding in more data points, or maybe it'll not be of use at all. Responded a bit but it seems like this is already hitting activity levels I just don't have the energy to keep up with.

    So enjoy the debate, and hope that some of ya'll may find this useful or interesting.

    @shaumom, I appreciate the share. I found the article interesting. I feel like it relate well to a lot of advice we see on the forums, particularly around what and how to eat. We have a lot of posts about things like macro breakdown, what foods to eat, what foods lead to satiety - and invariably people will say it comes down to personal preference. I think the author's suggestions about people burning calories at different rates, and processing certain foods differently, along with things like gut bacteria, might get more into the why of those personal preferences. Why some people feel full with carbs, and others are hungry 15 minutes later. Why one person feels good after eating a certain food, and another feels sluggish.

    I don't think this completely discounts CICO or calorie counting, but I think it would be interesting to see more research. I think the immediate reaction from many people would be "it's not true because I lost weight just counting calories," but even that is anecdotal because there is no comparable situation where all the factors were the same except food choices. I think it's possible that there could be more to weight loss regarding individual food choices than just improving dietary adherence.

    Well now I feel pretty stupid wasting five years of my life on a calorie-counting site losing weight and maintaining the lose. Might as well take my eyeballs somewhere else, I guess.

    That's an odd interpretation of what I actually said, but okay. Good luck to you and your eyeballs.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,096 Member
    kgeyser wrote: »
    kgeyser wrote: »
    shaumom wrote: »
    And that's gonna be it from me. Like I said, I was just putting this up for folks to check out, research more if they want to, and maybe it might help some folks if they are struggling with weight loss with the CICO model without adding in more data points, or maybe it'll not be of use at all. Responded a bit but it seems like this is already hitting activity levels I just don't have the energy to keep up with.

    So enjoy the debate, and hope that some of ya'll may find this useful or interesting.

    @shaumom, I appreciate the share. I found the article interesting. I feel like it relate well to a lot of advice we see on the forums, particularly around what and how to eat. We have a lot of posts about things like macro breakdown, what foods to eat, what foods lead to satiety - and invariably people will say it comes down to personal preference. I think the author's suggestions about people burning calories at different rates, and processing certain foods differently, along with things like gut bacteria, might get more into the why of those personal preferences. Why some people feel full with carbs, and others are hungry 15 minutes later. Why one person feels good after eating a certain food, and another feels sluggish.

    I don't think this completely discounts CICO or calorie counting, but I think it would be interesting to see more research. I think the immediate reaction from many people would be "it's not true because I lost weight just counting calories," but even that is anecdotal because there is no comparable situation where all the factors were the same except food choices. I think it's possible that there could be more to weight loss regarding individual food choices than just improving dietary adherence.

    Well now I feel pretty stupid wasting five years of my life on a calorie-counting site losing weight and maintaining the lose. Might as well take my eyeballs somewhere else, I guess.

    That's an odd interpretation of what I actually said, but okay. Good luck to you and your eyeballs.


    If that's not how you meant it, I'm sorry, but it sounded as though, despite the disclaimer, you were discounting the value of my knowing what foods satiate me if there's no research showing a biological process to back that up, and discounting even the possibility of it being sufficient to make choices about macro splits and what to eat based on personal preference.

    After decades of trying diets based on all kinds of theories about how your body deals with different foods (bananas, cabbage, grapefruit...), I finally found a way to determine what my maintenance level is based on data, then track my daily energy intake against that. I'm glad I didn't discover the forums until after the first 20 lbs of weight loss showed me that just tracking what I was eating so I knew I was in a deficit could work. If I'd been seeing threads touting articles that said calories are dead and there's no point in counting them, and posts saying that people's bodies work differently and different foods are processed differently so CICO isn't completely valid, I might have wondered how all this weighing and finding good database entries could possibly be worth it, when even the people using the site a lot longer than me were saying that.

  • whmscll
    whmscll Posts: 2,255 Member
    solieco1 wrote: »
    I read this whole thing a few days ago. Interesting but the conclusion I came to was that while there may be warts, no one has anything more reliable. Stick to it, do the best you can with imperfect data, track your own numbers and adjust as necessary.

    I agree with this. I found the excerpts from the article fascinating, but in the absence of an alternative method that works as well as CICO has worked for me, I will carry on as usual.
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,885 Member
    edited April 2019
    kgeyser wrote: »
    shaumom wrote: »
    And that's gonna be it from me. Like I said, I was just putting this up for folks to check out, research more if they want to, and maybe it might help some folks if they are struggling with weight loss with the CICO model without adding in more data points, or maybe it'll not be of use at all. Responded a bit but it seems like this is already hitting activity levels I just don't have the energy to keep up with.

    So enjoy the debate, and hope that some of ya'll may find this useful or interesting.

    @shaumom, I appreciate the share. I found the article interesting. I feel like it relate well to a lot of advice we see on the forums, particularly around what and how to eat. We have a lot of posts about things like macro breakdown, what foods to eat, what foods lead to satiety - and invariably people will say it comes down to personal preference. I think the author's suggestions about people burning calories at different rates, and processing certain foods differently, along with things like gut bacteria, might get more into the why of those personal preferences. Why some people feel full with carbs, and others are hungry 15 minutes later. Why one person feels good after eating a certain food, and another feels sluggish.

    I don't think this completely discounts CICO or calorie counting, but I think it would be interesting to see more research. I think the immediate reaction from many people would be "it's not true because I lost weight just counting calories," but even that is anecdotal because there is no comparable situation where all the factors were the same except food choices. I think it's possible that there could be more to weight loss regarding individual food choices than just improving dietary adherence.

    Well now I feel pretty stupid wasting five years of my life on a calorie-counting site losing weight and maintaining the lose. Might as well take my eyeballs somewhere else, I guess.

    Heh!
    kgeyser wrote: »
    kgeyser wrote: »
    shaumom wrote: »
    And that's gonna be it from me. Like I said, I was just putting this up for folks to check out, research more if they want to, and maybe it might help some folks if they are struggling with weight loss with the CICO model without adding in more data points, or maybe it'll not be of use at all. Responded a bit but it seems like this is already hitting activity levels I just don't have the energy to keep up with.

    So enjoy the debate, and hope that some of ya'll may find this useful or interesting.

    @shaumom, I appreciate the share. I found the article interesting. I feel like it relate well to a lot of advice we see on the forums, particularly around what and how to eat. We have a lot of posts about things like macro breakdown, what foods to eat, what foods lead to satiety - and invariably people will say it comes down to personal preference. I think the author's suggestions about people burning calories at different rates, and processing certain foods differently, along with things like gut bacteria, might get more into the why of those personal preferences. Why some people feel full with carbs, and others are hungry 15 minutes later. Why one person feels good after eating a certain food, and another feels sluggish.

    I don't think this completely discounts CICO or calorie counting, but I think it would be interesting to see more research. I think the immediate reaction from many people would be "it's not true because I lost weight just counting calories," but even that is anecdotal because there is no comparable situation where all the factors were the same except food choices. I think it's possible that there could be more to weight loss regarding individual food choices than just improving dietary adherence.

    Well now I feel pretty stupid wasting five years of my life on a calorie-counting site losing weight and maintaining the lose. Might as well take my eyeballs somewhere else, I guess.

    That's an odd interpretation of what I actually said, but okay. Good luck to you and your eyeballs.


    If that's not how you meant it, I'm sorry, but it sounded as though, despite the disclaimer, you were discounting the value of my knowing what foods satiate me if there's no research showing a biological process to back that up, and discounting even the possibility of it being sufficient to make choices about macro splits and what to eat based on personal preference.

    After decades of trying diets based on all kinds of theories about how your body deals with different foods (bananas, cabbage, grapefruit...), I finally found a way to determine what my maintenance level is based on data, then track my daily energy intake against that. I'm glad I didn't discover the forums until after the first 20 lbs of weight loss showed me that just tracking what I was eating so I knew I was in a deficit could work. If I'd been seeing threads touting articles that said calories are dead and there's no point in counting them, and posts saying that people's bodies work differently and different foods are processed differently so CICO isn't completely valid, I might have wondered how all this weighing and finding good database entries could possibly be worth it, when even the people using the site a lot longer than me were saying that.

    I found this really well said. It's what I was trying to get at in my much longer post just above.
  • echmain3
    echmain3 Posts: 231 Member
    Solution: don’t read articles.

    Most of them are BS and anyone can get them published.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    lemurcat2 wrote: »
    shaumom wrote: »
    "What we do know...suggests that counting calories is very crude and often misleading. Think of a burger... Take a bite and the saliva in your mouth starts to break it down, a process that continues when you swallow, transporting the morsel towards your stomach and beyond to be churned further. The digestive process transforms the protein, carbohydrates and fat in the burger into their basic compounds so that they are tiny enough to be absorbed into the bloodstream via the small intestine to fuel and repair the trillions of cells in the body. But the basic molecules from each macronutrient play very different roles within the body."

    Why does that suggest that counting calories is misleading?

    Food is more than calories. That doesn't mean that "calorie" is a meaningless data point when it comes to food. I struggle to trust any food writing by people who are incapable of grasping that relatively simple concept.

    I'm guessing it suggests calorie counting is misleading because of how CICO is used now.

    Actually, it seems to be suggesting that calorie counting is misleading based on an approach that no one actually uses (not if they are sensible).

    According to the article, calorie counting could give rise to inaccurate results if you (a) eat a not particularly varied diet (since you'd have to for the way things are off to be all in one direction), (b) be concerned with nothing but calories (not satiety, not nutrition -- common strawman, but not IMO how most real people do it), and (c) not adjust based on results.

    Even if (a) and (b) were true, calorie counting would still work just fine if you only did (c).

    And not only that, but even people for whom (a) and (b) are not true (most or all of us in this discussion), STILL likely will need to adjust based on results, because there are lots of other factors too. I lost FASTER than expected. I assumed it was because I was more active than my assumption going in, but maybe it was because I eat mostly whole foods, plenty of protein, and enjoy almonds. Maybe it was because I was trying to be so accurate I was overcounting things. Eh, whatever, it's irrelevant, and people who lose slower than expected can adjust too.

    When people (like the article writer) don't get that, I can only shake my head.

    This is a really good point. When we adjust, we usually aren't sure *what* we're adjusting for. But it's enough that we adjust.

    I eat all my Fitbit adjustments. I assume it's because it's accurate, but what if my Fitbit isn't accurate and I just think it is because I eat more fiber than the average person and so I'm absorbing fewer calories? In the end, it doesn't matter because I'm seeing the results I want. If I wasn't, I'd make an adjustment to address that.
  • missysippy930
    missysippy930 Posts: 2,577 Member
    edited April 2019
    A lot of good points and reading on this thread. Many intelligent folks here interpreting and explaining. Thank you all.
    On the path to becoming healthier and losing weight, educating yourself, and knowing what your body responds to best, is part of the process. Calorie counting works very efficiently.
  • neugebauer52
    neugebauer52 Posts: 1,120 Member
    I am a bit careful with shop bought food items since I am not sure how precise their calorie calculations are. Recently I have also picked up a term called "food stacking" on MFP. It took me some time to find / get further information and - at least for me - there seems to be something I can learn from. I used to be an amazing "food stacker" which made calorie counting / recording a bit difficult. Over time I have simplified the numbers of ingredients in my meals which gives me much more clarity on what / how much I am eating and makes my MFP recording of food that much easier.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,426 Member
    I'm not clicking the woo button, but that's woo. Woo doesn't have to be completely balderdash, it could be something that is true, but spun in a way that isn't true, or something that is true on the surface but has nothing to do with the point being made. Too tired to rip it apart point by point, but yeah, it's woo.

    I just really wish the writer was here to ask them: what method do you propose that is more precise than calories? Counting calories is the most precise method we know. If there are issues with accuracy, the values can be safely shifted to accommodate thanks to that precision (janejellyroll's example earlier). With any other method, if something is not working you're either "doing it wrong" or need to try this and that until you get lucky and something shifts the results. Alternatively, you also have the option of quitting and blaming your metabolism.

    exactly. It's woo. I'll click it again for you.

    (YES I KNOW. No one needs to point out to me that double clicking woo erases a woo. I'm all about the woo.)
  • aninya
    aninya Posts: 11 Member
    I've lost 60 pounds by logging my food, my naturopath was thrilled! Then he changed my diet to remove grains, dairy and soy and I lost 5 more pounds that I was battling to get off but I still believe in food logging because it keeps you accountable to yourself !