Anyone else frustrated with the CICO mantra?

lemurcat2

Frank19556 wrote: »

There is a groupthink here which discourages even hints of going against the simplified dogma. I get that most mean well, but there are negatives to this, as often it halts any nuanced discussions, and leaves people feeling they have to go elsewhere for info and some of the places might be worse. I get there is a balance. An example from a while ago is someone labeled the DASH diet as a dangerous fad diet, and told the poster how dangerous it would be to follow it. At least in this example, there were others that were able to come to the defense of DASH. This poster followed the pattern of labeling diets as fads, so she thought she was doing good. Now there are crazy diets and it is good to bring this out, just that maybe there needs to be less reliance on dogma. I have seen CICO thrown out when clearly the OP understood that, they had gone on to something more detailed that CICO wouldn't answer. Still, CICO is the mantra so.......

(For the record, I agree with using CICO).

This forum is pretty pro DASH, so I doubt there was a forum pushed anti DASH response. Could there be some random people saying whatever? Sure, but that has zero to do with MFP or MFP groupthink.

Frank19556

It was an example of sticking to the simplistic dogma where it didn't apply, and meaning well. The same diet not named DASH would have had longer legs. There are other examples, but that one stood out to me in my mind. Yes, most of the time the error isn't so blatant, actually, for the most part there is no "error" at all. It is more an error of omission. I also get that the posters mean well and for the most part are very helpful.

ETA: I will put it this way. I understand that the diet industry is rife with disinformation or those that apply it wrong, and there are many posters here who spend the time to help posters see these instances and offer advice. The thing is there are instances of overreach on this, and I am sure it would not be seen by those who inadvertently do this. My post is an example of overstating, as I don't mean it as negative as it sounds. I am trying to show the balance, but I admit it is hard.

NorthCascades

ReenieHJ wrote: »

I just get frustrated with the fact that food, or at least the kinds of food I really want to eat, has as many calories as it does. I mean, why not amp up the calories in a stalk of celery to 500 and let the ice cream have 1 calorie.
Stamping my feet and throwing my 2 yo acting body on the floor screaming 'it isn't fair!!'

Have you considered running for God? You already have my vote based on this plan you've outlined above.

ReenieHJ

NorthCascades wrote: »

ReenieHJ wrote: »

I just get frustrated with the fact that food, or at least the kinds of food I really want to eat, has as many calories as it does. I mean, why not amp up the calories in a stalk of celery to 500 and let the ice cream have 1 calorie.
Stamping my feet and throwing my 2 yo acting body on the floor screaming 'it isn't fair!!'

Have you considered running for God? You already have my vote based on this plan you've outlined above.

Eeeks, wouldn't want the responsibility. Besides I think someone already has that job title. But I wouldn't mind tweaking a couple golden rules now and then.

Walkywalkerson

I'm not fed up of the CICO mantra.
Because its true.
Sure there are different types of calories etc ..
But regardless of how you are eating if you eat more calories than you are burning you will gain weight.
The key is eating the right type and amount of calories to feel satiated and suppress hunger to be successful.
We all know this.
But it's not easy - food and alcohol are delicious 😁

Mouse_Potato

I find it comforting actually. If the scale is going in the wrong direction, I like knowing it's a simple equation that I need to adjust. It's not because I'm eating at the wrong time, or in the wrong mood, or because Mercury is in Gatorade. It's not because I have failed to consume this year's magic pill/potion/berry/powdered dragon's blood. It just means my logging is off somewhere and once I find the error (which still happens even after being here for nine years), I am back on track.

russellholtslander1

CICO is fact.. the problem is.. we can't actually measure it.. it's TRUE, but how many calories did you consume today.

I'm not even talking about bad nutrition data, or faulty tracking.. I'm talking about WHERE you get you calories from.

Now your doctor speaks of DIETARY calories.. and says.. lose 1 lb. a week. Great.. you need to be 3,500 calories short.. 500 a day, right? But lets say, you cut 500 calories a day out.. you should lose that 1lb. a week, right?

Why don't you? Well, food is not our only source of calories.. we are overweight, and have stored FAT.. Your body needs varying amounts of calories. What if you work out? What if you sleep half the day? Do you burn the same amount of calories? Is 1800 calories a day, what you actually burn? Is 2300 what you actually need to maintain ( 1800 + 500 )?

Of course not.. if you have a calorie deficit, you are burning fat.. which means you are consuming THOSE calories.. so you decide 1200 is the most you can eat.. but you work out, and your body needs 3500 calories for the day.. don't think what your TDEE.. that means the dietary fat needed.. we burn some fat, when we are losing weight.. we eat low enough that we break down fat.. but those calories don't get vaporized.. they break down, and we USE them.. so when you drop 3,500 calories from the diet.. if you have a calorie balance.. you lose 1 lb. of weight.. because you consumed 500 less calories? NO.NO.NO.. you consumed the same amount of calories, but you got 500 less from food, SO you burned off 1 lb. of fat. Your body still needed the same amount of calories, and you can't actually not get the calories, since you have available fat, and it can just break it down.

You used up your stored fat, to use the SAME amount of calories.. exactly what you needed, but from a different source.. stored bodyfat, instead of food.

The problem is.. the body is a complicated system.. we don't switch from glucose burning to burning ketones ( from breaking down bodyfat ), like a switch.. other factors affect us to.. fluids for example, exercise, protein/muscle building, hot weather, metabolism.

So yes, CICO is correct, and if we lived in a lab, monitored 24/7, it can be proven, but in the real world, you have no idea how much fat you burn, or when you start/stop, and when you are burning dietary glucose, and not losing ANY bodyfat/weight. You have physical cycles, drink different amounts of fluids, burn different amounts of calories.. all sorts of things.

CICO is kind of like physics.. true, but only a scientist can actually use it, because the factors involved are too complicated for us to actually measure.. especially if we are only tracking ONE factor.. food calories eaten.. or maybe that, and calories burned.. and both are probably off by 10-15% anyways. Does every large egg have 70 calories? I doubt it.. does walking on the treadmill burn 250 calories an hour, every time? Did you weigh yourself at the same time of day? Did you weigh the fluids you consumed?

CICO is true, and can be proven, the same way a scientist can explain how we went to the moon.. but CICO is like saying.. astronauts get in a rocket, and fly to the moon, and they can land in X amount of days on the surface.

Sure, we get the idea, and we know it is true, but if we tried to fly to the moon, in a rocket, we wouldn't get there on the set day.. unless we knew the 99.9999% of the other data which goes into making it actually happen.

CICO is great, IF you could actually measure calories in, and calories out.. which is impossible for the average person. It's true, but absolutely useless.

Much better to look at things we can measure and control, and use those to reach a healthy weight.

AnnPT77

russellholtslander1 wrote: »

CICO is fact.. the problem is.. we can't actually measure it.. it's TRUE, but how many calories did you consume today.

I'm not even talking about bad nutrition data, or faulty tracking.. I'm talking about WHERE you get you calories from.

Now your doctor speaks of DIETARY calories.. and says.. lose 1 lb. a week. Great.. you need to be 3,500 calories short.. 500 a day, right? But lets say, you cut 500 calories a day out.. you should lose that 1lb. a week, right?

Why don't you? Well, food is not our only source of calories.. we are overweight, and have stored FAT.. Your body needs varying amounts of calories. What if you work out? What if you sleep half the day? Do you burn the same amount of calories? Is 1800 calories a day, what you actually burn? Is 2300 what you actually need to maintain ( 1800 + 500 )?

Of course not.. if you have a calorie deficit, you are burning fat.. which means you are consuming THOSE calories.. so you decide 1200 is the most you can eat.. but you work out, and your body needs 3500 calories for the day.. don't think what your TDEE.. that means the dietary fat needed.. we burn some fat, when we are losing weight.. we eat low enough that we break down fat.. but those calories don't get vaporized.. they break down, and we USE them.. so when you drop 3,500 calories from the diet.. if you have a calorie balance.. you lose 1 lb. of weight.. because you consumed 500 less calories? NO.NO.NO.. you consumed the same amount of calories, but you got 500 less from food, SO you burned off 1 lb. of fat. Your body still needed the same amount of calories, and you can't actually not get the calories, since you have available fat, and it can just break it down.

You used up your stored fat, to use the SAME amount of calories.. exactly what you needed, but from a different source.. stored bodyfat, instead of food.

The problem is.. the body is a complicated system.. we don't switch from glucose burning to burning ketones ( from breaking down bodyfat ), like a switch.. other factors affect us to.. fluids for example, exercise, protein/muscle building, hot weather, metabolism.

So yes, CICO is correct, and if we lived in a lab, monitored 24/7, it can be proven, but in the real world, you have no idea how much fat you burn, or when you start/stop, and when you are burning dietary glucose, and not losing ANY bodyfat/weight. You have physical cycles, drink different amounts of fluids, burn different amounts of calories.. all sorts of things.

CICO is kind of like physics.. true, but only a scientist can actually use it, because the factors involved are too complicated for us to actually measure.. especially if we are only tracking ONE factor.. food calories eaten.. or maybe that, and calories burned.. and both are probably off by 10-15% anyways. Does every large egg have 70 calories? I doubt it.. does walking on the treadmill burn 250 calories an hour, every time? Did you weigh yourself at the same time of day? Did you weigh the fluids you consumed?

CICO is true, and can be proven, the same way a scientist can explain how we went to the moon.. but CICO is like saying.. astronauts get in a rocket, and fly to the moon, and they can land in X amount of days on the surface.

Sure, we get the idea, and we know it is true, but if we tried to fly to the moon, in a rocket, we wouldn't get there on the set day.. unless we knew the 99.9999% of the other data which goes into making it actually happen.

CICO is great, IF you could actually measure calories in, and calories out.. which is impossible for the average person. It's true, but absolutely useless.

Much better to look at things we can measure and control, and use those to reach a healthy weight.

If the calorie balance equation (CICO) or calorie counting (which is not exactly the same thing) are useless for the average person, it's strange that so many seemingly average people around here lose weight over time, at something close to rates they can predict, by counting calories.

I did. While eating hundreds of grams of carbs every single day, too. Go figure.

Yup, it's all estimates, but "close enough" works fine.

P.S. There are many other incorrect statements in your post, IMO, too many to cite specifically. As an example at the abstract level, one needn't be a physicist to use physics (most of us use applied physics every day).

At a very applied level, it doesn't matter when our bodies switch from burning fat to burning glucose/glycogen. We don't need to care. We store and burn fat in varying amounts routinely through the day, loosely getting a larger fraction of energy from stored fat when at something like rest, gradually shifting the source to glycogen as activity gets more intense.

Generally, only endurance athletes need to worry about what's happening when, so that they don't "bonk"/"hit the wall" in a longer or more intense activity session.

The rest of us just need to know that if we eat fewer calories than we burn, on average over time, we'll lose stored bodyfat. It doesn't directly matter what macros are associated with those calories, unless food choice affects satiation or energy level and indirectly causes a problem. Estimates of the calories are plenty close enough for most, in practice.

Given how much approximation and estimates are involved, many of us find it remarkably predictable how fast that fat loss is going to happen.

If you're suggesting that carbs are something we can "measure and control" . . . well, that's subject to the same problems as trying to measure and control calories. Doesn't mean it won't work, though, as long as you have a calorie deficit alongside those estimated carbs.

amusedmonkey

russellholtslander1 wrote: »

CICO is great, IF you could actually measure calories in, and calories out.. which is impossible for the average person. It's true, but absolutely useless.

But you actually can. You don't need to be a scientist to do that, and you don't need lab accurate numbers to predict loss/gain/maintenance to a reasonable margin of error. All you need is consistent food and activity logging + time. If after a couple of months of doing that you look at the data you accumulated you can estimate your TDEE/average intake/weight change.

I have a lot of logged data and I can predict my weight change average down to a scarily accurate margin, but even that is not important. Is there that much of a difference between losing 400 grams and 500 grams a week? As long as the weight is going in the direction you want it to go thanks to logging consistently, estimating calories has done its job. Getting bogged down by useless details like glucose, ketones, and mechanisms (unless needed to be monitored for health reasons) is counterproductive if it's unnecessarily complicating things. That simple mantra is the simplest, easiest to understand, and most customizable way to create a deficit, be it with counting and logging or without.

Editing to provide a practical example:
My estimated TDEE seems to be roughly 6-8% lower than what the formula calculates based on my stats. This could be down to several reasons. I may be eating more than I think due to logging errors or inaccurate food data, I could be moving less than I think, I could be slightly more to the left of the bell curve for one or more reasons, or a mix of some or all of these reasons and others, but it really doesn't matter. All I need to do is take that into account when I calculate my target calories, and I'm able to lose/gain/maintain and my average weight change is very predictable.

paperpudding

russel, I wont quote your long post again - but just because CICO cannot be measured exactly accurately (is anyone saying it can??) it isnt worth doing or cannot be done in any useful way ???

is that what you are saying??

I don't agree with that at all.

Many things in life we cannot do accurately - hardly makes them not worth doing or not able to be done in real life ways.

I dont budget my money down to the last cent - but I do it well enough to keep my finances in order.

Calorie counting - in real life just needs to be done well enough.

hjahangiri

No, I don't hate it - it's helpful so long as you understand that there are other factors involved, such as RMR - mine is 1380, meaning I can be conscious, working at my desk, and only burn 1380 calories in a day. If I don't work out, build more fat-burning muscle, eat less (a lot less) than 1380+what I burn, I'll gain weight. That's ridiculous, too, right? An athletic young man may easily burn more than 2000 calories a day just laying on the couch, watching TV.

Most of us are missing that part of the equation that tells us exactly HOW and WHY our bodies are different from the standard formula. Not the part that says 3500 calories is a pound, but the part that says how much we naturally need to sustain life and have energy to exercise vs. what's "excess."