Research suggests there is more to it than simply CICO for obese people. More study needed.

MargaretYakoda

The Guardian story.
Teal Dear: research suggests overweight people do actually have a harder time expending calories especially after exercise.
It is not 100% conclusive. But the participant number seems large enough, and the findings solid enough, to investigate this further.

https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2021/aug/27/losing-weight-through-exercise-may-be-harder-for-obese-people-research-says

And the published study for those who want all the information available.

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(21)01120-9?_returnURL=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0960982221011209?showall=true

goal06082021

At the risk of starting this debate up again...it's still CICO. Like. Maybe the CO piece of the equation doesn't quite match up with what most calculators will predict, but obese and overweight people don't break physics. Weight loss is still achieved by taking in fewer calories from food than the body expends in the course of being alive and going about one's business. Whatever you do to define those two variables ("CI" and "CO"), as long as CI > CO, the result is weight loss, end of story. CICO isn't a diet, CICO isn't a training plan, CICO is just an equation.

MargaretYakoda

@goal06082021
No disagreement with that.
It may just add another factor.

And I want to be clear: I do not believe this means obese people can’t lose weight. My personal experience says morbidly obese people can lose weight. And that restricting calories in a safe and consciousness manner is the way to do it.

swimmom_1

FYI: > is greater than, < is less than.

swimmom_1

So CI is < CO. CI is less than CO.

goal06082021

Oh, absolutely. It's always going to be easier to deal with the "CI" half of the equation, since there is no direct way to measure CO - even laboratory-grade heart-rate monitors are still only measuring heart rate, which is like a third-hand approximation of calorie burn. And if an obese person does burn significantly fewer calories than someone else doing the same exercise, the CI piece is going to be even more important. But it still comes down to CI<CO for weight loss - if that's not happening, either CI is too high, CO is too low, or both.

This is a calorie-counting website, so naturally MFP is best utilized as a tool to help you dial in the CI portion of the equation; and furthermore, human beings are just...really incredibly bad at estimating how much they eat. It used to be an adaptation, being able to eat more than we strictly needed at a given time, but it's not anymore now that we have, you know, McDonald's and grocery stores and UberEats. There's science about that, too. A person who is already overweight or obese has a clear and obvious track record of underestimating how much they eat; the way to correct that is to eat less, but you need to know how much you're starting with to make any lasting changes.

swimmom_1

Agree with @goal06082021
That is why we need to measure in a measuring cup of weighin on a scale. That's why also for TDEE I take the less activity level of 1-2 x/week instead of using the 3-5 x/week, even though I'm e deciding my off work days of 3x/week. I'd rather under estimate in that area of less than, than more than. Food wise, if I am out at a restaurant, and can't measure, I would over estimate the food amount I'm eating. It's been working for me so far.

Theoldguy1

Its CICO people looking for scapegoat that isn't there.

kshama2001

Interestingly, the page is offering me another article:

Quarter of adults in England 'exercise for less than half hour a week'

I think the two stories go hand in hand. I exercise regularly, so I'm used to it. The first article says:

For instance, if you go for a run and your activity tracker says you burned 300 calories (and you didn’t eat any differently) – you may assume that your total daily energy expenditure went up by 300 calories.

That may be the case in the short term, but over the long term the body starts to compensate for this extra energy exertion by reducing the energy spent on other processes, said lead author Prof Lewis Halsey from the University of Roehampton.

“It’s like the government trying to balance the budget – if it’s spending more on education for instance, then it might need to spend less on roads,” he said.

I often read here that if someone tries to jump into exercising "too much" (whatever that means for them) they might reduce their NEAT elsewhere.

So if someone tries to ramp up from exercising less than a half hour per week, they might indeed compensate elsewhere, like getting takeout because they are too tired to cook, when they usually cook for themselves, etc.

MargaretYakoda

goal06082021 wrote: »

Oh, absolutely. It's always going to be easier to deal with the "CI" half of the equation, since there is no direct way to measure CO - even laboratory-grade heart-rate monitors are still only measuring heart rate, which is like a third-hand approximation of calorie burn. And if an obese person does burn significantly fewer calories than someone else doing the same exercise, the CI piece is going to be even more important. But it still comes down to CI<CO for weight loss - if that's not happening, either CI is too high, CO is too low, or both.

This is a calorie-counting website, so naturally MFP is best utilized as a tool to help you dial in the CI portion of the equation; and furthermore, human beings are just...really incredibly bad at estimating how much they eat. It used to be an adaptation, being able to eat more than we strictly needed at a given time, but it's not anymore now that we have, you know, McDonald's and grocery stores and UberEats. There's science about that, too. A person who is already overweight or obese has a clear and obvious track record of underestimating how much they eat; the way to correct that is to eat less, but you need to know how much you're starting with to make any lasting changes.

Yes. I think this is the key bit for MFP and helping people.

Maybe acknowledge the possibility that yes it might be a bit harder for morbidly obese people. As the article suggests, it might be harder but we don’t yet know for sure, or what the mechanism is. But the solution is not to give up, but to be even more precise with the part we can control.
Carbs in. And counted as precise as possible by a lay person.

neanderthin

No 2 people will burn lets say 2000 calories exactly the same but still adhere to the first law of thermodynamics and that is the basis for the confusion. Foods however do effect our hormonal balance and metabolism which in turn effect our feelings of fullness and hunger but again as far as weight loss is concerned it will always be calories in vs out.

scarlett_k

Unless the participants were monitored 24/7 (I skim read the arricle so apologies if it does say) then I'll assume there is an aspect of self reporting calorie intake. In which case people will very often lie about how much they ate to make themselves look better or feel less embarrassed.

cmriverside

It's just another click-bait/no real basis article.

Anything with "weight loss" in it is going to be click bait even if there is no new "news" in it. Even better (worse) "Poor obese people. IT IS HARDER to lose weight."

Ugh. We wonder why people don't change? They keep being told they can't.

autobahn66

cmriverside wrote: »

It's just another click-bait/no real basis article.

Anything with "weight loss" in it is going to be click bait even if there is no new "news" in it. Even better (worse) "Poor obese people. IT IS HARDER to lose weight."

Ugh. We wonder why people don't change? They keep being told they can't.

This is an ill-informed comment, which adds no value to the discussion.

They used flow-through respirometry to measure basal energy expenditure and double-labelled water to measure total energy expenditure.

The study showed clearly an underlying compensatory process which reduced basal energy expenditure in response to total energy expenditure, thereby reducing the deficit that would otherwise be created by exercise.

This study fairly comprehensively shows that an obese person compensates more than someone with an average weight, to the extent that they have to work approx 25% harder to obtain the same calorie deficit through exercise.

It also shows that even a fit person will not actually deficit all the calories that they burn through exercise.

I don't know what you mean when you say "no real basis": it is pretty solid nutrition science. It pretty definitively shows that the value of exercise in creating a calorie deficit is highly variable and reduces with obesity.

It speaks to a pretty immediate problem of an obese person aiming to lose weight: if they plug their numbers into MFP and plan a marginal calorie deficit, then exercise to bring that deficit down further, they are likely to see worse results than if they had a more substantial dietary calorie deficit and did no exercise, even though MFP presents them as equivalent.

autobahn66

scarlett_k wrote: »

Unless the participants were monitored 24/7 (I skim read the arricle so apologies if it does say) then I'll assume there is an aspect of self reporting calorie intake. In which case people will very often lie about how much they ate to make themselves look better or feel less embarrassed.

TDEE was measured by doubly labelled water, a scientific method which (somewhat) accurately measures the total amount of CO2 produced by the body. Calorie intake and weight change are not particularly relevent to energy expenditure, other than the thermogenic effect of food, which was (broadly) accounted for.

cmriverside

The study showed clearly an underlying compensatory process which reduced basal energy expenditure in response to total energy expenditure, thereby reducing the deficit that would otherwise be created by exercise

It seems to go without saying that obese people who exercise are going to be more fatigued than fitter, lighter people...I don't know that you can calculate how much/many calories basal rate percentage changes will occur due to fitness levels. I just think it's a lot more complicated.

autobahn66

goal06082021 wrote: »

Oh, absolutely. It's always going to be easier to deal with the "CI" half of the equation, since there is no direct way to measure CO - even laboratory-grade heart-rate monitors are still only measuring heart rate, which is like a third-hand approximation of calorie burn. And if an obese person does burn significantly fewer calories than someone else doing the same exercise, the CI piece is going to be even more important. But it still comes down to CI<CO for weight loss - if that's not happening, either CI is too high, CO is too low, or both.

This is a calorie-counting website, so naturally MFP is best utilized as a tool to help you dial in the CI portion of the equation; and furthermore, human beings are just...really incredibly bad at estimating how much they eat. It used to be an adaptation, being able to eat more than we strictly needed at a given time, but it's not anymore now that we have, you know, McDonald's and grocery stores and UberEats. There's science about that, too. A person who is already overweight or obese has a clear and obvious track record of underestimating how much they eat; the way to correct that is to eat less, but you need to know how much you're starting with to make any lasting changes.

A few comments:

MFP is based around calorie counting, but also has an adjustment for exercise which is applied very blandly with no comment or recognition of a) the problems with measuring/recording calories burnt, or b) what this shows, which is that BEE/BMR is affected by calories burned in exercise.

I think that's pretty devastating to the idea of CICO: this demonstrates that CO is dynamic, unpredictable and highly variable between individuals.

It doesn't mean people shouldn't use calorie counting and exercise as a way to lose weight, but it means any predictor of weight loss which considers activity is going to be inaccurate, and given the variation between individuals in both BMR and response to exercise.

As an aside, I think their figure 1 is amazing! Humans have transcended the need to grow or reproduce...

cmriverside

MFP is based around calorie counting, but also has an adjustment for exercise which is applied very blandly with no comment or recognition of a) the problems with measuring/recording calories burnt, or b) what this shows, which is that BEE/BMR is affected by calories burned in exercise.

What is BEE?


Do you really think anyone uses an exercise calculation without thinking, "Hm, how accurate can this be? It doesn't know how hard I danced/hula-hooped/swam/played baseball?"

Ya gotta just do it and work out all the variables. Every single part of weight loss is individual from food choices to calorie-counting accuracy (or no counting) to daily chores and activities, to fidgeting, exercise intensity, general weight and health, nutrition, illness, stress, sleep, hydration...it isn't a simple, "It's harder for obese people." It's hard for everyone...but you have to run the experiment.

autobahn66

cmriverside wrote: »

The study showed clearly an underlying compensatory process which reduced basal energy expenditure in response to total energy expenditure, thereby reducing the deficit that would otherwise be created by exercise

It seems to go without saying that obese people who exercise are going to be more fatigued than fitter, lighter people...I don't know that you can calculate how much/many calories basal rate percentage changes will occur due to fitness levels. I just think it's a lot more complicated.

This article says nothing about fatigue.

And you can measure how BEE changes with physical activity: it's right there in the paper. It's not a miracle of science: it's measuring how much CO2 someone is producing.

You started this by making a definitive statement that this was click-bait: but you haven't shown an ounce of understanding of the actual work.

If obese people are going to have success in losing weight and being fitter and healthier, then we need to start from a position of giving advice that is evidence based, supportive and sustainable. Of course it is easier to simply say that obese people should eat less and exercise more, but it's not really that helpful.

I reckon this article tells us something very important about how to achieve weight-loss: and it's not to just throw our hands up and say "it's complicated"

P.S.

What is BEE?

Did you read the paper?

cmriverside

autobahn66 wrote: »

cmriverside wrote: »

The study showed clearly an underlying compensatory process which reduced basal energy expenditure in response to total energy expenditure, thereby reducing the deficit that would otherwise be created by exercise

It seems to go without saying that obese people who exercise are going to be more fatigued than fitter, lighter people...I don't know that you can calculate how much/many calories basal rate percentage changes will occur due to fitness levels. I just think it's a lot more complicated.

This article says nothing about fatigue.

And you can measure how BEE changes with physical activity: it's right there in the paper. It's not a miracle of science: it's measuring how much CO2 someone is producing.

You started this by making a definitive statement that this was click-bait: but you haven't shown an ounce of understanding of the actual work.

If obese people are going to have success in losing weight and being fitter and healthier, then we need to start from a position of giving advice that is evidence based, supportive and sustainable. Of course it is easier to simply say that obese people should eat less and exercise more, but it's not really that helpful.

I reckon this article tells us something very important about how to achieve weight-loss: and it's not to just throw our hands up and say "it's complicated"

The fact that it doesn't take into account fatigue and fitness and size when saying CICO is involved is a glitch, not a feature of the report. If an obese person's basic metabolic variability rate is greater after exercise than a non-obese person, that tells me their recovery post-exercise is not as good OR that their two numbers are so much further apart it skews results.

I know about CO2. You can stop taking personal shots, now.

heybales

Other studies have shown the same effect - the exercise eventually starts to not account for as much net increase to daily burn as it did at the start. This seems to be research on static data though.

It's the excuse I've seen many use that you shouldn't count exercise calories at all.
Of course it's that effect that is increasing the deficit initially (in the studies usually a tad severe to begin with) and likely causing the body to adapt - which other studies shows the CI can effect the CO eventually.

But the other studies have normally shown the CO reduction is to NEAT, and BMR is like the last thing that changes if needed.
So that's interesting that for those with a big BMR (measured not calculated), it takes the hit. Likely because there isn't much NEAT to effect anyway.

Also shows how MFP's method of just adding on gross exercise calories - even if it was exactly right - just reduces the deficit since some Activity level of calorie burn should actually be replaced.


I think the most important part of the study is the fact the Knights who say NEE would approve of the acronyms used.