Interesting way that people excuse their overweight / obesity

Wickedfaery73 wrote: »

Could midwesterner85's results have had something to do with the autoimmune disease that was mentioned? Is t one that affects the metabolism like Hashimoto's (low thyroid)?

wackyfunster wrote: »

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Wickedfaery73 wrote: »

Could midwesterner85's results have had something to do with the autoimmune disease that was mentioned? Is t one that affects the metabolism like Hashimoto's (low thyroid)?

Sure, but not enough to lower TDEE to 100. Even a 40% reduction in BMR is about the limit after months of starvation. An untreated thyroid condition that produced that level of metabolic slowdown would product severe health issues and likely death in a relatively short period of time.

Also, Hashimoto's is very manageable. There are a number of people here who suffer from Hashimoto's and have still achieved great results.

moe0303 wrote: »

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DrEnalg wrote: »

moe0303 wrote: »

DrEnalg wrote: »

midwesterner85 wrote: »

stealthq wrote: »

midwesterner85 wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

midwesterner85 wrote: »

Packerjohn wrote: »

midwesterner85 wrote: »

xmichaelyx wrote: »

Physics doesn't lie. If CICO didn't work 100% of the time, sub-Saharan Africa would be packed with fat people, instead of people who look like they're made of sticks.

Not exactly - it would only take 1 person to prove it doesn't work 100% of the time, so "packed with fat people" is an enormous exaggeration. From photographers trying to document starvation conditions, do you think that person ever gets attention?

Fine let's say CICO works 99.99999+% percent of the time. Then we can be in agreement.

I'm not sure what the actual numbers are, but I agree it works in an overwhelming majority of cases. However, there are some situations where it is not that simple. The MFP forums will have a disproportionately larger share than the population as a whole simply because this is where those who struggle with weight loss (when following CICO) are likely to seek help. For many of those seeking help, there are CICO-based solutions (tighter logging, for example), but there are still going to be some who cannot be helped by those CICO-based answers. And of all places in the world to find such a person, the MFP forums are one of the most likely places to encounter people who don't fit the CICO mold.

I absolutely agree with you that there are unusual, outlier cases (though they're rare). What I disagree about is the nature of those cases, even while agreeing that it isn't necessarily always "will power" or logging or somesuch.

IMO, there are people for whom the regular calorie-needs calculators/estimators are way, way off. (I'm one, at the moment, but in the happier direction. I have MFP friends who are outliers in the unhappy direction, and I believe them.) Yup, those people are more likely to post in the forums.

IMO, this does not mean "CICO doesn't work". Their personal calories in and their personal calories out still need to be in the relationship of CI < CO in order for them to lose weight. But something's seriously out of whack, in those very, very few cases, in how their CI or CO operate.

I don't know what it is. It's probably different for all of them. Could be the difference between the "organic apple" and the "pesticide-soaked apple" mentioned above. Could be that they're fidget-y people or non-fidget-y (which makes a surprisingly large difference on the CO side). Could be a metabolic medical issue. Could be gut microbiome. Who knows? But CI < CO to lose weight really, really is just physics.

(edited to fix typo)

I think some of this is semantics. Even if CICO does work, in situations where nobody can understand exactly why a particular person can't make it work as expected, it doesn't make any difference to that person whether there is some explanation somewhere that explains that it is all just CICO and the factors that make it up are unknown. It doesn't make a difference between saying that CICO works and there are unknown factors affecting the formula when compared with saying it doesn't work. As I would see things, the formula isn't working - there may be an explanation for why it isn't working, and maybe that explanation is that a person's BMR suddenly dropped 1K calories per day for a perfectly legitimate reason. But if that reason is unknown and a solution is therefore unknown, then CICO isn't working for them. Sure, the math might be there somewhere hidden away, but if it doesn't help a person lose weight, by definition, it doesn't work.

To me, that is not semantics. The estimation of CI/CO, or the process of calorie counting is not working for the person. That would be clear. But the underlying physics doesn't change.

If they think the whole thing is invalid, they may just give up entirely or try something completely counter to CICO which would of course be a failure. At least if they keep in mind that CICO still holds true, they know in general how to make adjustments that will eventually make them successful (and if medical issues make those adjustments inadvisable, they know that, too).

It really is not that simple. Here is an example: I once was frustrated at how slowly I was losing weight, so I cut calorie intake by 500 calories / day. I didn't make any changes to how I was measuring calorie intake nor did I make any changes to how I was measuring calories out. Almost immediately, I began to gain weight at a pace of almost 2 lbs. / week. So I increased my deficit and the result changed from a slow loss to a fast gain. While I'm sure there is a scientific explanation for this result, I don't really know what it is. Maybe the scientific explanation, whatever it is, fits within CICO. Even if that is the case, the general adjustments one would make when considering CICO didn't work. In my situation, I returned to a smaller deficit and started losing weight again... slowly again (and was further behind at this point). In that case, CICO didn't work... at least not in a way that knowing in general how to make adjustments did any good.

The problem is your example assumes you precisely measured calories in, and that you precisely measured calories out.

Simplest explanation more often than not being the best one (Occam's Razor), you weren't measuring your inputs and outputs properly. In fact, I would say with basically 100% certainty than in every case where a person on these boards says "CICO didn't work for me" (barring issues like edema or malignancy) the above is really what is happening - measurement error. The measurement error may be systematic or nonsystematic (the latter which probably explains your results above), but it's measurement error just the same.

If we must rely on measurements in order to assess CICO, and there is no practical way to accurately measure all factors 100% percent of the time, isn't feasible that conventional concepts of CICO will prove ineffective in practice for some people?

I suppose you could say that people who use CICO as a concept put into practice sometimes fail at it, and then when they use other methods based on non-CICO concepts (like low-carb, or the grapefruit diet, or whatnot) perhaps they can have more success. That doesn't mean the underlying concept is false, it just means that sometimes people need to use mental heuristics or models that don't necessarily translate into rational, logical, real-world mechanisms in order to exist.

But when people say "CICO didn't work for me" that, to me (with my annoyingly literal brain, as my girlfriend always tells me) that sounds as nonsensical as "gravity didn't work for me." Gravity always works. The law of Conservation of Energy applies to everyone, all the time. You can't generate fat spontaneously without a calorie surplus, you can't lose weight without a calorie deficit - it's simply, physically impossible, period.

BTW they've done studies on this over and over using animal and human models. It's expensive and cumbersome in probably most cases, but it's certainly feasible in laboratory conditions to with almost complete precision keep track of calorie inputs and calorie outputs in humans and animals - and I am not aware of a single instance where a person or animal spontaneously generated visceral body mass without a corresponding caloric input.

Bold 1: Or that the methodologies for measuring either side of the energy equation are less effective for certain people.

Bold 2: While gravity always works, its effects are not always felt, for example in outer space.

DrEnalg wrote: »

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JaneSnowe wrote: »

DrEnalg wrote: »

midwesterner85 wrote: »

DrEnalg wrote: »

midwesterner85 wrote: »

DrEnalg wrote: »

Wickedfaery73 wrote: »

Could midwesterner85's results have had something to do with the autoimmune disease that was mentioned? Is t one that affects the metabolism like Hashimoto's (low thyroid)?

I think he said he's already been checked out by a doctor and they said he's fine, unless I'm misremembering things.

You are mis-remembering things. What I said was that it was consistent throughout. I was losing slowly, then cut CI and started rapidly gaining, then raised calories to previous level and started losing slowly again without any change during that time to my health status or treatments.

Ummmm so does that mean you were diagnosed with a metabolic disorder or not....?

I have auto-immune diseases, yes. Is there a way that my BMR suddenly dropped during the same time I cut CI? My RMR would have to be around 110 cal/day during that time for the math to make sense.

Well, regardless, it still leaves us with only two explanations - you spontaneously generated body mass from nothing, or you didn't log accurately. You know which explanation I prefer.

Are we sure it wasn't water weight?

Even that isn't "generating body mass from nothing." Water in, water out.

DrEnalg wrote: »

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JaneSnowe wrote: »

moe0303 wrote: »

DrEnalg wrote: »

moe0303 wrote: »

DrEnalg wrote: »

midwesterner85 wrote: »

stealthq wrote: »

midwesterner85 wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

midwesterner85 wrote: »

Packerjohn wrote: »

midwesterner85 wrote: »

xmichaelyx wrote: »

Physics doesn't lie. If CICO didn't work 100% of the time, sub-Saharan Africa would be packed with fat people, instead of people who look like they're made of sticks.

Not exactly - it would only take 1 person to prove it doesn't work 100% of the time, so "packed with fat people" is an enormous exaggeration. From photographers trying to document starvation conditions, do you think that person ever gets attention?

Fine let's say CICO works 99.99999+% percent of the time. Then we can be in agreement.

I'm not sure what the actual numbers are, but I agree it works in an overwhelming majority of cases. However, there are some situations where it is not that simple. The MFP forums will have a disproportionately larger share than the population as a whole simply because this is where those who struggle with weight loss (when following CICO) are likely to seek help. For many of those seeking help, there are CICO-based solutions (tighter logging, for example), but there are still going to be some who cannot be helped by those CICO-based answers. And of all places in the world to find such a person, the MFP forums are one of the most likely places to encounter people who don't fit the CICO mold.

I absolutely agree with you that there are unusual, outlier cases (though they're rare). What I disagree about is the nature of those cases, even while agreeing that it isn't necessarily always "will power" or logging or somesuch.

IMO, there are people for whom the regular calorie-needs calculators/estimators are way, way off. (I'm one, at the moment, but in the happier direction. I have MFP friends who are outliers in the unhappy direction, and I believe them.) Yup, those people are more likely to post in the forums.

IMO, this does not mean "CICO doesn't work". Their personal calories in and their personal calories out still need to be in the relationship of CI < CO in order for them to lose weight. But something's seriously out of whack, in those very, very few cases, in how their CI or CO operate.

I don't know what it is. It's probably different for all of them. Could be the difference between the "organic apple" and the "pesticide-soaked apple" mentioned above. Could be that they're fidget-y people or non-fidget-y (which makes a surprisingly large difference on the CO side). Could be a metabolic medical issue. Could be gut microbiome. Who knows? But CI < CO to lose weight really, really is just physics.

(edited to fix typo)

I think some of this is semantics. Even if CICO does work, in situations where nobody can understand exactly why a particular person can't make it work as expected, it doesn't make any difference to that person whether there is some explanation somewhere that explains that it is all just CICO and the factors that make it up are unknown. It doesn't make a difference between saying that CICO works and there are unknown factors affecting the formula when compared with saying it doesn't work. As I would see things, the formula isn't working - there may be an explanation for why it isn't working, and maybe that explanation is that a person's BMR suddenly dropped 1K calories per day for a perfectly legitimate reason. But if that reason is unknown and a solution is therefore unknown, then CICO isn't working for them. Sure, the math might be there somewhere hidden away, but if it doesn't help a person lose weight, by definition, it doesn't work.

To me, that is not semantics. The estimation of CI/CO, or the process of calorie counting is not working for the person. That would be clear. But the underlying physics doesn't change.

If they think the whole thing is invalid, they may just give up entirely or try something completely counter to CICO which would of course be a failure. At least if they keep in mind that CICO still holds true, they know in general how to make adjustments that will eventually make them successful (and if medical issues make those adjustments inadvisable, they know that, too).

It really is not that simple. Here is an example: I once was frustrated at how slowly I was losing weight, so I cut calorie intake by 500 calories / day. I didn't make any changes to how I was measuring calorie intake nor did I make any changes to how I was measuring calories out. Almost immediately, I began to gain weight at a pace of almost 2 lbs. / week. So I increased my deficit and the result changed from a slow loss to a fast gain. While I'm sure there is a scientific explanation for this result, I don't really know what it is. Maybe the scientific explanation, whatever it is, fits within CICO. Even if that is the case, the general adjustments one would make when considering CICO didn't work. In my situation, I returned to a smaller deficit and started losing weight again... slowly again (and was further behind at this point). In that case, CICO didn't work... at least not in a way that knowing in general how to make adjustments did any good.

The problem is your example assumes you precisely measured calories in, and that you precisely measured calories out.

Simplest explanation more often than not being the best one (Occam's Razor), you weren't measuring your inputs and outputs properly. In fact, I would say with basically 100% certainty than in every case where a person on these boards says "CICO didn't work for me" (barring issues like edema or malignancy) the above is really what is happening - measurement error. The measurement error may be systematic or nonsystematic (the latter which probably explains your results above), but it's measurement error just the same.

If we must rely on measurements in order to assess CICO, and there is no practical way to accurately measure all factors 100% percent of the time, isn't feasible that conventional concepts of CICO will prove ineffective in practice for some people?

I suppose you could say that people who use CICO as a concept put into practice sometimes fail at it, and then when they use other methods based on non-CICO concepts (like low-carb, or the grapefruit diet, or whatnot) perhaps they can have more success. That doesn't mean the underlying concept is false, it just means that sometimes people need to use mental heuristics or models that don't necessarily translate into rational, logical, real-world mechanisms in order to exist.

But when people say "CICO didn't work for me" that, to me (with my annoyingly literal brain, as my girlfriend always tells me) that sounds as nonsensical as "gravity didn't work for me." Gravity always works. The law of Conservation of Energy applies to everyone, all the time. You can't generate fat spontaneously without a calorie surplus, you can't lose weight without a calorie deficit - it's simply, physically impossible, period.

BTW they've done studies on this over and over using animal and human models. It's expensive and cumbersome in probably most cases, but it's certainly feasible in laboratory conditions to with almost complete precision keep track of calorie inputs and calorie outputs in humans and animals - and I am not aware of a single instance where a person or animal spontaneously generated visceral body mass without a corresponding caloric input.

Bold 1: Or that the methodologies for measuring either side of the energy equation are less effective for certain people.

Bold 2: While gravity always works, its effects are not always felt, for example in outer space.

What would be an example of the effects of CICO not being felt? The only one I can think of is when CI=CO. Are there other cases?

It seems like there's often a lot of effort to make this more complicated than it is. Here are assumption I make about all this:

1) No one here on these boards are able to precisely measure CI or CO.

2) Therefore, our calorie and exercise logging is based on estimates. Which are subject to instrumentation and human error (systematic and otherwise).

3) You can't violate the principle of Conservation of Energy (e.g., or "calories in, calories out")

Ergo, *any* person here who claims they gain weight on a calorie deficit is wrong. It's measurement error.

stevencloser wrote: »

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JaneSnowe wrote: »

DrEnalg wrote: »

JaneSnowe wrote: »

moe0303 wrote: »

DrEnalg wrote: »

moe0303 wrote: »

DrEnalg wrote: »

midwesterner85 wrote: »

stealthq wrote: »

midwesterner85 wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

midwesterner85 wrote: »

Packerjohn wrote: »

midwesterner85 wrote: »

xmichaelyx wrote: »

Physics doesn't lie. If CICO didn't work 100% of the time, sub-Saharan Africa would be packed with fat people, instead of people who look like they're made of sticks.

Not exactly - it would only take 1 person to prove it doesn't work 100% of the time, so "packed with fat people" is an enormous exaggeration. From photographers trying to document starvation conditions, do you think that person ever gets attention?

Fine let's say CICO works 99.99999+% percent of the time. Then we can be in agreement.

I'm not sure what the actual numbers are, but I agree it works in an overwhelming majority of cases. However, there are some situations where it is not that simple. The MFP forums will have a disproportionately larger share than the population as a whole simply because this is where those who struggle with weight loss (when following CICO) are likely to seek help. For many of those seeking help, there are CICO-based solutions (tighter logging, for example), but there are still going to be some who cannot be helped by those CICO-based answers. And of all places in the world to find such a person, the MFP forums are one of the most likely places to encounter people who don't fit the CICO mold.

I absolutely agree with you that there are unusual, outlier cases (though they're rare). What I disagree about is the nature of those cases, even while agreeing that it isn't necessarily always "will power" or logging or somesuch.

IMO, there are people for whom the regular calorie-needs calculators/estimators are way, way off. (I'm one, at the moment, but in the happier direction. I have MFP friends who are outliers in the unhappy direction, and I believe them.) Yup, those people are more likely to post in the forums.

IMO, this does not mean "CICO doesn't work". Their personal calories in and their personal calories out still need to be in the relationship of CI < CO in order for them to lose weight. But something's seriously out of whack, in those very, very few cases, in how their CI or CO operate.

I don't know what it is. It's probably different for all of them. Could be the difference between the "organic apple" and the "pesticide-soaked apple" mentioned above. Could be that they're fidget-y people or non-fidget-y (which makes a surprisingly large difference on the CO side). Could be a metabolic medical issue. Could be gut microbiome. Who knows? But CI < CO to lose weight really, really is just physics.

(edited to fix typo)

I think some of this is semantics. Even if CICO does work, in situations where nobody can understand exactly why a particular person can't make it work as expected, it doesn't make any difference to that person whether there is some explanation somewhere that explains that it is all just CICO and the factors that make it up are unknown. It doesn't make a difference between saying that CICO works and there are unknown factors affecting the formula when compared with saying it doesn't work. As I would see things, the formula isn't working - there may be an explanation for why it isn't working, and maybe that explanation is that a person's BMR suddenly dropped 1K calories per day for a perfectly legitimate reason. But if that reason is unknown and a solution is therefore unknown, then CICO isn't working for them. Sure, the math might be there somewhere hidden away, but if it doesn't help a person lose weight, by definition, it doesn't work.

To me, that is not semantics. The estimation of CI/CO, or the process of calorie counting is not working for the person. That would be clear. But the underlying physics doesn't change.

If they think the whole thing is invalid, they may just give up entirely or try something completely counter to CICO which would of course be a failure. At least if they keep in mind that CICO still holds true, they know in general how to make adjustments that will eventually make them successful (and if medical issues make those adjustments inadvisable, they know that, too).

It really is not that simple. Here is an example: I once was frustrated at how slowly I was losing weight, so I cut calorie intake by 500 calories / day. I didn't make any changes to how I was measuring calorie intake nor did I make any changes to how I was measuring calories out. Almost immediately, I began to gain weight at a pace of almost 2 lbs. / week. So I increased my deficit and the result changed from a slow loss to a fast gain. While I'm sure there is a scientific explanation for this result, I don't really know what it is. Maybe the scientific explanation, whatever it is, fits within CICO. Even if that is the case, the general adjustments one would make when considering CICO didn't work. In my situation, I returned to a smaller deficit and started losing weight again... slowly again (and was further behind at this point). In that case, CICO didn't work... at least not in a way that knowing in general how to make adjustments did any good.

The problem is your example assumes you precisely measured calories in, and that you precisely measured calories out.

Simplest explanation more often than not being the best one (Occam's Razor), you weren't measuring your inputs and outputs properly. In fact, I would say with basically 100% certainty than in every case where a person on these boards says "CICO didn't work for me" (barring issues like edema or malignancy) the above is really what is happening - measurement error. The measurement error may be systematic or nonsystematic (the latter which probably explains your results above), but it's measurement error just the same.

If we must rely on measurements in order to assess CICO, and there is no practical way to accurately measure all factors 100% percent of the time, isn't feasible that conventional concepts of CICO will prove ineffective in practice for some people?

I suppose you could say that people who use CICO as a concept put into practice sometimes fail at it, and then when they use other methods based on non-CICO concepts (like low-carb, or the grapefruit diet, or whatnot) perhaps they can have more success. That doesn't mean the underlying concept is false, it just means that sometimes people need to use mental heuristics or models that don't necessarily translate into rational, logical, real-world mechanisms in order to exist.

But when people say "CICO didn't work for me" that, to me (with my annoyingly literal brain, as my girlfriend always tells me) that sounds as nonsensical as "gravity didn't work for me." Gravity always works. The law of Conservation of Energy applies to everyone, all the time. You can't generate fat spontaneously without a calorie surplus, you can't lose weight without a calorie deficit - it's simply, physically impossible, period.

BTW they've done studies on this over and over using animal and human models. It's expensive and cumbersome in probably most cases, but it's certainly feasible in laboratory conditions to with almost complete precision keep track of calorie inputs and calorie outputs in humans and animals - and I am not aware of a single instance where a person or animal spontaneously generated visceral body mass without a corresponding caloric input.

Bold 1: Or that the methodologies for measuring either side of the energy equation are less effective for certain people.

Bold 2: While gravity always works, its effects are not always felt, for example in outer space.

What would be an example of the effects of CICO not being felt? The only one I can think of is when CI=CO. Are there other cases?

It seems like there's often a lot of effort to make this more complicated than it is. Here are assumption I make about all this:

1) No one here on these boards are able to precisely measure CI or CO.

2) Therefore, our calorie and exercise logging is based on estimates. Which are subject to instrumentation and human error (systematic and otherwise).

3) You can't violate the principle of Conservation of Energy (e.g., or "calories in, calories out")

Ergo, *any* person here who claims they gain weight on a calorie deficit is wrong. It's measurement error.

I know all that, but @moe0303 compared the effects of gravity not always being felt to the effects of CICO not always being felt. I was just curious when, in his opinion, that might be the case aside from when CI=CO.

I guess still losing fat but retaining water?