I never should have ventured off this forum...
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dancing_daisy wrote: »dmariet116 wrote: »kind of like most of the main forum here on MFP who say that only CICO matter.
A genuine question asked in a friendly way: what other mechanism can cause weight loss? I see people who don't believe in CICO quite often but to me its logic. I can't think of any other system of anatomy that would cause weight loss??
I think CICO definitely works but sometimes people make it sound like that is the only thing that matters, not other factors. For some of us, our macro ratios really affect our rate of weight loss (or gain). E.g. when I started keto, I kept calories the same, just shifted macros, and started losing weight where I'd been struggling to lose before.
OP, FWIW I do 10% carbs, 65% fat and 25% protein. I've aimed to stay under 20-30gm net carbs. Many people can eat up to 50gm carbs/day and stay in ketosis; you can experiment a bit with it. I initially tried to stay under 20 net but found it didn't seem to make a difference if I went up to 30 and sometimes 40 net in a day. If I start going over 50-60 (even once I hit maitenance), it seems I start losing the benefits LCHF has had for me. You can experiment to see what works for you.4 -
dancing_daisy wrote: »dmariet116 wrote: »kind of like most of the main forum here on MFP who say that only CICO matter.
A genuine question asked in a friendly way: what other mechanism can cause weight loss? I see people who don't believe in CICO quite often but to me its logic. I can't think of any other system of anatomy that would cause weight loss??
I think generally those that say CICO doesn't or didn't work for them in previous weight loss attempts, just mean that eating everything in moderation and at a calorie deficit didn't work for them.
Lots of reasons why... But usually, it's because they feel hungry too often or even constantly and have to use will power to not eat over their calories. This is just not sustainable.
I don't think they are saying that you can eat a surplus of calories and expect to lose weight. The idea is that when you eat the right foods or the right way for you, you will be able to eat fewer calories and achieve fat loss WITHOUT being hungry.
So eating everything in moderation at a calorie deficit, is typically what they are saying doesn't work. Not that you don't need to eat less overall.6 -
Whew!! I knew I could depend on you all to sort me out! So basically I should carry on with what I'm doing and fuhgettabout the micro-detail macro nazis.12
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Thank you both Sunny Bunny and macchiatto for clarifying my CICO confusion. I know exactly where you care coming from now!
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dancing_daisy wrote: »dmariet116 wrote: »kind of like most of the main forum here on MFP who say that only CICO matter.
A genuine question asked in a friendly way: what other mechanism can cause weight loss? I see people who don't believe in CICO quite often but to me its logic. I can't think of any other system of anatomy that would cause weight loss??
It's not that the idea that "eat less than you burn and you'll lose weight" isn't technically true, it's that it's a gross oversimplification of reality.
The first problem is that calorie counts of foods are determined using a bomb calorimeter, which essentially combusts the item and measures how much the water temperature raises. Since a calorie is a measure of how much heat it takes to raise a certain amount of water 1 degree Celsius, this is a consistent way to measure the amount of (combustible) energy in a food item.
But here's the problem -- we don't combust our food. We dismantle it. We convert it around to different substrates. We use those substrates for various purposes. We convert the raw energy pieces to bioelectricity. We store other pieces as various forms of stored energy. We use yet other pieces to create hormones or build cells.
The difference between what a bomb calorimeter does and what our bodies do is roughly akin to the difference between what a fireplace does and what a nuclear reactor does. And the problem is that we're trying to determine the energy output of the nuclear reactor by measuring that of the fireplace.
In other words, without even getting into the fact that the calorimeter only measures heat, and energy from a combustion reaction takes on more forms than just heat (ie - light, particles, etc), we've already demonstrated how the fundamental differences have rendered the known caloric amounts of food not particularly accurate. To make matters worse, the labels can be off by something like 20%.
Then, we have the matter of the accuracy of the "calories out" half of the equation. Calculators can't even begin to account for all the variables that go into that part of the equation. What's your average body temperature? If you're a woman, where are you in your monthly cycle? What is your cortisol level? How much do you fidget? All these things factor into your "calories out" half of the equation, and can account for several hundred calories.
Then we have the matter of hormones and hormonal balance to deal with. Hyperinsulinemia, thyroid issues, elevated cortisol. These things can send the wrong signals around, resulting in weight gain where there shouldn't be. The really fun part is that it's not that the body isn't using the energy (the metabolism hasn't necessarily slowed down), but rather, the body is sending the wrong signals around, telling itself to store the energy even while other parts are screaming that they're starving.
On top of that, different foods are processed differently and send different hormonal signals. 100 calories of protein is going to be handled differently than 100 calories of glucose or 100 calories of lard. Of that 100 calories of protein, the most that can be stored as energy in some form is about 75, and if it's to be stored as fat, you're looking at about 60 calories of that original 100 (it has to be converted to sugar, then to fat, both of which have a roughly 75% efficiency rate). Odds are good, though, that the bulk of that 100 calories of protein will be stored or used as amino acids for maintenance and building of lean mass. Likewise, 100 calories of glucose is going to skyrocket insulin output, while 100 calories of lard will not.
So, why do we use the methods we do for measuring calories? Because it was "good enough" to put into widespread use. The difference isn't quite as much as the fireplace and nuclear reactor, so "close" is "close enough," generally speaking. But notice the abysmal rates of weight management in general, even among the highly motivated. Notice what it takes for many people to lose and maintain their weight. Notice how dependent people are on weighing and measuring and tracking when fighting against their body, just to maintain their weight.
Now, consider this -- the idea of calories is a very new concept. Even the measurement of a calorie as a unit of heat did not exist until around 1800. The 1850s saw the first usage of calories as a way of measuring human metabolism (interestingly, the original usage qualifies the metabolism of the subject with "depending on prior diet"). The 1870s was when we first started seeing calories as they relate to food and weight management. (http://jn.nutrition.org/content/136/12/2957.full)
What did we do before that? When food was readily available, we generally watched what we ate. You can see this in older shows, where a character wanting to drop a couple of pounds would skip the bread, potatoes, or sugary dessert, and would opt for just the meat and non-starchy vegetables. The focus was on the quality of the food, instead of just the quantity, because quantity generally took care of itself (stop eating when you get full).
Look at our focus now -- calories, calories, calories. Nutrition be damned, pretty much. You can eat whatever you want, as long as you don't go over your calories. Never mind that your hunger cues are jacked from all the insulin you're pumping around your body, and that the food you're eating is nutritionally bankrupt. You just need more willpower to keep yourself from eating more. If you fail, it's a personal failing on your part, not a biological issue. Not losing weight? Eat less and move more. You say you're only eating 1000 calories and you bike 10 miles a day? You're not losing weight, so you must be lying.31 -
@baconslave - this is hands down one of the best explanations of the insanity that is calorie restriction in general, without figuring out one's own body and such... I'd love to see this and any future discussion somewhere readily found in the sticky!4
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Sunny_Bunny_ wrote: ».
I don't think they are saying that you can eat a surplus of calories and expect to lose weight. The idea is that when you eat the right foods or the right way for you, you will be able to eat fewer calories and achieve fat loss WITHOUT being hungry.
So eating everything in moderation at a calorie deficit, is typically what they are saying doesn't work. Not that you don't need to eat less overall.
That seems like a pretty accurate and astute paraphrase. Good observation.
In reality, I think counting CI and CO might be a little like drawing pictures in the dark. Bad labeling, inaccurate portion and exercise estimates, etc, can make your results miss by a mile through no fault of your own. Doesn't mean CICO is invalid but rather that' its of limited use in our crude hands....
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This video was very interesting and informative, thank you for sharing! It helped clear up some things for me, too, and it makes me think that maybe I am too obsessed with trying to attain macro goals each day when I should just keep eating these foods until my body says to stop. Perhaps I don't need to spend time each morning planning out the whole day and calculating everything carefully, perhaps I just need to listen to my body.5
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This video was very interesting and informative, thank you for sharing! It helped clear up some things for me, too, and it makes me think that maybe I am too obsessed with trying to attain macro goals each day when I should just keep eating these foods until my body says to stop. Perhaps I don't need to spend time each morning planning out the whole day and calculating everything carefully, perhaps I just need to listen to my body.
YES!! One of the techniques that cured my binge eating disorder 10 years ago was implementing intuitive eating - eat only when hungry, stop when satiated (not "full"). (The hormone leptin controls hunger and satiety cues, btw... Lots of cool recent research on that.) Problem was, with my jacked up PCOS insulin resistant hormonal mess of a system, I was eating all the wrong types of food (carb heavy diet) so my body just kept storing fat and asking for more... If I implement those skills now with LCHF though, theoretically my body should melt the stored fat and balance out my hormones...3 -
dmariet116 wrote: »I believe the learning curve is just HUGE because there is no one size fits all diet. People tend to be very adamant re their way of eating once they find what works for them.
This is so good. And it applies to ALL THINGS not just diet! Haha! But it really is a process of trial and error to find what works best or "optimal" for your body. I'm finding my groove after 2 1/2 months The direction and counsel on this forum is so good. Use it as your start and tweak things along the way.
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Ay! The best nutritionists here and in the unwashed world out there are the ones who, unlike the ADA, never did think one size could fit everyone.
Fortunately, that's the type of thinking that actually predominates (!) in our cool little corner of reality.
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dmariet116 wrote: »I believe the learning curve is just HUGE because there is no one size fits all diet. People tend to be very adamant re their way of eating once they find what works for them.
This is so good. And it applies to ALL THINGS not just diet! Haha! But it really is a process of trial and error to find what works best or "optimal" for your body. I'm finding my groove after 2 1/2 months The direction and counsel on this forum is so good. Use it as your start and tweak things along the way.
So true, but it can also be terrifying while you're figuring it all out... When you come from a "diet mentality" background, you're used to someone handing you a "tried and true" specific plan, and then just following that blindly (at least as long as you can until you realize it's not working!!). I'm 12 weeks in (tomorrow) and still having to do major tweaks like eliminating foods I didn't know I was intolerant to, lowering/upping carbs & fat to find my sweet spot, adding in IF, drinking more water, learning how to menu plan without carbs, etc... Many of you are old hands at this who make it all seem so simple and easy, but in reality it's an avalanche of info to digest, sort, and implement. Worth it, but HARD work...6 -
I hear ya! Sounds like you're doing awesome!1
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Sunny_Bunny_ wrote: »Protein cannot be stored by the body without first being converted to glucose
Well, except as muscle through some sort of resistance training.1 -
Dragonwolf wrote: »dancing_daisy wrote: »dmariet116 wrote: »kind of like most of the main forum here on MFP who say that only CICO matter.
A genuine question asked in a friendly way: what other mechanism can cause weight loss? I see people who don't believe in CICO quite often but to me its logic. I can't think of any other system of anatomy that would cause weight loss??
It's not that the idea that "eat less than you burn and you'll lose weight" isn't technically true, it's that it's a gross oversimplification of reality.
The first problem is that calorie counts of foods are determined using a bomb calorimeter, which essentially combusts the item and measures how much the water temperature raises. Since a calorie is a measure of how much heat it takes to raise a certain amount of water 1 degree Celsius, this is a consistent way to measure the amount of (combustible) energy in a food item.
But here's the problem -- we don't combust our food. We dismantle it. We convert it around to different substrates. We use those substrates for various purposes. We convert the raw energy pieces to bioelectricity. We store other pieces as various forms of stored energy. We use yet other pieces to create hormones or build cells.
The difference between what a bomb calorimeter does and what our bodies do is roughly akin to the difference between what a fireplace does and what a nuclear reactor does. And the problem is that we're trying to determine the energy output of the nuclear reactor by measuring that of the fireplace.
In other words, without even getting into the fact that the calorimeter only measures heat, and energy from a combustion reaction takes on more forms than just heat (ie - light, particles, etc), we've already demonstrated how the fundamental differences have rendered the known caloric amounts of food not particularly accurate. To make matters worse, the labels can be off by something like 20%.
Then, we have the matter of the accuracy of the "calories out" half of the equation. Calculators can't even begin to account for all the variables that go into that part of the equation. What's your average body temperature? If you're a woman, where are you in your monthly cycle? What is your cortisol level? How much do you fidget? All these things factor into your "calories out" half of the equation, and can account for several hundred calories.
Then we have the matter of hormones and hormonal balance to deal with. Hyperinsulinemia, thyroid issues, elevated cortisol. These things can send the wrong signals around, resulting in weight gain where there shouldn't be. The really fun part is that it's not that the body isn't using the energy (the metabolism hasn't necessarily slowed down), but rather, the body is sending the wrong signals around, telling itself to store the energy even while other parts are screaming that they're starving.
On top of that, different foods are processed differently and send different hormonal signals. 100 calories of protein is going to be handled differently than 100 calories of glucose or 100 calories of lard. Of that 100 calories of protein, the most that can be stored as energy in some form is about 75, and if it's to be stored as fat, you're looking at about 60 calories of that original 100 (it has to be converted to sugar, then to fat, both of which have a roughly 75% efficiency rate). Odds are good, though, that the bulk of that 100 calories of protein will be stored or used as amino acids for maintenance and building of lean mass. Likewise, 100 calories of glucose is going to skyrocket insulin output, while 100 calories of lard will not.
So, why do we use the methods we do for measuring calories? Because it was "good enough" to put into widespread use. The difference isn't quite as much as the fireplace and nuclear reactor, so "close" is "close enough," generally speaking. But notice the abysmal rates of weight management in general, even among the highly motivated. Notice what it takes for many people to lose and maintain their weight. Notice how dependent people are on weighing and measuring and tracking when fighting against their body, just to maintain their weight.
Now, consider this -- the idea of calories is a very new concept. Even the measurement of a calorie as a unit of heat did not exist until around 1800. The 1850s saw the first usage of calories as a way of measuring human metabolism (interestingly, the original usage qualifies the metabolism of the subject with "depending on prior diet"). The 1870s was when we first started seeing calories as they relate to food and weight management. (http://jn.nutrition.org/content/136/12/2957.full)
What did we do before that? When food was readily available, we generally watched what we ate. You can see this in older shows, where a character wanting to drop a couple of pounds would skip the bread, potatoes, or sugary dessert, and would opt for just the meat and non-starchy vegetables. The focus was on the quality of the food, instead of just the quantity, because quantity generally took care of itself (stop eating when you get full).
Look at our focus now -- calories, calories, calories. Nutrition be damned, pretty much. You can eat whatever you want, as long as you don't go over your calories. Never mind that your hunger cues are jacked from all the insulin you're pumping around your body, and that the food you're eating is nutritionally bankrupt. You just need more willpower to keep yourself from eating more. If you fail, it's a personal failing on your part, not a biological issue. Not losing weight? Eat less and move more. You say you're only eating 1000 calories and you bike 10 miles a day? You're not losing weight, so you must be lying.
This is worth 1,000,000 bars of gold-pressed latinum.8 -
Majcolorado wrote: »Sunny_Bunny_ wrote: »Protein cannot be stored by the body without first being converted to glucose
Well, except as muscle through some sort of resistance training.
That's not exactly a protein storage method...
You don't just build muscle because you eat extra protein...1 -
I think above all, relax into this way of eating. Sometimes we just overthink things a bit too much. Start somewhere and see how it goes. I will probably always be tweaking something along the way.7
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@Dragonwolf
That was amazingly informational for me. Thank you.2 -
After two years I am learning even at a faster rate.
I just finished off my 3 pound of MSM crystals. It was a new addition a couple months ago and is seems to lowered my pain a tad but LCHF WOE taking it from 7-8 to 2-3 within the first 30 days after getting off of sugar and all grains two years ago is still the main thing in my case. Tweaking will go on forever in my case. Just learning about liposomal vitamin C for example.
Venturing off is just fine as long as we find our way back.2