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Is it the same for everyone ?
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Do you.0
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It's definitely not the same for everyone. There are going to be some general concepts that will be mostly true for most people ("foods with a high fiber/water content will fill you up faster" "protein and fiber help you feel full for longer" "eating a large amount of starch/sugar on its own will leave you feeling hungrier sooner"), but there's more to it than that. Physiologically, yes, people are quite similar. But, as a few people have said or alluded to, there's a huge psychological component to satiety, plus people's hormonal responses to food can vary widely.
Once you eat the food, did your body produce the proper type and amount of hormones in response? Did your brain and other organs accept, interpret, and respond to the hormones in the proper way? Did you eat a sufficient amount/type of foods and nutrients but still feel unsatisfied because your meal lacked a food you enjoy the taste of? Is there an issue in your life that drives you to continue to eat even after you physically feel full?
Side note re: CICO - I am a legit, honest-to-god, special snowflake who for YEARS did everything correctly on the logging side, followed my Fitbit, and religiously ate at a calorie goal that, per MFP, should have allowed me to lose 1-2lbs per week, and yet lost basically nothing. Medical testing eventually revealed that my body simply burns ~25-30% fewer calories per day than what would be expected for someone with my stats and activity level - my metabolism is more comparable to someone 11 inches shorter and 65 years older than I am - such that what I thought was a 500-1000/day deficit was really closer to maintenance (which, honestly, I knew already based on the math, but I resisted believing it until a knowledgeable doctor put numbers in front of me). CICO is still true for me, just as it is for everyone else on this planet. It just took me a little more work to nail down the "CO" side - now that I have, I'm finally having slow but steady success by simply eating fewer calories than what I now know I'm actually burning each day.9 -
elisa123gal wrote: »I don't buy into the CICO philosophy whole heartedly. ..with so many of us eating at a deficit for weeks and we don't lose? See all those "help" posts.
Or take the show The Biggest Loser.. where they workout 8 hours a day ..eat 1200 calories and contestants gain a pound or only lose one or two pounds..in a week..to if you do the CICO math they should be losing 10 pounds. So.. i think counting calories is a tool..that works most of the time but not all of the time. Boosting metabolism and finding what works for ones nutritional needs all matter.
It isn't a single simple solution. You just have to eat right and move more.. and mix a lot of time into the equation ...that is what works.
Most of those "help" posts are from people who don't weigh food or have a cheat day, meaning their calories in is significantly higher than they think. A few have medical issues which means their calories out is actually lower than estimated.
Kind of like the post in the main forum right now where someone posted frustrated that she's not losing weight.....aaannnd she's only tracking calorie intake Monday-Friday
I think we'd be hard pressed to find legitimate examples of people who are actually not losing weight, while eating at the correct calorie deficit. Barring medical conditions that affect weight, it's always going to come down to CICO. 6 -
CICO works if your sole goal is to lose weight.
If you're looking to lose weight, stay satiated, and be healthier overall, it's mildly more complex than that.3 -
I think it varies from person to person. Some find carbs more filling than fat etc.
Heck for me it varies from week to week, so who knows.1 -
CipherZero wrote: »CICO works if your sole goal is to lose weight.
If you're looking to lose weight, stay satiated, and be healthier overall, it's mildly more complex than that.
Meh, I eat a pretty typical SAD diet (I do eat veggies every day, but I also eat fast food several times a week, chips every day etc). am satiated with my food choices, and am in excellent health by every marker that my doctor goes by (my triglycerides are in the 40s, for example), and I've found it to be as simple as CICO.0 -
CipherZero wrote: »CICO works if your sole goal is to lose weight.
If you're looking to lose weight, stay satiated, and be healthier overall, it's mildly more complex than that.
If you lost weight, CICO worked. If you gained weight, CICO worked. If losing weight made you healthier, CICO worked...7 -
less calories in than out works
All foods in moderation and staying within my calorie allotment works for me, got me to maintenance, and has kept me there for 3 years.5 -
You all crack me up.. how about plateaus? okay.. Many people on here are stuck for many long weeks..even months ... many months sometimes.. working out and eating at a deficit and don't lose. If CICO worked consistently ... we'd all be at goal by now. there wouldn't be one discouraging post.
I think it works perfectly for some...and those are the ones who point the boney finger at all the others who it doesn't work as well for.. and blame them for not eating at a low enough deficit or that they're dong it wrong.0 -
elisa123gal wrote: »You all crack me up.. how about plateaus? okay.. Many people on here are stuck for many long weeks..even months ... many months sometimes.. working out and eating at a deficit and don't lose. If CICO worked consistently ... we'd all be at goal by now. there wouldn't be one discouraging post.
I think it works perfectly for some...and those are the ones who point the boney finger at all the others who it doesn't work as well for.. and blame them for not eating at a low enough deficit or that they're dong it wrong.
It depends. Is the person still logging accurately? How much weight have they lost up to that point and how rapidly? Are they exercising? Could it be water weight due to workouts, stress, hormones, or other changes? Are they drinking adequate water, getting appropriate vitamins, hitting appropriate macros, and watching electrolyte balance?
There are times where someone needs a diet break after losing weight consistently for many months. Overall it's typically a hormonal issue at that point whether it's psychological or physiological. It still falls within calories in compared to calories out because hormonal changes caused by dieting reduce the calories out portion.11 -
elisa123gal wrote: »You all crack me up.. how about plateaus? okay.. Many people on here are stuck for many long weeks..even months ... many months sometimes.. working out and eating at a deficit and don't lose. If CICO worked consistently ... we'd all be at goal by now. there wouldn't be one discouraging post.
I think it works perfectly for some...and those are the ones who point the boney finger at all the others who it doesn't work as well for.. and blame them for not eating at a low enough deficit or that they're dong it wrong.
You're not thinking in the long term. Weight loss is not a linear process - you will not lose exactly x pounds every x days while eating x amount of calories. But over the long term, if you're tracking your input and expenditure properly, it should be reasonably close.
Last month I looked back at my progress over the last 13 months. My loss averaged out to around .96 pounds per week, and my goal over that entire time period was to lose 1 pound per week. I don't weigh most of what I eat and am fairly loose with my logging (I log everything I eat, but don't always strive for accuracy down to the last calorie). I had several 2-4 week spans at a time where I didn't lose and even gained a couple pounds, but in the end, over the long term, it came out to within .04 pounds of what I was shooting for. So it's a hard sell to tell me that CI<CO isn't effective because my n=1 convincingly tells me otherwise.6 -
elisa123gal wrote: »You all crack me up.. how about plateaus? okay.. Many people on here are stuck for many long weeks..even months ... many months sometimes.. working out and eating at a deficit and don't lose. If CICO worked consistently ... we'd all be at goal by now. there wouldn't be one discouraging post.
I think it works perfectly for some...and those are the ones who point the boney finger at all the others who it doesn't work as well for.. and blame them for not eating at a low enough deficit or that they're dong it wrong.
Are you actually thin shaming? You wouldn't be doing that now, would you?
To your point, I think ummcmp addressed it perfectly. The fact that weight loss isn't linear does not negate CICO.
The fact that someone doesn't understand the intricate interplay of hormones involved in long term weight loss efforts and their affect on the scale doesn't negate CICO either.
The fact that we can't objectively and predictively calculate what our bodies do doesn't violate the principles on which they function.11 -
It's definitely not the same for everyone. There are going to be some general concepts that will be mostly true for most people ("foods with a high fiber/water content will fill you up faster" "protein and fiber help you feel full for longer" "eating a large amount of starch/sugar on its own will leave you feeling hungrier sooner"), but there's more to it than that. Physiologically, yes, people are quite similar. But, as a few people have said or alluded to, there's a huge psychological component to satiety, plus people's hormonal responses to food can vary widely.
Once you eat the food, did your body produce the proper type and amount of hormones in response? Did your brain and other organs accept, interpret, and respond to the hormones in the proper way? Did you eat a sufficient amount/type of foods and nutrients but still feel unsatisfied because your meal lacked a food you enjoy the taste of? Is there an issue in your life that drives you to continue to eat even after you physically feel full?
Side note re: CICO - I am a legit, honest-to-god, special snowflake who for YEARS did everything correctly on the logging side, followed my Fitbit, and religiously ate at a calorie goal that, per MFP, should have allowed me to lose 1-2lbs per week, and yet lost basically nothing. Medical testing eventually revealed that my body simply burns ~25-30% fewer calories per day than what would be expected for someone with my stats and activity level - my metabolism is more comparable to someone 11 inches shorter and 65 years older than I am - such that what I thought was a 500-1000/day deficit was really closer to maintenance (which, honestly, I knew already based on the math, but I resisted believing it until a knowledgeable doctor put numbers in front of me). CICO is still true for me, just as it is for everyone else on this planet. It just took me a little more work to nail down the "CO" side - now that I have, I'm finally having slow but steady success by simply eating fewer calories than what I now know I'm actually burning each day.
Nice post as it shows that CICO can be more complex for some because the CO side can vary more for some, which is why many of us always advocate doing a systematic reduction of calories to see how your body is reacting. I think you are statistically a true 1 in a million with that much lower of a metabolism than the mean.3 -
elisa123gal wrote: »You all crack me up.. how about plateaus? okay.. Many people on here are stuck for many long weeks..even months ... many months sometimes.. working out and eating at a deficit and don't lose. If CICO worked consistently ... we'd all be at goal by now. there wouldn't be one discouraging post.
I think it works perfectly for some...and those are the ones who point the boney finger at all the others who it doesn't work as well for.. and blame them for not eating at a low enough deficit or that they're dong it wrong.
Pointing out plateaus and struggles that everyone has isn't defeating what CICO really is. Every diet that loses weight is about CICO and I challenge you to find one properly controlled study in a metabolic ward that would contradict this.7 -
elisa123gal wrote: »You all crack me up.. how about plateaus? okay.. Many people on here are stuck for many long weeks..even months ... many months sometimes.. working out and eating at a deficit and don't lose. If CICO worked consistently ... we'd all be at goal by now. there wouldn't be one discouraging post.
I think it works perfectly for some...and those are the ones who point the boney finger at all the others who it doesn't work as well for.. and blame them for not eating at a low enough deficit or that they're dong it wrong.
What about plateaus? They are a natural part of the weight loss (and weight gain) process. Adjustments are required along the way. Does not negate CICO in the least...5 -
always a blame game. Just read a post where a girl was thanking people for telling her to up her calories that she was only eating 1100 calories a day and not losing after her initial 10 pound loss. now if CICO worked..she would have continued to lose. But she didn't.. because her body and metabolism where off.
There is more to it than CICO.0 -
elisa123gal wrote: »always a blame game. Just read a post where a girl was thanking people for telling her to up her calories that she was only eating 1100 calories a day and not losing after her initial 10 pound loss. now if CICO worked..she would have continued to lose. But she didn't.. because her body and metabolism where off.
There is more to it than CICO.
She was probably retaining fluid or something else is off. You keep on assuming starvation mode is a thing but it isn't. Metabolism doesn't drop that much that quickly. Otherwise anorexics would not be massively underweight eating a lot less than 1100 for a lot more than 5 weeks.
You absolutely do not gain weight other than fluid weight eating less than your calorie out and you don't lose weight other than fluid weight eating more than your calorie out.5 -
elisa123gal wrote: »always a blame game. Just read a post where a girl was thanking people for telling her to up her calories that she was only eating 1100 calories a day and not losing after her initial 10 pound loss. now if CICO worked..she would have continued to lose. But she didn't.. because her body and metabolism where off.
There is more to it than CICO.
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/you-are-not-different.html/2 -
healthy491 wrote: »So we can all agree that CI<CO leads to weight loss for everyone, which is awesome. BUT when it comes to certain facts ( or myths ? idk ) like sugar being addictive, vegetables are fulfilling etc.. are they the same for everyone ? I am asking this because when I was eating chicken, vegetables etc and no sugar , I used to feel extremely hungry and sad and end up eating more and more. Now I basically eat chocolate and sweet stuff during the day and some proteins at night and I feel happy and full while still staying under my calorie goal.
I would agree that there is a personal preference to what makes you feel full, and preference in foods. Some of it may be related to physical traits or diseases (cealic, PCOS, type 1 diabetes) but generally speaking there is taste and psychology IMO that is at work most of the time.
For instance; my mum is currently under a dietician's regime. The dietician asked her on which diet (she is 72 and has done so many diets it is not funny) she had felt best and found easiest. She was put reduced carb and under control. She is feeling great and is loosing her weight (SInce February, under supervision and with holidays she already lost about 18kg). Added bonus turned out to be that she learned to cook for my nephew who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes late spring.
Yet every time we go to my parents for the weekend my husband and I feel hungry as afterwards. Her current way of eating, even if we eat a lot of it and meet out calorie goal, just does not fill us up. We know that now so we take things into account our own way. by being filled up before we go for instance. Our MFP lifestyle is more balanced over macros as well as high fibre.
It seems that there is a significant difference in what my mother and I find a preferred way of eating. Our downfalls are different too. I always feel the need to clear my plate (solution smaller plate, less on it) and nothing on the table, finished is finished. Also bread, just love the stuff, specifically when freshly baked.
Mum does not have that issue at all, but she cannot walk past the cheese without eating it. She also has to have something sweet with her mid-morning coffee. It is just habit, but for 50 years she's had a cookie then. She still does, just a tiny one. Whereas both of those just do not bother me, unless of course they are on the meal table on display.
Both mum and I agree that it is about CICO, we just get there a different way and with different preferences. Taste and lifestyle have their place in it.5 -
elisa123gal wrote: »always a blame game. Just read a post where a girl was thanking people for telling her to up her calories that she was only eating 1100 calories a day and not losing after her initial 10 pound loss. now if CICO worked..she would have continued to lose. But she didn't.. because her body and metabolism where off.
There is more to it than CICO.
You seem to have a basic mis-understanding of what CICO is, which is not uncommon. You talk about CICO as if it were a tool for weight loss. It is nothing more then an energy equation.6
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