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CICO is not the whole equation

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  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,389 MFP Moderator
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    Whitezombiegirl wrote: »
    RobynTheresa wrote: »
    Wynterbourne wrote: »
    You are confusing health with weight loss. Can you lose weight eating as much sugar and refined flour as you want as long you are in a deficit? Absolutely, the scientific laws of the universe demand it. Is it necessarily the healthiest option? No one is claiming it to be. Two. Separate. Issues.

    Only two seperate issues if one doesn't care about their health. If they do, then those issues go hand in hand, why does anyone try to lose weight? For their HEALTH! If they are doing it to get on the cover of Vogue, bad reason.

    Id have to disagee here. I have always been at a healthy weight and reasonably healthy. The only reason i wanted to lose weight was vanity - not ashamed to admit it and its not a bad reason. Im entitled to look however i want and be whatever size i want. Im sure im not alone.

    You are not alone. I need to lose another 10 ish lbs of fat and it's 100% vanity. I just want dem abs. And I largely start my weight loss journey to look better. Even being 50lbs over weight, my numbers were not that far out of whack and non of my doctors were really that concerned.
  • GottaBurnEmAll
    GottaBurnEmAll Posts: 7,722 Member
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    Whitezombiegirl wrote: »
    RobynTheresa wrote: »
    Wynterbourne wrote: »
    You are confusing health with weight loss. Can you lose weight eating as much sugar and refined flour as you want as long you are in a deficit? Absolutely, the scientific laws of the universe demand it. Is it necessarily the healthiest option? No one is claiming it to be. Two. Separate. Issues.

    Only two seperate issues if one doesn't care about their health. If they do, then those issues go hand in hand, why does anyone try to lose weight? For their HEALTH! If they are doing it to get on the cover of Vogue, bad reason.

    Id have to disagee here. I have always been at a healthy weight and reasonably healthy. The only reason i wanted to lose weight was vanity - not ashamed to admit it and its not a bad reason. Im entitled to look however i want and be whatever size i want. Im sure im not alone.

    You're not alone. I've lost all I've needed to lose for health. At this point, anything I'm doing is purely for vanity or just for the sake of saying I could do it.

    Back to the discussion -- personally, I just tend to prefer what people think of as nutritious food. That's not to say I don't like the occasional indulgence, but they're not a regular part of my overall diet.

    I just never make the mistake of confusing my caloric intake with my nutrient intake and assuming they're the same thing.
  • crzycatlady1
    crzycatlady1 Posts: 1,930 Member
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    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    Christine_72 wrote: »
    Maybe OP is honing in on the "I eat what i want and only pay attention to calories" posts??

    Maybe, but that doesn't mean that person is automatically malnourished or thinking that they don't need nutrition.

    I eat what I want when I want and only pay attention to calories. I just eat something like 2500 calories and I would have to eat a pretty weird diet to not recieve my nutirtion from that. As it turns out sometimes I want a salad, sometimes I'd like a carrot, sometimes I want tacobell, sometimes I want a slice of pizza. If you look at my diary (which is open) you'll see I'm generally hitting my nutritional needs.

    If you do look do note I don't usually bother to list salad greens I just list the dressing or toppings, so i actually am getting more dietary fiber than it seems like I am.

    This is me too, I like all the foods :# I only pay attention to calorie intake and don't track macros etc, but I eat a diet that's pretty varied, I'm in great health and I'm maintaining my loss, so I must be going something right.
  • JBApplebee
    JBApplebee Posts: 481 Member
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    This reminds me of something my dad used to say. The more times you run over a dead cat, the flatter it gets. That line still makes me laugh.
  • Indygirl_81
    Indygirl_81 Posts: 142 Member
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    I agree with the OP... CICO is not the end on be all for everyone. I can eat less calories than I expend but if they are loaded with carbs, I will gain- this is because of medical conditions. To those who don't have these, you don't understand that it does affect weight loss.... thank you OP!
  • nameknotavailable
    nameknotavailable Posts: 4 Member
    edited November 2016
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    Hi, Fairly new here. I had run across this little write up about a week ago which, in my opinion, is a pretty good, basic explanation of calories, nutrients and thermic effect of different foods and the caloric effect. It's actually what made me sign up here at MFP and start tracking macro and micro nutrients. It's rather interesting and informative and written for the average person to understand. comfortpit.com/the-truth-about-calories/
  • Helloitsdan
    Helloitsdan Posts: 5,565 Member
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    Nutrition quality gets sacrificed on the altar of arithmetic.
  • AnvilHead
    AnvilHead Posts: 18,344 Member
    edited November 2016
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    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    nameknotavailable wrote: »
    Hi, Fairly new here. I had run across this little write up about a week ago which, in my opinion, is a pretty good, basic explanation of calories, nutrients and thermic effect of different foods and the caloric effect. It's actually what made me sign up here at MFP and start tracking macro and micro nutrients. It's rather interesting and informative and written for the average person to understand. comfortpit.com/the-truth-about-calories/

    From my skimming of it (I did not finish it yet, I will), it looks pretty good and I can definitely see why it would be helpful and inspiring. Just one nit so fat that bothered me enough to comment.
    "4. Thermic Effect of Food (TEF)
    Ah, now this is the one most people don’t understand. Remember our question about whether you’d gain the same amount of weight if you ate 1000 calories of ice-cream versus 1000 calories of tuna?

    Well, I have to concede to the carbs-are-the-devil people here. Because you would indeed gain more weight if you ate the ice cream than if you ate the tuna, even though they contain the same amount of calories. But don’t rule out calories yet. They still count. Here’s how:

    Food is made up of calories, but calories are made up of something themselves: macronutrients such as carbohydrates, fats, and proteins (we’ll get into more depth in a moment).

    Different macronutrients are processed and utilized differently by the body and require different amounts of energy (calories) to do so. This process is called the Thermic Effect of Food (TEF).

    Protein, for instance, has a TEF of about 20-30%. This means that 20-30% of the calories you consume from protein get used up just in the digestion process.

    So out of 1000 calories of tuna, 200-300 calories would be burnt just by the mere processing of it. 1000 calories of tuna, when all is said and done is actually closer to 700 calories of tuna.

    Carbohydrates, on the other hand, have a low TEF of 6%. So of course tuna, when you subtract its thermic effect is not going to make you as fat as ice-cream! Calories in, calories out. There’s no way around it."

    Problem with this is that the TEF may mean that you are really eating less than you think IF your diet is skewed heavily to protein (rarely the problem, and not really important, as you should always adjust based on results). More significantly, there are more important things to take into account when choosing how much protein to eat (I'm a fan of getting around .8 g/lb of goal weight, not a fan of super high protein diets, at least not unless you have some specific good reason for it, and TEF is not that).

    Bigger issue is the focus on protein vs. carbs, carb being "the devil" (yeah, I know it's tongue in cheek) or, more specifically, super low TEF, ice cream being "a carb," and ignoring fat entirely. When someone thinks about how much carb to include in the diet, the tradeoff normally isn't protein (that is more constant), but fat. Carbs vary in TEF (can be much higher than 6%, although lower than protein, of course), although the main carb in the ice cream (sugar) generally has a low TEF. Other carbs (especially with fiber) are higher, though. The macro with the lowest overall TEF is the one ignored, fat, and oh, by the way, there's lots of fat in ice cream, so why is it being used as an example of a "carb" rather than a carrot?

    Sorry, pet peeve. Welcome to the forum and don't take this rant as directed at you!

    Agreed about using ice cream as a carb example - but it's a typical shot at demonizing something that some consider "bad" or "junk" food.

    That aside, it's still amazing that people propose such ridiculous extremes to make a point. A diet composed entirely of either tuna or ice cream is a stupid idea and while it (theoretically) demonstrates the difference in TEF, it's a moot point because most people (excluding those with some bizarre ED, I guess) eat meals which are composed of mixed macronutrients.

    I suppose if you're OCD enough, you could calculate out what percentage of each meal was fats, carbs and protein, then work out the calorie differential due to TEF for each of them....but it would certainly be majoring in the minors and the difference would fall into the "noise" category of CICO calculations. Not to mention the fact that it would only be significant if you were eating each meal on a completely empty stomach, with no macronutrients from previous meals still in the process of being digested/metabolized. It's my understanding that the generally accepted figure for TEF for meals of mixed macronutrients lies somewhere around 10%.

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