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Does calories in vs calories out really matter?
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Gianfranco_R wrote: »What kind of question is this? That's like asking if it's really that important to know how to operate a car to get your drivers license. It's the ONLY thing that matters. Eat too much, you're not losing a dang thing.
There are plenty of people who do not believe in CICO, including many doctors like Dr. Fung.
Yep, here is his take on cico:
https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/first-law-thermodynamics-irrelevant/
"I studied biochemistry in university and took a full year course on thermodynamics. At no point did we ever discuss the human body or weight gain/ loss."
I'm guessing he did not get stellar marks in his biochem or thermo class.
And that is one of the reason I would rather take dietary advice from scientist who have an actual education in nutrition, than doctors who convert to this field because it's more lucrative.
He also uses the same strawman arguments as many other people to justify his views on why insulin makes you fat: "Consider two foods that are equal caloric values – a plate of cookies versus a salad with olive oil with salmon"
This^^^^^^^, and l would also rather have advise from a once overweight, now normal weight scientist or doctor(who also studies nutrition)0 -
Gianfranco_R wrote: »What kind of question is this? That's like asking if it's really that important to know how to operate a car to get your drivers license. It's the ONLY thing that matters. Eat too much, you're not losing a dang thing.
There are plenty of people who do not believe in CICO, including many doctors like Dr. Fung.
Yep, here is his take on cico:
https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/first-law-thermodynamics-irrelevant/
"I studied biochemistry in university and took a full year course on thermodynamics. At no point did we ever discuss the human body or weight gain/ loss."
I'm guessing he did not get stellar marks in his biochem or thermo class.
I majored in biochemistry and genetics, and the biochem classes were more about differences and similarities in processes between prokaryotes/eukaryotes, plant/animal, you get the idea. Not so much that was tied particularly to humans except by default as members of the animal kingdom.
Physics classes never mentioned any applicability to the human body. I took first-year physics and physical chemistry (intersection of physics and chemistry). Presumably explicitly connecting these things to human physiology as part of the classwork is the kind of thing you'd get in medical school, not so much in undergrad where you're taught the broader principles unless you take something specifically oriented that way like human physiology or human nutrition.
That said, it's not any kind of decent reason to suggest that CICO is irrelevant
So you find it plausible that a person who is competent enough and puts in enough effort to pass a class that is an entire semester worth of macromolecules and metabolic pathways never realizes that it applies to humans because the professor did not explicitly announce that humans are animals? I am not buying it.
I am also highly skeptical that an introductory thermodynamics class did not at least briefly cover energy transfer in biological systems.
No, I don't. Thus:That said, it's not any kind of decent reason to suggest that CICO is irrelevant
My point is that the statement may very well be factual. It's the kind of tactic frequently used when you know damn well there are holes in your story but you don't have anything solid to back them up. Use the truth and make it sound like it means more than or something different than it does.
I mean, what difference does it make if some class you took didn't teach certain verifiable facts. Does it mean they aren't true or are meaningless, or does it mean that either your class was sub-standard or those facts weren't relevant to the goal of the class?
As for your last statement, we didn't have a 'thermodynamics' class available so I can't really say. In my classwork, thermodynamics came up in undergrad multiple times as part of:
physics (not connected to biology),
chemistry (not connected to biology),
biochemistry (connected to biology),
physical chemistry (not connected to biology),
organic chemistry (both biological and non-biological)
I got your point. Since you claim to be well-educated in biochemistry, I was asking if you found Fung's account plausible, so thanks for the confirmation. I agree the actual content of his course syllabus is rather immaterial, as I also understand that it is possible that his account is true. However, I believe it is near the same probability of being true as the hypothetical person who claims to watch the entire World Series without understanding they were watching baseball.
As an electrical engineer, I find his account of taking a year of thermodynamics and not making the connection that the human body is a thermodynamic system to be laughable. His entire article demonstrates a gross misunderstanding (or perhaps, misrepresentation) of thermodynamic fundamentals. I likewise have to conclude that he is intelligent enough to persuade laypeople of his arguments, though I also perceive his motivation to most likely be profit oriented at the expense of his own cognitive dissonance.
Sadly, I'd find that to be more plausible. I work in a major health care system in research. I've heard the nonsense about 'the laws of thermodynamics don't really apply because a body/cell culture is not a closed system' more than once from people with degrees that ought to indicate a higher level of knowledge (MD, PhD). Presumably, all of them had at least the classwork I had in undergrad at some point*. Maybe they scraped by with Cs and Ds?
Oh, and before you make any assumptions about me being well-educated in biochemistry, I am. But I've not worked in the field in any meaningful way in nearly 20yrs, so the education has largely degenerated to: 'I remember something about this or that - let's go look it up and make sure my memory isn't faulty'.
*Except perhaps physical chemistry.
Interesting. I never see those kind of shenanigans in my field. Perhaps it is because we have to design things that work to do a very specific task, so there is not a lot of theoretical interpretation involved. I will chalk it up to the MDs just forgetting the basics because it was that one 8 AM Monday class they took a long time ago, during that semester they were experimenting with mushrooms.
In fact, the only time I think I have ever read people use this hand-waving open system argument is in the fitness/nutrition industry. It usually precedes an argument that sounds like: "I am about to propose a tangent that ignores several centuries of established physics, but the human body is an open system, so the laws of thermodynamics can be ignored. Here are some misinterpreted results from a recent study that proves my point."
Fun fact: I recently managed to put a drill bit through my thumb. Instead of stitching me up, the doctors left the wound open to drain. After this accident, I discovered I now have the ability to eat infinite cheeseburgers without gaining weight. One would assume that I would accumulate some body fat by eating such a large amount of calories, but when the skin was breached, my body became an open thermodynamic system. The truth is, an open system can exchange matter with its surrounding environment, so clearly no laws of physics have been violated. In fact, recent studies have shown that when the thermodynamic boundary has been compromised, standard human thermoregulation models decompose, and metabolism is in fact increased so significantly that lipogenesis is inhibited (1)."
Do you like how this works?
A smarta$$ who knows what they are talking about. I like it. Lolol1 -
Yes. But it just doesn't tell you WHY people eat more calories than they consume. It's a physics truism, but it's not that useful for real world advice on how to lose weight. That's my opinion.
Sure. You can starve yourself skinny, but that's not the real world. How do you maintain a slim weight for years, and why do people overeat and become obese? The thermodynamics is a truth that tells you nothing about the why.
There's also the problem that the human body can increase or decrease energy out in response to energy in, or other factors.1 -
Yes. But it just doesn't tell you WHY people eat more calories than they consume. It's a physics truism, but it's not that useful for real world advice on how to lose weight. That's my opinion.
Sure. You can starve yourself skinny, but that's not the real world. How do you maintain a slim weight for years, and why do people overeat and become obese? The thermodynamics is a truth that tells you nothing about the why.
There's also the problem that the human body can increase or decrease energy out in response to energy in, or other factors.
One of the reasons why people overeat could be sentences such as "Sure, You can starve yourself skinny", thinking you need to starve to lose weight and then not bothering because of that.11 -
Yes. But it just doesn't tell you WHY people eat more calories than they consume. It's a physics truism, but it's not that useful for real world advice on how to lose weight. That's my opinion.
Sure. You can starve yourself skinny, but that's not the real world. How do you maintain a slim weight for years, and why do people overeat and become obese? The thermodynamics is a truth that tells you nothing about the why.
There's also the problem that the human body can increase or decrease energy out in response to energy in, or other factors.
By eating at maintenance calorie levels. At least that's what I've been doing for years. It really hasn't been that big of a deal to lose the extra weight and now maintain within a 20-21 bmi range. It seems like a lot of people keep trying to make this whole weight thing more complicated than it actually is. Keeping things simple has worked great for me.
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Yes. But it just doesn't tell you WHY people eat more calories than they consume. It's a physics truism, but it's not that useful for real world advice on how to lose weight. That's my opinion.
Sure. You can starve yourself skinny, but that's not the real world. How do you maintain a slim weight for years, and why do people overeat and become obese? The thermodynamics is a truth that tells you nothing about the why.
There's also the problem that the human body can increase or decrease energy out in response to energy in, or other factors.
I understand where you're coming from, because most people at a healthy weight don't have any idea about CICO, and don't weigh and record every morsel they eat. But people who need/want to lose weight don't have that luxury, and that's the beauty of MFP - you get to find out the why!
CICO is such a useful starting point. People get themselves into trouble when they try to change their diet and lose weight at the same time, meaning they associate being or becoming slim with eating lousy, bland food, and being deprived of the foods they most enjoy. And because they lose too fast, they also associate losing weight with being hungry all the time.
Much better to focus on CICO, not worry about changing the whole diet, and gradually let the discipline of CICO weed out bad habits and nurture healthy ones.5 -
Yes. But it just doesn't tell you WHY people eat more calories than they consume. It's a physics truism, but it's not that useful for real world advice on how to lose weight. That's my opinion.
Sure. You can starve yourself skinny, but that's not the real world. How do you maintain a slim weight for years, and why do people overeat and become obese? The thermodynamics is a truth that tells you nothing about the why.
There's also the problem that the human body can increase or decrease energy out in response to energy in, or other factors.
No one is advocating to "starve yourself skinny". What is recommended is an appropriate calorie deficit based on goals. If someone has a significant amount of weight to lose (>50 lbs), that may be a 1000 cal/day deficit. If someone has less than 50 lbs to lose, a deficit of 500 cals/day is appropriate and with less than 25 lbs to lose, a goal of 0.5 lb/week or a deficit of 250 cals/day would be reasonable. That's not "starving yourself skinny", and actually, from your other thread, you seem to be unnecessarily focused on being "skinny" rather than being healthy (body, mind, and overall outlook).
If one loses weight in a healthy manner, achieves their goals with a basic understanding of energy balance and CICO, then there's no reason they shouldn't be able to maintain that healthy weight using the same principles. People fail to maintain their weight loss for many reasons but one of the main ones is that they take too aggressive of an approach during weight loss and think they can just revert back to old ways of eating and less activity once they've hit their goal. Maintenance is not the end of the journey, it's just changing trains.2 -
crzycatlady1 wrote: »Yes. But it just doesn't tell you WHY people eat more calories than they consume. It's a physics truism, but it's not that useful for real world advice on how to lose weight. That's my opinion.
Sure. You can starve yourself skinny, but that's not the real world. How do you maintain a slim weight for years, and why do people overeat and become obese? The thermodynamics is a truth that tells you nothing about the why.
There's also the problem that the human body can increase or decrease energy out in response to energy in, or other factors.
By eating at maintenance calorie levels. At least that's what I've been doing for years. It really hasn't been that big of a deal to lose the extra weight and now maintain within a 20-21 bmi range. It seems like a lot of people keep trying to make this whole weight thing more complicated than it actually is. Keeping things simple has worked great for me.
It still begs the question. How does one eat at maintenance calorie levels, and why don't some people do that?1 -
crzycatlady1 wrote: »Yes. But it just doesn't tell you WHY people eat more calories than they consume. It's a physics truism, but it's not that useful for real world advice on how to lose weight. That's my opinion.
Sure. You can starve yourself skinny, but that's not the real world. How do you maintain a slim weight for years, and why do people overeat and become obese? The thermodynamics is a truth that tells you nothing about the why.
There's also the problem that the human body can increase or decrease energy out in response to energy in, or other factors.
By eating at maintenance calorie levels. At least that's what I've been doing for years. It really hasn't been that big of a deal to lose the extra weight and now maintain within a 20-21 bmi range. It seems like a lot of people keep trying to make this whole weight thing more complicated than it actually is. Keeping things simple has worked great for me.
It still begs the question. How does one eat at maintenance calorie levels, and why don't some people do that?
See my answer above but also:
1. By knowing what your maintenance cals are to begin with. Understanding the CICO balance and where your personal maintenance range is will help a person ensure they don't exceed that.
2. By accurately counting calories OR eating in a way that enables you to be satisfied eating at that maintenance level.
3. By losing weight in a way that is sustainable rather than resorting to extreme deficits, extremely restrictive ways of eating (ie cutting out all of a particular food group simply for weight loss purpose), or utilizing woo based methods (supplements or weight loss aids that are nothing more than snake oil and don't teach a person how to eat a healthy diet).
4. By eating a varied diet that provides adequate nutrition (macro and micro nutrients), fills you up, and is pleasurable. Eating nothing but plain baked chicken and steamed veggies every night as you suggested in another thread would be a quick trip to boredom and binging for many people. There's no reason to eat the same thing day in and day out, and doing so, in my opinion, would make maintenance awful.
5. By continuing to be mindful. Many people fail at maintenance simply because life gets in the way. Continuing to be mindful of your intake, exercise, and overall health will help ensure success in maintenance.2 -
crzycatlady1 wrote: »Yes. But it just doesn't tell you WHY people eat more calories than they consume. It's a physics truism, but it's not that useful for real world advice on how to lose weight. That's my opinion.
Sure. You can starve yourself skinny, but that's not the real world. How do you maintain a slim weight for years, and why do people overeat and become obese? The thermodynamics is a truth that tells you nothing about the why.
There's also the problem that the human body can increase or decrease energy out in response to energy in, or other factors.
By eating at maintenance calorie levels. At least that's what I've been doing for years. It really hasn't been that big of a deal to lose the extra weight and now maintain within a 20-21 bmi range. It seems like a lot of people keep trying to make this whole weight thing more complicated than it actually is. Keeping things simple has worked great for me.
It still begs the question. How does one eat at maintenance calorie levels, and why don't some people do that?
IMO, mindless eating is a major culprit...
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crzycatlady1 wrote: »Yes. But it just doesn't tell you WHY people eat more calories than they consume. It's a physics truism, but it's not that useful for real world advice on how to lose weight. That's my opinion.
Sure. You can starve yourself skinny, but that's not the real world. How do you maintain a slim weight for years, and why do people overeat and become obese? The thermodynamics is a truth that tells you nothing about the why.
There's also the problem that the human body can increase or decrease energy out in response to energy in, or other factors.
By eating at maintenance calorie levels. At least that's what I've been doing for years. It really hasn't been that big of a deal to lose the extra weight and now maintain within a 20-21 bmi range. It seems like a lot of people keep trying to make this whole weight thing more complicated than it actually is. Keeping things simple has worked great for me.
It still begs the question. How does one eat at maintenance calorie levels, and why don't some people do that?
Are you asking because you are trying to figure out how you gained weight or wondering how others manage to get fat?
My theory is that in the current environment (plenty of tasty food easily available, weak cultural traditions restricting eating, no need for much activity in daily life for the majority) it's really easy to overeat. Humans have no evolutionary reason to have developed an inability to eat more calories than we need in a particular day or week -- throughout most of human history scarcity has been much more of a problem and it was probably an advantage to be able to eat as much as possible when food was available, within constraints of community needs, of course). Thus, it doesn't surprise me that while some people do seem to naturally moderate and eat less on the next day after eating more on one or to have strong limits by appetite on how much they can eat, even of foods they love, that this is probably less common than lacking these natural restraints.
What I find is that if I count calories or otherwise have a restraint of some sort on what I eat (mindful eating and focusing on serving sizes, eating only at meals, no snacking, stuff like that -- another such constraint would be eating only foods you cook, making sure meals are balanced and include adequate protein and vegetables), I will "naturally" eat around maintenance, especially if I'm being reasonably active. But would it be possible to fall into a pattern or habits where I was quite sedentary in my free time and snacked throughout the day? I am sure. And you don't have to overeat by much to gain, so it's quite easy to do if you just expand the eating window (eat late into the night or snack throughout the day, which are things I think people now do and didn't formerly so much).2 -
crzycatlady1 wrote: »Yes. But it just doesn't tell you WHY people eat more calories than they consume. It's a physics truism, but it's not that useful for real world advice on how to lose weight. That's my opinion.
Sure. You can starve yourself skinny, but that's not the real world. How do you maintain a slim weight for years, and why do people overeat and become obese? The thermodynamics is a truth that tells you nothing about the why.
There's also the problem that the human body can increase or decrease energy out in response to energy in, or other factors.
By eating at maintenance calorie levels. At least that's what I've been doing for years. It really hasn't been that big of a deal to lose the extra weight and now maintain within a 20-21 bmi range. It seems like a lot of people keep trying to make this whole weight thing more complicated than it actually is. Keeping things simple has worked great for me.
It still begs the question. How does one eat at maintenance calorie levels, and why don't some people do that?
To eat at maintenance calorie levels you just need to figure out the number of calories you need to eat, in order to maintain your weight (numerous online calculators do this for you, and I've heard rumors that there's a website called My Fitness Pal that can help you with this as well....), and then commence eating until one achieves that calorie intake
And why am I successfully maintaining a 50lb loss while my mom and sisters continue to lose/regain over and over again? Exactly for the reason I stated in my previous post-they continue to make this whole thing way more complicated than it needs to be. They jump from one fad diet to the next, make drastic and unrealistic changes to what kinds of foods they're eating, box themselves in with arbitrary rules etc. They continue to do things the complicated way and continue to fail over and over again. Meanwhile I've over here, rocking my size 4 jeans and excellent health markers, eating all the foods I like, and keeping things simple. Go figure.
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Just for the record, I totes VLCDed myself down to 14% bodyfat, and am holding it there by keeping track of my intake in relation to my weight. It's craaazy, I know, but math.3
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crzycatlady1 wrote: »Yes. But it just doesn't tell you WHY people eat more calories than they consume. It's a physics truism, but it's not that useful for real world advice on how to lose weight. That's my opinion.
Sure. You can starve yourself skinny, but that's not the real world. How do you maintain a slim weight for years, and why do people overeat and become obese? The thermodynamics is a truth that tells you nothing about the why.
There's also the problem that the human body can increase or decrease energy out in response to energy in, or other factors.
By eating at maintenance calorie levels. At least that's what I've been doing for years. It really hasn't been that big of a deal to lose the extra weight and now maintain within a 20-21 bmi range. It seems like a lot of people keep trying to make this whole weight thing more complicated than it actually is. Keeping things simple has worked great for me.
It still begs the question. How does one eat at maintenance calorie levels, and why don't some people do that?
If you're thinking that there's any one reason that people get fat, you're on a fool's errand.
Every single person who has problems with overconsuming food likely has several issues playing a role in why they do so. The degree to which they over consume likely also has several factors at play.
CICO is an overarching principle which every person seeking to lose excess weight needs to put into practice in order to lose that weight, regardless of WHY they need to lose the weight to begin with. They might need to deal with issues to get to the point where they are able to put CICO effectively into practice. They might need to develop specific habits to suit their specific situation. The bottom line, though, is that they will still need to manage their weight with an energy balance.
This discussion is starting to remind me of the time I had therapy for anxiety surrounding a childhood trauma I had been through. This was years later, as an adult. One of the things my therapist told me has always stuck with me. He told me that I didn't really need to dig deep to the bottom of everything and rehash it all to deal with it. Sometimes just dealing with WHY means facing what's going on NOW and figuring out how to pull yourself through it. Sometimes, you just need to tell yourself you're going to do something or tell yourself that you're going to start finding your motivation from the future instead of the past.4 -
I can tell you I had no clue about TDEE and the math around maintaining weight loss. I can tell you all about the methods I used successfully to lose weight but I couldn't figure out how to maintain it. It seems all I garnered from these "diet" websites was "don't go back to eating the way you were eating" so I thought I ate less but I didn't know HOW much less I really needed to eat. Sure the information is out there but it's certainly not as prevalent as the weight loss information is.
Actually even mfp home page says "millions have lost weight with mfp". Not a mention of maintaining it. There's just not the push for the math and science to educate folks on maintenance. And what is out there is conflicting if you rely on interpreters and don't really understand the actual studies.
At least this is my opinion for what its worth:).0 -
crzycatlady1 wrote: »Yes. But it just doesn't tell you WHY people eat more calories than they consume. It's a physics truism, but it's not that useful for real world advice on how to lose weight. That's my opinion.
Sure. You can starve yourself skinny, but that's not the real world. How do you maintain a slim weight for years, and why do people overeat and become obese? The thermodynamics is a truth that tells you nothing about the why.
There's also the problem that the human body can increase or decrease energy out in response to energy in, or other factors.
By eating at maintenance calorie levels. At least that's what I've been doing for years. It really hasn't been that big of a deal to lose the extra weight and now maintain within a 20-21 bmi range. It seems like a lot of people keep trying to make this whole weight thing more complicated than it actually is. Keeping things simple has worked great for me.
It still begs the question. How does one eat at maintenance calorie levels, and why don't some people do that?
Because in the world we currently live in, eating at maintenance is sucky. So much awesome food to eat, so few calories actually needed.
More and more sedentary jobs mean lower TDEEs, which means lower maintenance calories. Longer work hours/commutes and more adults choosing to work instead of staying at home with the kids make convenience food a tempting option. We celebrate with food. We comfort with food. We entertain with food. Before we even get into individual struggles, we look around at our culture as a whole and see food everywhere, often front and center, and we're not active enough to compensate for it. I think for most people, maintaining a healthy weight has to be a conscious process.
I think this Weight Watchers ad is illustrative:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWMsezS1SN4 4 -
If your only goal is weight loss, then yes, calories matter. I've found that eating better and finding the right balance in my macros is a better way to go.0
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bercyn1291 wrote: »It is agreed upon that quality of the food matters in faster weight loss but ideally calories out-calories in should determine how much weight you lose. Please share your experience.
no, it is not agreed, but nice way to try and set up a straw man about "everyone agrees" with this ludicrous statement.
calorie deficit for weight loss; micro/macro aderehcne for body comp and overall nutrition.
200 calories of oreos = 200 calories of carrots from an energy standpoint; however, they do not contain the same nutritional profile.
Um. it is actually "agreed upon" that calories in calories out matters but the quality of food part is the debate. Maybe swap the main question of this debate because a better question is do you think the quality of food matters because it is agreed upon that calories do...0 -
Verity1111 wrote: »bercyn1291 wrote: »It is agreed upon that quality of the food matters in faster weight loss but ideally calories out-calories in should determine how much weight you lose. Please share your experience.
no, it is not agreed, but nice way to try and set up a straw man about "everyone agrees" with this ludicrous statement.
calorie deficit for weight loss; micro/macro aderehcne for body comp and overall nutrition.
200 calories of oreos = 200 calories of carrots from an energy standpoint; however, they do not contain the same nutritional profile.
Um. it is actually "agreed upon" that calories in calories out matters but the quality of food part is the debate. Maybe swap the main question of this debate because a better question is do you think the quality of food matters because it is agreed upon that calories do...
So while i largely think its important to eat foods that increase satiety and are nutrient dense, if a person has the ability to control calories to lose weight and eat a diet largely made up of high calorie items (often junk foods), you can make an argument that they would still improve metabolic markers if weight loss occured. In fact, its been done with the twinkie diet. Heck, there are countless stories of similar success stories with all starbucks diet, McDonald's and other restaurants. Hell i could easily do it with chipotle. There was even a guy on this forum that ran that long term experiment. Often the reason quality of food matters is more for compliance, satiety and maximing nutrition uptake.7
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