It is more than a simple "CICO" - why can't we just admit it?

Except.......it is all CICO. There are things can alter the CO part of the formula, that's where personal biology comes into play but it really is as simple CICO. Figuring out what that means on a personal level takes a little time but nearly every human falls within range of a few hundred calories needed a day everything else being equal.

So it's tiring to see people make strawmen arguments about the scientific foundation of weight loss for every living being on the planet.

CICO is the single central unifying criteria in how muscular bodyweight and fat (not water retention) is maintained, gained or lost. It applies to all metabolisms, activity levels, etc, and cuts through a lot of magical thinking.

Of course the human body is insanely complex, and this creates endless variations in what CICO might mean to two people at the same weight. (And the countless other things that the human body needs to work best) However if you are not losing weight, correcting things until CI < CO will solve that issue. Period. And if your prime health problem is weight, same. (Kinda gross that a calorie controlled McD's diet is healthier than what most people are doing, but priorities are priorities).

The biological processes are not so complex or variable that able bodied, normal sized men remain fat under controlled conditions on 1200 calories a day. Ever. (To anyone who struggles to focus: No, I'm not recommending that regimen). And most complexities of biological functions are NOISE when it comes to what you need to do to nudge yourself into weightloss. Your metabolic rate isn't an order of magnitude greater than mine, and save severe disorders, we can both eat a nutritionally dense diet on a deficit.

You could read countless information about how many things affect your metabolism - it's INSANELY complicated - but the overall variations can be smaller than you think, fat people will usually have higher metabolisms than lighter people, and making the final 300 calorie cut solves the problem of weight loss more than all the knowledge of fish oil and meal division and homeostatic processes etc etc etc ever could.

This does not cover everything you need to know about managing weight/muscle levels while at low bodyfats, or health, what foods work best for you, or what a doctor or scientist might want to know about metabolic changes.

But it's the single most noise-erasing unifying focus point when it comes to the goal of losing weight. All the other stuff is great, but no results, no control of CICO? No wonder.

Well, in my own experience it really was that simple. I started consuming less calories than what I was previously eating and I lost 50lbs. Now I'm eating at maintenance calorie levels and I'm maintaining. Sure there's some tweaking that you may have to do, to get your numbers ironed out, but we're not talking rocket science here

mactaffy428 wrote: »

Why do people say that it is all down to CICO as if it is really that simple? Why does dieting not work, then, if all we have to do is shut our pie holes every in a while?

Happily ... it does work. It is really just that simple.

mactaffy428 wrote: »

It is so very hard to figure out what our CO" is ...

I haven't had any difficulty with it.

Because it really is that simple... even if it's not always easy.

The main problem is the difficulty in accurately measuring either the CI or the CO part of the equation. But that does not invalidate the equation itself. CICO is universal.

What variables affect an individual are not. It's those variables that sometimes makes getting the numbers right a bit difficult. How do I account for my endo and my menorrhagia in the equation? How do I account for my iron/B12 malabsorption issues? Am I sedentary or lightly active? Do I burn the amount of calories the online calculators ESTIMATE or not? How much of those almonds do I digest? How about the thermic effect of food when I increase my protein, does that have any noticeable effect? Will I be satiated with that apple or should I rather eat those chocolate M&Ms?

Long term, the only way to answer any of those questions is to accurately track and log. I can't be bothered to weigh all my food, so I know that those numbers will be off by an even larger margin of error than the numbers on the packages. Yet, with all of that, I can predict my losses pretty accurately based on how much I moved (the longer I have my fitbit, the more accurate it gets) and how much I ate.

mactaffy428 wrote: »

Why do people say that it is all down to CICO as if it is really that simple? Why does dieting not work, then, if all we have to do is shut our pie holes every in a while? Now, before anyone gets snarky, yes one needs to burn more than they eat, but saying that it is all " CICO" is very misleading. You take 2 different 200 pound women. Give them a month, have then do the same level if activity and eat the exact same food, and I guarantee they will not have the same weight loss. This leaves people frustrated.

It is so very hard to figure out what our CO" is as our bodies affect how we process the same foods. Tom might use more energy digesting his peanut butter sandwich than Hank, even though they ate the exact same amount. That's more "CO" for Tom. It's also hard to figure out our "CI"; since, by law, packaged foods are allowed to be "off" a certain amount on what the companies that is the nutritional balance, etc. All we can do is our best educated guess and that's just is not perfect enough to boil everything down to CICO.

It is so tiring to see people just boil complex biological functions down to a half-baked formula. Yes, what you eat does matter (and you may not even know it [your Big Mac may be your weekly treat but it could very well be someone else's poison]) and what you do does matter (exercise has been shown to to do so many things that affect this CICO over-used jargon).

Every human does not burn the same amount of energy and need the same amount of energy. My caloric intake might be too much/too little for you, but it doesn't mean eating less than you burn is wrong.

Saying CICO is wrong because people are different is like saying 2+2=4 is wrong because 3+1=4.

ETA: Saying "It's CICO" because weight loss/gain/maintenance IS that simple. People want to complicate it because if it really is that simple, they'd feel like idiots. I admit to being an idiot when I learned losing weight is just eating less than I burn.

80% is CICO. Other things matter but a good policy is to not major in minors.

The flaws in our ability to measure calories in and calories out doesn't mean it isn't true. There is plenty of evidence to support it. While it is true that two women of the same weight eating the same amount and at the same activity level won't lose at exactly the same rate, their weight loss rate will fall within a reasonable margin of error.

The issue isn't CICO. It isn't even the accuracy of our calorie counts. The issue is people's aversion to suffering. People don't like going hungry. People don't like exercising. They would rather sit around stuffing food in their mouths and feeling sorry for themselves because they aren't as thin as they once were. Then they want to bring others into their pity party because they think that if they can get other people to agree with them that they have an excuse to just give up. "Poor me. I'm fat. There's nothing I can do about it. Pass the mashed potatoes."

But we know how weight loss works. You eat fewer calories than you burn. The difficulty is overcoming the head game. The difficulty is in telling ourselves that no we can't have that bowl of ice cream just because we took the stairs. Telling ourselves that no it isn't a good idea to reward ourselves because we've been eating properly. Telling ourselves that no we shouldn't allow ourselves cheat days. But once we get past the head game it really is calories in/calories out.

mactaffy428 wrote: »

Why do people say that it is all down to CICO as if it is really that simple? Why does dieting not work, then, if all we have to do is shut our pie holes every in a while? Now, before anyone gets snarky, yes one needs to burn more than they eat, but saying that it is all " CICO" is very misleading. You take 2 different 200 pound women. Give them a month, have then do the same level if activity and eat the exact same food, and I guarantee they will not have the same weight loss. This leaves people frustrated.

It is so very hard to figure out what our CO" is as our bodies affect how we process the same foods. Tom might use more energy digesting his peanut butter sandwich than Hank, even though they ate the exact same amount. That's more "CO" for Tom. It's also hard to figure out our "CI"; since, by law, packaged foods are allowed to be "off" a certain amount on what the companies that is the nutritional balance, etc. All we can do is our best educated guess and that's just is not perfect enough to boil everything down to CICO.

It is so tiring to see people just boil complex biological functions down to a half-baked formula. Yes, what you eat does matter (and you may not even know it [your Big Mac may be your weekly treat but it could very well be someone else's poison]) and what you do does matter (exercise has been shown to to do so many things that affect this CICO over-used jargon).

I think a good answer here is, yes there can be a bit of variability, but in reality those two women are likely NOT really eating the exact same amount of food. What people eat and what they report that they eat can be very different, whether it's a conscious thing or not.

Calories are important, however, if you don't address the underlying issues ie: habits, medication, hormonal imbalance, lifestyle, the rate of recidivism skyrockets.

So telling someone who's obese and has been obese for any length of time to simply "eat less, move more" is ignorant.

Just because you find it difficult to figure out calorie expenditure (it's actually very simple), doesn't mean that CICO doesn't work.

People don't want to change, that's what it boils down to here. If you want it bad enough you will put less energy into your body than your body puts out and you will lose. People don't want it bad enough. They would rather say it's my medication, or genetics, or the baby weight, or I'm not taking fat blasting supplements etc and make excuses because eating less sucks. But finding a balance between feeling full on the food you eat and exercising to burn off more if you can is where it's at. If you don't exercise or can't then you have to eat less to get the same result. Simple CICO. It's getting people to really crack down hard on their accountability that is difficult. You can't stay in a deficit if you aren't aware of how much you are eating. Heavier people lose the easiest because they have so much excess and when you go from extreme overeating to normal overeating you still lose. Their larger body uses a lot more energy (CO) just to keep up normal functions as well as carry the larger weight around all day. All the day to day movement you do is like carrying around a backpack with the extra weight in it. When you lose the proverbial "backpack" and your body was used to carrying it, it doesn't have to work as hard anymore, so less output. Same CICO principle. It's just easy for larger people because their calories in were high to begin with, even a small cut results in losses. It's when they have to cut further from normal overeating to just eating enough to sustain themselves that they struggle. It's also where I am now, I lost weight to a finally heathy BMI and weight but trying to get leaner and the numbers must be accurate. If I add to much ketchup it can be enough calories to throw me out of my deficit, because my energy out (CO) is so much lower, because my body is smaller it doesn't have to work as hard or burn as much to carry around my smaller framev and to function normally (heart beating, breathing).
Point is when others see weightloss can, has and will continue to be done by many people throughout their lives they will either do it for themselves and stop making excuses or they will not change.

mactaffy428 wrote: »

Why do people say that it is all down to CICO as if it is really that simple? Why does dieting not work, then, if all we have to do is shut our pie holes every in a while? Now, before anyone gets snarky, yes one needs to burn more than they eat, but saying that it is all " CICO" is very misleading. You take 2 different 200 pound women. Give them a month, have then do the same level if activity and eat the exact same food, and I guarantee they will not have the same weight loss. This leaves people frustrated.
.

We say CICO because weight loss is about calories.
No one is saying that you don't have factors like age or medical conditions that impact your equation.
A 25 year old 5'10" 200 lb sedentary woman might eat 1,579 calories daily to lose 1 lb a week.
A 55 year old 5'1" 200 lb sedentary woman might eat 1,227 calories daily to lose 1 lb a week.
They could both lose 1 lb a week but yes they have differences they need to account for. It might take time to figure out the right calorie goal but weight loss is still CICO for each person.
If you want to lose weight then you will need to eat less calories or burn more calories than you are currently.