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CICO is not the whole equation
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Hi Ann! My grandma never counted calories and yet stayed the same dress size her whole adult life. She pretty much weighed herself and "watched her weight". That's the term women used back then, and probably where "Weight Watchers" borrowed it's name.2
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Also interesting that obesity rates around the developed world are at an all time high despite generations and generations not counting calories, eating smaller portions, being less sedentary and not having access to the masses of soft drinks and heavily processed foods that currently are readily available and heavily consumed.1
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As a new member I have not got the sense of "eat what you want, still lose weight and be healthy!!". I do have a sense of not demonizing food groups and particular foods anymore. The fact that MFP's tool set tracks macro and micronutrients and alerts you when things like your sugar is sneaking up, renders your arguement moot.
CICO is the whole equation for weight loss. You can fill your body with empty calories and still lose weight (fact). No one here would recommend that as a balanced healthy way of eating!!
It is liberating to know that no food item is evil and you dont need to have a concept of "cheating". You can have that big mac if that floats your boat and work it into your overall diet.
I would rather take a nice brioche bun, some jalapeno coleslaw, good mince and a red onion and make my own burger when I am craving that. Mainly because MFP has made me fall in love with cooking again.
Whilst using MFP I have eaten home made green thai curry, air fried chips, home made whole meal pitta bread pizzas, the burger described above and still lost weight. I have also stopped drinking soda drinks (sugar or sugar free), stop consuming refined white pasta, bread, rice and am eating more oily fish, fiberous fruits and lots of veggies.
I am still a notorious salad dodger so it is nice that I dont have to berate myself for eating a sandwich here and there.10 -
stevencloser wrote: »In other words, your current eating habits and activity level leave you at a certain weight range that you don't like so you increase your energy expenditure through exercise and consciously decrease your calorie intake until new habits form. Why are you selling yourself short and saying it's your body who wants this or that?
Thanks Steven. My body does fight me to go right back to the settled weight, staying wIthin a few pounds range. It is going to be monumental to lose these very stubborn targeted 10 or 15 pounds. It really will be an "active fight" for me to keep my body from wanting to bounce right back to my current weight.
I like how this article explains it as "steady state weight".
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3174765/1 -
janejellyroll wrote: »KatzeDerNacht22 wrote: »I had never considered other methods besides calorie counting! I don't feel I have attained or have this intuitive eating system in-built, I guess it's similar to those programs with containers and colors, what's the name... 21 day fix? Very interesting topic here!! I guess I'll keep counting though cos I am just getting used to hitting my macros and all that as well as them calories.
My wife did the 21 fix. Of course it worked well, because the principle of the containers is you are limiting caloric intake. What I disagreed with, and why I like anyone starting to use a food journal and track is, most people doing the 21 day fix have no clue just how big of a deficit they are creating. You wouldn't know without doing the math of CICO. There is no real efficacy or knowledge/learning created in there, which I think is key to sustainability. It is also why we debate things like we do, and that is a good thing.
The one thing that drives me nuts about beachbody is they have really been big in cutting calories down a lot. I even noticed that with their calorie calculator. When I first started, it had me label around 2100 calories, but now it had me around 1500-1700.
I have an (admittedly conspiratorial) theory about why this is.
Person purchases plan from Beachbody and follows it. They see dramatic weight loss, but are unable to sustain and fall off the plan relatively quickly. But they remember the dramatic results and think it means the plan is "the best" and repeat the cycle again and again, all the while fueling the purchasing of new workouts, supplements, and "coaching."
I have a lot of family members who insist, regardless of how sustainable a plan is, that the fastest weight loss is the best. If they can only stay on plan for a couple of weeks, they'll still think that plan is the best.
That is how I see it too. WW and all other programs do the same thing. When my wife joined WW, they had her on 1k a day. Ridiculous.
Plus they allow you to eat WW treats. When people fall off the wagon, they remember that WW allowed them to eat suagary treats but use the full calorie alternatives.2 -
*SIGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH*1
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I agree with you see Ico is not the loan equation. But on the other hand it is the major factor you can eat whatever you want and lose the weight but from a nutritional point of view and what you're doing to your body that's another issue. I could eat Snickers and drink vodka and I still lose the weight but what it would do to me physically would be totally destructive. Like anything else it's a balance of a whole bunch of factors
Like you I enjoyed my Wendy's hamburgers pizza and beers on the beach if I had to give those up I would have never succeeded but it's done in moderation and went in a specific calorie goal
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3 points:
1. Some people state that CICO is a law of physics. Technically, the first law of thermodynamics is a law of physics, and a calorie is simply a unit of measurement of raising 1 g of water through 1 degree C IN A BOMB CALORIMETER. We as humans are each a complex biological system, not a bomb calorimeter. While being aware of a general sense of how much one eats is probably a good thing common sense wise, being dogmatic about a bomb calorimeter law for human fat loss is ignoring the complexity of a biological system. We should be looking for laws of BIOLOGY, not laws of physics to guide us.
2. Just a general pattern I have noticed.. again, not a hard and fast rule but a general pattern. Those who shout "it's all about CICO" really seem to like their junk food (although many do include whole foods), and really seem to want to keep junk food in the mix. To my eye, I do wonder if CICO is a fantastic marketing scheme for big food to give people "permission" to keep that junk food hanging around (one would naturally be all inclusive if instructed that quantity trumps quality).
3. I also notice that the "it's all about CICO" folk do tend to exhibit disproportionately negative emotional responses at the mention of "clean eating" or "whole food diets" or the word "paleo". Or at the very least, there will be a lot of sarcasm/hostility/derision in the tone of responses. I don't know why this is. If one is confident in their method, they usually react peacefully to alternative suggestions. I do understand that food is an emotional topic, but I don't see the converse scenario nearly as much (a "clean eater" getting hostile at the suggestion of CICO/everything in moderation). But that could just be my observation.
Now, there certainly are exceptions to my point number 2, as several forum members do say that they like to watch what they eat in addition to how much, but like I said I just noticed this general trend....
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It's odd as I have never noticed number 2 a single time in these boards...7
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OMG, still going on...
At the end of the day, and I think this is probably true for the majority, if you want to lose fat, at some point you're going to have to eat a little less then you'd like and move a little more then you'd like...4 -
It's odd as I have never noticed number 2 a single time in these boards...
Maybe I worded it badly. Let me try again. I seem to notice on these boards that many (not all, but many) who claim "it's all about CICO" seem to use this as justification to be able to include any food that can be purchased at a store within their diets.0 -
geneticexpectations wrote: »It's odd as I have never noticed number 2 a single time in these boards...
Maybe I worded it badly. Let me try again. I seem to notice on these boards that many (not all, but many) who claim "it's all about CICO" seem to use this as justification to be able to include any food that can be purchased at a store within their diets.
What foods one eats doesn't need justification. It's just food.15 -
geneticexpectations wrote: »It's odd as I have never noticed number 2 a single time in these boards...
Maybe I worded it badly. Let me try again. I seem to notice on these boards that many (not all, but many) who claim "it's all about CICO" seem to use this as justification to be able to include any food that can be purchased at a store within their diets.
That is your perception...2 -
geneticexpectations wrote: »It's odd as I have never noticed number 2 a single time in these boards...
Maybe I worded it badly. Let me try again. I seem to notice on these boards that many (not all, but many) who claim "it's all about CICO" seem to use this as justification to be able to include any food that can be purchased at a store within their diets.
In your opinion2 -
geneticexpectations wrote: »It's odd as I have never noticed number 2 a single time in these boards...
Maybe I worded it badly. Let me try again. I seem to notice on these boards that many (not all, but many) who claim "it's all about CICO" seem to use this as justification to be able to include any food that can be purchased at a store within their diets.
I don't understand what's wrong with this. You can certainly get in your macros and micros eating any food that can be purchased at a store, it's not necessary to eat "clean", or remove "junk food" (whatever those words even mean) in order to lose weight and stay healthy. This argument continues to baffle me - it's as though people are saying if you eat "processed" food (again whatever that means) all the nutrients are sucked out of it.7 -
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geneticexpectations wrote: »It's odd as I have never noticed number 2 a single time in these boards...
Maybe I worded it badly. Let me try again. I seem to notice on these boards that many (not all, but many) who claim "it's all about CICO" seem to use this as justification to be able to include any food that can be purchased at a store within their diets.
I don't understand what's wrong with this. You can certainly get in your macros and micros eating any food that can be purchased at a store, it's not necessary to eat "clean", or remove "junk food" (whatever those words even mean) in order to lose weight and stay healthy. This argument continues to baffle me - it's as though people are saying if you eat "processed" food (again whatever that means) all the nutrients are sucked out of it.
Sounds more like someone needs justification on why not to eat it rather than the folks who apparently understand there is nothing wrong with any foods and have no reason to justify eating it, no?19 -
geneticexpectations wrote: »It's odd as I have never noticed number 2 a single time in these boards...
Maybe I worded it badly. Let me try again. I seem to notice on these boards that many (not all, but many) who claim "it's all about CICO" seem to use this as justification to be able to include any food that can be purchased at a store within their diets.
I don't understand what's wrong with this. You can certainly get in your macros and micros eating any food that can be purchased at a store, it's not necessary to eat "clean", or remove "junk food" (whatever those words even mean) in order to lose weight and stay healthy. This argument continues to baffle me - it's as though people are saying if you eat "processed" food (again whatever that means) all the nutrients are sucked out of it.
Sounds more like someone needs justification on why not to eat it rather than the folks who apparently understand there is nothing wrong with any foods and have no reason to justify eating it, no?
For the win...8 -
geneticexpectations wrote: »It's odd as I have never noticed number 2 a single time in these boards...
Maybe I worded it badly. Let me try again. I seem to notice on these boards that many (not all, but many) who claim "it's all about CICO" seem to use this as justification to be able to include any food that can be purchased at a store within their diets.
I don't understand what's wrong with this. You can certainly get in your macros and micros eating any food that can be purchased at a store, it's not necessary to eat "clean", or remove "junk food" (whatever those words even mean) in order to lose weight and stay healthy. This argument continues to baffle me - it's as though people are saying if you eat "processed" food (again whatever that means) all the nutrients are sucked out of it.
Sounds more like someone needs justification on why not to eat it rather than the folks who apparently understand there is nothing wrong with any foods and have no reason to justify eating it, no?
Yes!5 -
That's cool. I understand and accept that there is a difference in perception of what food means to each of us.
Let me ask another hopefully provocative question - and this is in the light that I am a quality over quantity guy, ie, I do "primal" dieting sticking to whole foods, buy all my meats pastured/grassfed from individual farmers etc.
WHO DO THE CEO's OF BIG FOOD LIKE BETTER?
(ie, the people who make billions$$$$ off of non-whole foods, not like the farmers who I buy from who just get by).
Me
or
You (Referring to the people who responded to my recent post).
??????
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