CICO huh?

Apologies for not having anything to add, I just wanted to applaud all the lovely and well thought out replies and responses. It's nice to read and not inwardly cringe, its also educational for those of us who have reached our goals and are looking at maintenance. I didn't know there were more detailed blood tests either, from the ones a GP does.

TL;DR Everyone is wonderful in this thread.

psuLemon wrote: »

EbonyDahlia wrote: »

WinoGelato wrote: »

EbonyDahlia wrote: »

Nony_Mouse wrote: »

EbonyDahlia wrote: »

Nony_Mouse wrote: »

EbonyDahlia wrote: »

Nony_Mouse wrote: »

annacole94 wrote: »

How do you know you don't have any health concerns? Honestly, if you're THAT sure you're right, it's time to consult a dietitian and a doctor. If you are correct, science wants you to help end malnutrition.

^^This.

Look_Its_Kriss wrote: »

I think it could be a combination of many things..
I don't recommend eating less, but i just think that taking the numbers like they should be fact is why so many people have a hard time with the CICO process.. We can use everything we can to try and be as close as we can to what the CICO is for us but in the end it's all a guess and if we don't get the results we want we tweak until we do. Since weight loss itself isn't linear, it's often said that we should just keep a weight trend app so that we can see not only fluctuations but that the over all trend is down.. i went 5 weeks with absolutely no loss when i was 213 pounds, despite weighing food, walking everywhere, going to the gym.. scale did not move. It did eventually though.. and you might find next 3 months that the scale might move faster then expected.

^^And this.

Also have you taken a diet break at any stage?

Yes I'm that sure I'm right - my tracking is accurate. In fact if anything I will round up (37g feta becomes 40g). I have been doing this for 4 years. I have been to the doctor, had the blood tests.

Yes, I took a diet "break" early last year. I had surgery (tubes tied). I stopped tracking for about 3 months. I did not binge eat, but I did eat a bit more than I normally would. I also gained 14kg in that time.

Yes, I have happy scale which tracks weightloss over time. I have lost 37kg in 4 years. Other than the 3 months previously mentioned I was accurately and diligently tracking that whole time.

3 months ago I dropped from 1700 cals to 1460 cals. I am still losing at the same rate (about half a lb a week). I was actually shocked to see that I'm averaging 900 cals a day net. I walk to and from the bus - about 3km in all, plus other exercise and I just eat my 1460 cals and not worry about it.

I would seriously consider another break. Your body was going through a lot when you did the last one plus that was some time ago. A couple of weeks at maintenance may do you the world of good. If it doesn't then you need to dig deeper because something is affecting your CO.

An interesting thread (linked in the post after) and a good concept in theory, but I don't think I can survive gaining any kgs, considering how long it took to get rid of them. I dare not go above about 1700 to 1800 cals a day, and to be honest that extra 350 is really neither here nor there - certainly not a "break". I'm wondering if a day here and there might be okay. As in, I'm seriously about 2000 calories under my target for the week, maybe I could manage a 700 calorie Caesar salad or something on the weekend.

As @GottaBurnEmAll said a diet break is eating at maintenance. Why not just try it for a couple of weeks? Given how long you've been at a deficit for I doubt a day here and there at higher cals will be enough. But you could adopt that strategy going forward.

I understand that, but what is "maintenance"? Last time I took a break I know - based on 25 years of counting calories - that I would not have often hit more than 2000 a day and yet I gained 14kg in 3 months. According to the calculations in the first post I should be able to maintain at 2207. I guarantee I can't - I'll gain weight. Hence why I said I dare not eat more than 1700 to 1800 cals a day (which would be about 1400 net).

If you are currently losing 0.5 lb/week then presumably you are eating 250 cals below your true maintenance. You can also reverse diet your way up to it by adding 100 cals/week until you stop losing.

Honestly though, I'm not getting the sense that you want advice and help as much as you want to refute the concept of CICO. There are reasons why people don't lose at the rate they expect. Most of the time it's underestimating intake or overestimating calorie burn. If that's not the case for you, other options could be, as other posters have said: taking a diet break to let hormone levels restore after a prolonged deficit, or seeing a doctor for underlying medical conditions which may mean that the CICO balance needs to be tweaked for you to work.

IIRC, you eat a LCHF diet, is that right? Has anything changed with the foods you are eating, have you incorporated new foods that may be masking the weight loss and you are due for a "woosh"? Did you lose faster before and this is a sudden stall?

I'm currently losing 0.25 per week, not half. And I am netting 900 to 1000 calories a day. I am not resistant, nor am I looking to refute anything. I am simply pointing out that things are not as simple as a mathematic equation. Even if I'm underestimating (I'm not) and my exercise calories are overestimated (they could be) the figures are NOT out by 500 calories a day - it's simply not possible.

Yes I eat low carb, my Dad died from type 2 diabetes last year, my doctor told me 4 years ago I would suffer the same fate if I did not make changes. Low carb works for many reasons I won't go into again. None of my foods have changed, we eat the same food. Only changes I've tried have been cutting out dairy, cutting out diet sugar, increasing carbs from 5% to 10% (still in ketosis)etc. But if it was a simple matter of calories none of that should matter I could eat 1400 calories of fairy floss and lose weight.

I had a "woosh" last week. I lost about 1.5kg - I have been steadily gaining it back at the rate of 100g a day. This is generally how it goes.

I'm not arguing that eating at maintenance is a bad idea (if someone doesn't say "oh sure, great, you're totally right" - it's not arguing, it's discussing something and offering more information/perspective), I'm just pretty sure if I ate 1800 net calories I'd gain weight, quickly.

I'm not sure I want help. I'm pretty sure over the duration I have tried everything, read everything made any changes it's possible to make and the end result has been the same. Fighting the same BS battle for every single gram.

Well, weight loss is a mathematical equation. Unfortunately, it seems like you are putting a lot of stock in the algorithms of your device (which can be vastly different) and it doesn't consider adaptive thermogenesis from prolonged calorie suppression. I worked with a women who came off a year protocol of HCG (so 3 rounds). After the protocol, she has a maintenance of 1400 (this included exercise 5-6 hours a week). After I got her on a good lifting program and kept her at maintenance for a year, her maintenance calories slowly moved up to 1700. It seems that impact of significant calorie suppression caused a down regulation of RMR.


ETA: It should be noted that your TDEE is not always a standard number and a variety of elements will cause variation. At best, you can take a running average over an extended period of time. That is what I have done and why I know my TDEE is around 3000 calories. Why, because I have enough data points with my intake to demonstrate that through feedback mechanism.

And on the heels of this, perhaps it would be prudent for you, OP, to stop dieting for the time being and find out what your true TDEE is by finding that point where your weight stabilizes (with minor fluctuations for sodium and activity) and start from there using that as a data point for creating a deficit.

No matter what else has gone on here, something is off with your numbers. Either the information coming from your device is very off (I'm not sure how reliable the Misfits are), or you have a severe case of metabolic adaptation (and I think this is unlikely because you haven't severely restricted), or some combination of both.

Here's something you can do and that I find useful if you have consistent exercise: it could be a problem in how you have everything set up. Forget tracking net calories and switch to a TDEE method using your Shine. Set your MFP to sedentary maintenance. Have negative calorie adjustments enabled. Have the Shine send over calorie adjustments. Your sedentary maintenance plus the calorie adjustment from the Shine will be your TDEE. Calories left at the end of the day will be your deficit. Eat enough during the day to create the deficit you want.

See how that works.

You're chronically underfeeding with super low net calories...you're stressing your body out and jacking your hormones up. Adaptive thermogenesis is a thing...so you don't die...your body is pretty good at that.

EbonyDahlia wrote: »

Riddle me this. My calorie target is set to 1460 (used to be 1700 - but I've lost about 37kg). I'm 5'10" and 87kg so 1460 is fine.

For the Americans who may be metric challenged, this is about 191 lb, and a BMI of around 27.

I wear a Misfit Shine (like a fitbit). It syncs with MFP and does the calorie adjustment based on activity. MFP is set to sedentary to allow for this. The Misfit seems pretty accurate (based on testing over time).

What do you mean by testing over time? That you used to lose in accordance with what it predicted?

I do not eat back my exercise calories. My net calories for this week are in the pic below, and this is a pretty standard week, I'm a creature of habit. So, it seems I'm averaging 900 calories a day.

Net calories don't make a lot of sense when you don't separate between intentional exercise and activity level, which the Misfit will not. The bigger question is what your actual calculated deficit is -- actual calories vs. actual (estimated) activity. What are you getting for this number? You said over 1 kg for week is what you are predicting, so presumably 1200 or so as a deficit?

Calorie calculator says this:
You need 2,207 Calories/day to maintain your weight.
You need 1,707 Calories/day to lose 0.5 kg per week.
You need 1,207 Calories/day to lose 1 kg per week.
You need 2,707 Calories/day to gain 0.5 kg per week.
You need 3,207 Calories/day to gain 1 kg per week.

Hmm. I ran your stats on McA-K using about 30% BF (reasonable with your BMI, but obviously could be off) and got maintenance of 2000 if sedentary, 2300 if lightly active, and 2600 if moderately active. 2900 if very active.

I then ran them with the M-StJ formula assuming you were 30 (no body fat for this one) and got similar numbers.

So based on these, to lose 1 kg per week (a very aggressive goal for someone overweight but not obese), 1460 would be about right if you are moderately active. But that's only if the calculation fits -- you could be off.

You said you were losing about 1 kg/month or -- as winogelato said -- about .5 lb/week. That means a deficit of 250. If you were eating around 1500 (allowing for error), that's lower than it should be, yeah.

Since you've been doing this for a while, I think the diet break is a good idea, or go see a doctor and ask for a referral to a nutritionist and bring all of your information. Since TDEE declining after some time of losing weight at an aggressive deficit isn't uncommon, though, I don't know that those numbers are off enough to suggest anything must be off physically, but it's worth giving a doctor the information.

It's also possible to get RMR tested -- might be interesting if there's an option not too expensively near you.

Just FYI, this has nothing to do with CICO. It has to do with your own TDEE/calorie balance. There's nothing here to suggest that cutting calories beyond your maintenance doesn't lead to weight loss for you, or that increasing it above maintenance wouldn't lead to weight gain. (What it might do, if done gradually and carefully, though -- a reverse diet -- is allow an increase in TDEE without meaningful weight gain.)