CICO, It's a math formula

mburgess458 wrote: »

CSARdiver wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

psuLemon wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

CICO applies to my cat (who, I am pretty sure, does not count calories). When you read advice about helping a cat lose weight, it's all about calorie control and making sure the cat is active. Dealing with an overweight cat can be difficult, because the cat will change activity level if food is cut back. Some cats naturally eat what they need and no more, but others will overeat if they can. (You should also feed them food appropriate for a cat, but I think that's a given and it doesn't necessarily prevent a cat from overeating. Some just love food and aren't naturally active enough.)

Here's the Dr. Attia thing, paraphrased: "A person has gained weight. I know that person has taken in more calories than he or she has burned. I know that's true, but it is not what I specifically am interested in. What I specifically am interested in is why did that person take in more calories than that person burned?

If my goal, as a weight loss guru, is to help people NOT gain weight (note: I am being charitable here), I need to understand what causes people to consume more calories than they burn (or to burn fewer calories than they consume). Merely knowing that they did is not enough for this purpose."

So, as an initial matter, claiming that that somehow debunks CICO or the first post in this thread is obviously false. Attia is saying that CICO is obviously true, but that OP's point is not what he, specifically, is interested in, and I guess it's not what you are interested in, Gale.

This reminds me of an old book forum I used to participate in. People would start threads to talk about a particular book or author, let's say Faulkner. Someone else might not think Faulkner was interesting to discuss, and wouldn't discuss his books in the thread. You, however, are behaving like someone who jumps in the thread and says that you don't think Faulkner is interesting at all, and proceeds to tell everyone that they should be talking about Philip Roth, and then starts posting comments from people who have opinions about how Roth is more relevant to current events or their specific interests than Faulkner.

Beyond that, Attia seems to think there's some one answer as to why people overeat that can be fixed. (I suspect it comes down to evil carbs.) I think that's obviously wrong -- if it was that easy, obesity would have been cured. The fact is that everyone needs to figure out what, for them, helps them not overeat. For example, leangogreen said that drinking more water than she otherwise would helped her. That's important for her to know and wonderful. It would not help me. But certain things I do would likely not help jo, because we are different.

What we do both know, and is a good starting place, and for us (although sure, not everyone) was a good, helpful starting place, is that the goal needs to be making CI less than CO if we want to lose weight. How to do that is up to us. That Attia doesn't think that's enough to help us doesn't matter much, since I am not asking him to cure me (I don't need to be cured) but figuring out for myself what helps me control CI and CO in a way that is effective for my goals (currently to maintain or lose a few vanity lbs while training for a marathon).

What I find interesting... for a large part, Dr. Attia is one of the more reasonable people who folllow LCHF. I haven't seen too many extreme response from the several blog post that I have read. In fact, I have enjoyed many of his.

Yeah, he may be fine. I think he was taken out of context, most likely.

Hmm, following up on that, here's Attia (http://eatingacademy.com/nutrition/do-calories-matter) -- I agree with some stuff (and he DOES NOT debunk CICO or seem to be trying to do so), and disagree with other stuff:

"Conventional wisdom, perhaps better referred to as Current Dogma, says that you gain weight because you eat more than you expend. This is almost true! To be 100% true, it would read: when you gain weight, it is the case that you have necessarily eaten more than you expended. Do you see the difference? It’s subtle but very important — arguably more important than any other sentence I will write. The first statement says over-eating caused you to get fat. The second one says if you got fat, you overate, but the possibility remains that another factor led to you to overeat."

My note: putting myself in the position of someone needing to lose weight, I don't actually think this distinction is helpful or significant. It reads to me like a salve for someone who just cannot accept the idea that their own actions and choices are the cause of them gaining weight, and as such is quite similar to the kinds of things that make many weight-loss gurus popular: you didn't make yourself fat, BigFood made you fat. Also, as someone who mostly ate whole foods (and not a lot of highly refined carbs) when gaining, the idea that eating lots of low nutrient processed foods made me overeat and get fat just does not make sense and is kind of presumptuous.

Moreover, even if I were someone who ate more of that sort of stuff (as I was in my mid to late 20s, but apparently not compared to the US average), I still wouldn't think the food made me fat or made me overeat, because I CHOSE what food to eat and when I decided to (for nutrition and health reasons) change what I ate, it was easy to do so. Well, not always easy -- I had to learn to cook better and have a plan about how to fit it in my life -- but not something that was outside the realm of "things one can choose to do if one cares about it." Indeed, WHY I decided to do this, in addition to caring about nutrition and health, is that I knew it would make it easier to control and lower calories (although I was not then counting), and it did. So contrary to what Attia suggests here, I would say that in my mid-to-late 20s I gained weight because I was overeating, and that in order to fix that problem I reduced calories in (in part by changing my food choices and habits) AND increased calories out (I realized I had become inactive -- for reasons NOT discussed by Attia -- and changed that too).

Attia goes on to make a big point about how CO needs to include calories expended in digestion, and that what you eat makes a difference as to that amount. IMO -- and this was covered earlier in the thread -- within the range of a healthy and satisfying diet, it probably does not make that much difference. Increasing protein increases it a bit, but the average person in the US doesn't eat low protein, and there's a pretty set range of protein amount that makes sense, so it's not going to end up making that big a difference. Going from high carb (although average SAD is only about 50% carbs) to low carb will make little or no difference, since fat takes fewer calories to digest than anything else and refined carbs are close to the same. Higher fiber carbs like vegetables are, of course, a little higher, and high fiber foods can even be quite inefficient to digest, but I'd say whatever your diet or macro percentage you should be eating vegetables, so again this is not likely to make a lot of difference.

Or, at most, it could make a difference if you are currently eating a terrible diet, but it's easy enough to get fat not eating a terrible diet, so you can't say that calories expended in digestion are a huge factor. But sure, yeah, they are part of the equation which does absolutely nothing to debunk OP's point or the usefulness of the CICO balance in weight loss.

Attia also claims that a high carb meal is less likely to result in satiety than a high protein/fat meal. That's actually quite misleading and disingenuous, as it's mostly PROTEIN that matters and anyway people are different when it comes to satiety. For me, both high carb and high fat without protein suck for satiety, but high carb would be better. Both, however, are great, IF combined with adequate protein.

Moving on again, Attia claims that obesity occurs because your body prioritizes the storage of fat over the use of fat. If we are assuming the same activity and CI, I think that's just not true. You can't store net fat if at a significant deficit (at a very slim deficit, yeah, the body can adjust metabolically, although you'd need conditions that led to that).

He then goes on to say something that I kind of agree with: the question is whether the calories in create a condition where you want to consume more calories than you expend. Put more simply, he's talking about satiety and, perhaps, energy, how you feel. I think this matters, but I honestly think you have to be dumber than most (OR, more likely, other factors are at play) not to change what you eat if you find you are hungry. If I'm hungry and know I've already eaten a lot, and my ONLY concern is not being hungry and not overeating, I'll grab carrots or celery or something, wait 'til the meal, and think "geez, what I ate didn't seem to satisfy me, I'll rethink it." Similarly, if you feel low energy, changing what you eat makes sense.

Why do people overeat, then? Well, because they aren't paying attention to how much they eat and eat more because something looks tempting than explicit hunger, IMO.

Good example: when I was a kid and would say "mom, I'm hungry," she'd say "dinner is in 2 hours, wait." If I said "but I'm really hungry," she'd normally say "have a pickle" or "have a piece of fruit (but don't spoil dinner" or "have some carrots." That's what you do for hunger. But in my 20s sometimes I'd be at work late and be depressed and someone would say "let's order dinner from an Italian place as long as we have to be here, work will pay, and let's start with fried calamari and end with tiramisu." And I'd think "well, that's a way to improve the evening, and plus it sounds delicious." Was it because I was just so hungry or something was CAUSING me to overeat? Or was I choosing to overeat? I think the latter.

Curious about responses from @psuLemon or others.

I am in complete agreement with this.

Taking a binary approach and polling those successful in achieving their goals on MFP the vast majority identifying personal behavior as the root cause in their overeating. Those who blame "Big Food", metabolic disorder, etc. are unsuccessful in achieving their goals, simply because they have not addressed the root cause.

Why do people overeat? The same reason people overspend - they can and they are generally ignorant of how to maintain a budget.

Comparing CICO to having a budget is perfect. The budget version of CICO is Cash In Cash Out. Some people have income that is hard to predict, like if they live off of tips, or cash out that is hard to predict. That doesn't mean budgets don't work, just that you're estimating the cash in and out and truing it up as you go. People who ignore budgeting are more likely to end up in debt.

mburgess458 wrote: »

CSARdiver wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

psuLemon wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

CICO applies to my cat (who, I am pretty sure, does not count calories). When you read advice about helping a cat lose weight, it's all about calorie control and making sure the cat is active. Dealing with an overweight cat can be difficult, because the cat will change activity level if food is cut back. Some cats naturally eat what they need and no more, but others will overeat if they can. (You should also feed them food appropriate for a cat, but I think that's a given and it doesn't necessarily prevent a cat from overeating. Some just love food and aren't naturally active enough.)

Here's the Dr. Attia thing, paraphrased: "A person has gained weight. I know that person has taken in more calories than he or she has burned. I know that's true, but it is not what I specifically am interested in. What I specifically am interested in is why did that person take in more calories than that person burned?

If my goal, as a weight loss guru, is to help people NOT gain weight (note: I am being charitable here), I need to understand what causes people to consume more calories than they burn (or to burn fewer calories than they consume). Merely knowing that they did is not enough for this purpose."

So, as an initial matter, claiming that that somehow debunks CICO or the first post in this thread is obviously false. Attia is saying that CICO is obviously true, but that OP's point is not what he, specifically, is interested in, and I guess it's not what you are interested in, Gale.

This reminds me of an old book forum I used to participate in. People would start threads to talk about a particular book or author, let's say Faulkner. Someone else might not think Faulkner was interesting to discuss, and wouldn't discuss his books in the thread. You, however, are behaving like someone who jumps in the thread and says that you don't think Faulkner is interesting at all, and proceeds to tell everyone that they should be talking about Philip Roth, and then starts posting comments from people who have opinions about how Roth is more relevant to current events or their specific interests than Faulkner.

Beyond that, Attia seems to think there's some one answer as to why people overeat that can be fixed. (I suspect it comes down to evil carbs.) I think that's obviously wrong -- if it was that easy, obesity would have been cured. The fact is that everyone needs to figure out what, for them, helps them not overeat. For example, leangogreen said that drinking more water than she otherwise would helped her. That's important for her to know and wonderful. It would not help me. But certain things I do would likely not help jo, because we are different.

What we do both know, and is a good starting place, and for us (although sure, not everyone) was a good, helpful starting place, is that the goal needs to be making CI less than CO if we want to lose weight. How to do that is up to us. That Attia doesn't think that's enough to help us doesn't matter much, since I am not asking him to cure me (I don't need to be cured) but figuring out for myself what helps me control CI and CO in a way that is effective for my goals (currently to maintain or lose a few vanity lbs while training for a marathon).

What I find interesting... for a large part, Dr. Attia is one of the more reasonable people who folllow LCHF. I haven't seen too many extreme response from the several blog post that I have read. In fact, I have enjoyed many of his.

Yeah, he may be fine. I think he was taken out of context, most likely.

Hmm, following up on that, here's Attia (http://eatingacademy.com/nutrition/do-calories-matter) -- I agree with some stuff (and he DOES NOT debunk CICO or seem to be trying to do so), and disagree with other stuff:

"Conventional wisdom, perhaps better referred to as Current Dogma, says that you gain weight because you eat more than you expend. This is almost true! To be 100% true, it would read: when you gain weight, it is the case that you have necessarily eaten more than you expended. Do you see the difference? It’s subtle but very important — arguably more important than any other sentence I will write. The first statement says over-eating caused you to get fat. The second one says if you got fat, you overate, but the possibility remains that another factor led to you to overeat."

My note: putting myself in the position of someone needing to lose weight, I don't actually think this distinction is helpful or significant. It reads to me like a salve for someone who just cannot accept the idea that their own actions and choices are the cause of them gaining weight, and as such is quite similar to the kinds of things that make many weight-loss gurus popular: you didn't make yourself fat, BigFood made you fat. Also, as someone who mostly ate whole foods (and not a lot of highly refined carbs) when gaining, the idea that eating lots of low nutrient processed foods made me overeat and get fat just does not make sense and is kind of presumptuous.

Moreover, even if I were someone who ate more of that sort of stuff (as I was in my mid to late 20s, but apparently not compared to the US average), I still wouldn't think the food made me fat or made me overeat, because I CHOSE what food to eat and when I decided to (for nutrition and health reasons) change what I ate, it was easy to do so. Well, not always easy -- I had to learn to cook better and have a plan about how to fit it in my life -- but not something that was outside the realm of "things one can choose to do if one cares about it." Indeed, WHY I decided to do this, in addition to caring about nutrition and health, is that I knew it would make it easier to control and lower calories (although I was not then counting), and it did. So contrary to what Attia suggests here, I would say that in my mid-to-late 20s I gained weight because I was overeating, and that in order to fix that problem I reduced calories in (in part by changing my food choices and habits) AND increased calories out (I realized I had become inactive -- for reasons NOT discussed by Attia -- and changed that too).

Attia goes on to make a big point about how CO needs to include calories expended in digestion, and that what you eat makes a difference as to that amount. IMO -- and this was covered earlier in the thread -- within the range of a healthy and satisfying diet, it probably does not make that much difference. Increasing protein increases it a bit, but the average person in the US doesn't eat low protein, and there's a pretty set range of protein amount that makes sense, so it's not going to end up making that big a difference. Going from high carb (although average SAD is only about 50% carbs) to low carb will make little or no difference, since fat takes fewer calories to digest than anything else and refined carbs are close to the same. Higher fiber carbs like vegetables are, of course, a little higher, and high fiber foods can even be quite inefficient to digest, but I'd say whatever your diet or macro percentage you should be eating vegetables, so again this is not likely to make a lot of difference.

Or, at most, it could make a difference if you are currently eating a terrible diet, but it's easy enough to get fat not eating a terrible diet, so you can't say that calories expended in digestion are a huge factor. But sure, yeah, they are part of the equation which does absolutely nothing to debunk OP's point or the usefulness of the CICO balance in weight loss.

Attia also claims that a high carb meal is less likely to result in satiety than a high protein/fat meal. That's actually quite misleading and disingenuous, as it's mostly PROTEIN that matters and anyway people are different when it comes to satiety. For me, both high carb and high fat without protein suck for satiety, but high carb would be better. Both, however, are great, IF combined with adequate protein.

Moving on again, Attia claims that obesity occurs because your body prioritizes the storage of fat over the use of fat. If we are assuming the same activity and CI, I think that's just not true. You can't store net fat if at a significant deficit (at a very slim deficit, yeah, the body can adjust metabolically, although you'd need conditions that led to that).

He then goes on to say something that I kind of agree with: the question is whether the calories in create a condition where you want to consume more calories than you expend. Put more simply, he's talking about satiety and, perhaps, energy, how you feel. I think this matters, but I honestly think you have to be dumber than most (OR, more likely, other factors are at play) not to change what you eat if you find you are hungry. If I'm hungry and know I've already eaten a lot, and my ONLY concern is not being hungry and not overeating, I'll grab carrots or celery or something, wait 'til the meal, and think "geez, what I ate didn't seem to satisfy me, I'll rethink it." Similarly, if you feel low energy, changing what you eat makes sense.

Why do people overeat, then? Well, because they aren't paying attention to how much they eat and eat more because something looks tempting than explicit hunger, IMO.

Good example: when I was a kid and would say "mom, I'm hungry," she'd say "dinner is in 2 hours, wait." If I said "but I'm really hungry," she'd normally say "have a pickle" or "have a piece of fruit (but don't spoil dinner" or "have some carrots." That's what you do for hunger. But in my 20s sometimes I'd be at work late and be depressed and someone would say "let's order dinner from an Italian place as long as we have to be here, work will pay, and let's start with fried calamari and end with tiramisu." And I'd think "well, that's a way to improve the evening, and plus it sounds delicious." Was it because I was just so hungry or something was CAUSING me to overeat? Or was I choosing to overeat? I think the latter.

Curious about responses from @psuLemon or others.

I am in complete agreement with this.

Taking a binary approach and polling those successful in achieving their goals on MFP the vast majority identifying personal behavior as the root cause in their overeating. Those who blame "Big Food", metabolic disorder, etc. are unsuccessful in achieving their goals, simply because they have not addressed the root cause.

Why do people overeat? The same reason people overspend - they can and they are generally ignorant of how to maintain a budget.

Comparing CICO to having a budget is perfect. The budget version of CICO is Cash In Cash Out. Some people have income that is hard to predict, like if they live off of tips, or cash out that is hard to predict. That doesn't mean budgets don't work, just that you're estimating the cash in and out and truing it up as you go. People who ignore budgeting are more likely to end up in debt.

Hornsby wrote: »

GaleHawkins wrote: »

psuLemon wrote: »

GaleHawkins wrote: »

endlessfall16 wrote: »

nutmegoreo wrote: »

GaleHawkins wrote: »

nutmegoreo wrote: »

STLBADGIRL wrote: »

I got a question that I need help clarifying....

IF CICO is the only application that we need to think about as far as losing weight....why when I read about different body types they make it seem like CICO isn't the only thing that applies as far losing weight? For instance they would say one body type is easy at losing weight vs. the other one being very hard to lose weight. (I hope this make sense.)

The different body types...
Ectomorph: Lean and long, with difficulty building muscle.
Endomorph: Big, high body fat, often pear-shaped, with a high tendency to store body fat.
Mesomorph: Muscular and well-built, with a high metabolism and responsive muscle cells

These have been debunked. They were developed in the 50s (I think) by a psychologist based on his feelz when looking at various body types. It was then twisted by the fitness/diet industry.

CICO is what has been debunked by many professionals in the health field area. No one here knows their CI or even their CO so CICO can not be computed with math. Now net CICO can be calculated after the fact by weighing oneself from time to time.

While CICO can not be directly calculated but net CICO can be deducted that is where CICO could help one estimate how to eat to gain or loss weight.

You don't need absolute numbers to make it work. Both CI and CO are moving targets anyways. The point is to get close enough to effectively make the desired changes while minimizing the risk of harm.

That doesn't debunk the equation.

This is it. The bolded part.

So much it that methinks that if GaleHawkins had chosen a better word than "debunk", all of this so called debate would have been done away with. (But where'd the fun be? )


CI and CO are such moving targets, maybe elusive that it can make Cico a non-consideration (my argument all along). That's the impression I get from GaleHawkins given he includes and emphasizes other values.

Keep in mind that I did not chosen the term "debunk" but did borrow it some a post above made by another.

Our dog loses and gains weight per CICO but I do not know if she counts calories or not. The same goes for our horses, deer, turkey, cats and opossums that eats the cats' food.

Yes CICO is a non-consideration because it is unknowable to anyone reading this post. This is known to many professionals. Peter Attia is one doctor that I know who measured his CICO in an expensive sealed lab setting. The links in a post above has the below plus remarks from other professionals with credibility on the subject stated in the OP.


Dr. Peter Attia — “Restating the First Law offers me nothing beyond the obvious.”

Here’s Peter Attia take on CICO.

“Let’s explain what’s going on [in a crowded] room in terms of thermodynamics. The First Law would say something like this: The change in the number of people in the room must be equal to the difference between the number of people entering the room and the number of people leaving the room. For example, if the room “gains” 10 people, we can safely conclude that 10 more people entered the room than left it (e.g,. 15 versus 5, or 197 versus 187).

So here’s the million dollar question: Why is the room packed? Let me be more specific, why are there 78 people in the room? The “calories-in-minus-calories-out-model” says, “because 78 more people entered the room than left the room.” I say, sure, that’s true, but it doesn’t tell me WHY? I want to know WHY there are 78 people in the room (or, more specifically, WHY did 78 more people enter the room than leave the room)? Was it because there was a very compelling speaker in the room? Was it because they were giving away free food in room? Was it because it was raining outside and folks wanted to stay dry?

If my goal is to keep people out of the proverbial room, I’d better understand what brought them into the room. I need to know what is causing the room to accumulate people. Restating the First Law offers me nothing beyond the obvious. Of course more people entered the room than exited the room. How does that help me get people out?

Similarly, when someone tells me so-and-so is obese because he eats more than he expends, I say, “of course he does…you’re just re-stating the First Law.” What I want to know is, WHY did he eat more calories than he burned? If we don’t understand this point, how can we treat this condition?”

Gale, do you not know the difference between calorie counting and energy balance? Or are you just being intentionally obtuse at this point to continue to argue? Yes, these are serious questions. I am by no means trying to be rude or mean.

1. CICO is a great tool as we work to learn how to develop the correct macro that enables our brain to take control of our eating disorders so counting calories are not required to eat that automatically have a CI=CO state of energy balance.


2. CICO does not explain WHY we humans come to eat in an unbalanced way no more that why an alcoholic drinks in an unbalanced way. Dr. Peter Attia is concerned with overcoming eating disorders starting with himself if you have read much of his research.

1. Again, CICO is not a tool. Calorie counting is a tool. Calorie counting and CICO are not the same thing at all.
2. Not a single person has ever tried to say that CICO explains why people overeat. That's not what it is or what it is supposed to be at all.

CSARdiver wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

psuLemon wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

CICO applies to my cat (who, I am pretty sure, does not count calories). When you read advice about helping a cat lose weight, it's all about calorie control and making sure the cat is active. Dealing with an overweight cat can be difficult, because the cat will change activity level if food is cut back. Some cats naturally eat what they need and no more, but others will overeat if they can. (You should also feed them food appropriate for a cat, but I think that's a given and it doesn't necessarily prevent a cat from overeating. Some just love food and aren't naturally active enough.)

Here's the Dr. Attia thing, paraphrased: "A person has gained weight. I know that person has taken in more calories than he or she has burned. I know that's true, but it is not what I specifically am interested in. What I specifically am interested in is why did that person take in more calories than that person burned?

If my goal, as a weight loss guru, is to help people NOT gain weight (note: I am being charitable here), I need to understand what causes people to consume more calories than they burn (or to burn fewer calories than they consume). Merely knowing that they did is not enough for this purpose."

So, as an initial matter, claiming that that somehow debunks CICO or the first post in this thread is obviously false. Attia is saying that CICO is obviously true, but that OP's point is not what he, specifically, is interested in, and I guess it's not what you are interested in, Gale.

This reminds me of an old book forum I used to participate in. People would start threads to talk about a particular book or author, let's say Faulkner. Someone else might not think Faulkner was interesting to discuss, and wouldn't discuss his books in the thread. You, however, are behaving like someone who jumps in the thread and says that you don't think Faulkner is interesting at all, and proceeds to tell everyone that they should be talking about Philip Roth, and then starts posting comments from people who have opinions about how Roth is more relevant to current events or their specific interests than Faulkner.

Beyond that, Attia seems to think there's some one answer as to why people overeat that can be fixed. (I suspect it comes down to evil carbs.) I think that's obviously wrong -- if it was that easy, obesity would have been cured. The fact is that everyone needs to figure out what, for them, helps them not overeat. For example, leangogreen said that drinking more water than she otherwise would helped her. That's important for her to know and wonderful. It would not help me. But certain things I do would likely not help jo, because we are different.

What we do both know, and is a good starting place, and for us (although sure, not everyone) was a good, helpful starting place, is that the goal needs to be making CI less than CO if we want to lose weight. How to do that is up to us. That Attia doesn't think that's enough to help us doesn't matter much, since I am not asking him to cure me (I don't need to be cured) but figuring out for myself what helps me control CI and CO in a way that is effective for my goals (currently to maintain or lose a few vanity lbs while training for a marathon).

What I find interesting... for a large part, Dr. Attia is one of the more reasonable people who folllow LCHF. I haven't seen too many extreme response from the several blog post that I have read. In fact, I have enjoyed many of his.

Yeah, he may be fine. I think he was taken out of context, most likely.

Hmm, following up on that, here's Attia (http://eatingacademy.com/nutrition/do-calories-matter) -- I agree with some stuff (and he DOES NOT debunk CICO or seem to be trying to do so), and disagree with other stuff:

"Conventional wisdom, perhaps better referred to as Current Dogma, says that you gain weight because you eat more than you expend. This is almost true! To be 100% true, it would read: when you gain weight, it is the case that you have necessarily eaten more than you expended. Do you see the difference? It’s subtle but very important — arguably more important than any other sentence I will write. The first statement says over-eating caused you to get fat. The second one says if you got fat, you overate, but the possibility remains that another factor led to you to overeat."

My note: putting myself in the position of someone needing to lose weight, I don't actually think this distinction is helpful or significant. It reads to me like a salve for someone who just cannot accept the idea that their own actions and choices are the cause of them gaining weight, and as such is quite similar to the kinds of things that make many weight-loss gurus popular: you didn't make yourself fat, BigFood made you fat. Also, as someone who mostly ate whole foods (and not a lot of highly refined carbs) when gaining, the idea that eating lots of low nutrient processed foods made me overeat and get fat just does not make sense and is kind of presumptuous.

Moreover, even if I were someone who ate more of that sort of stuff (as I was in my mid to late 20s, but apparently not compared to the US average), I still wouldn't think the food made me fat or made me overeat, because I CHOSE what food to eat and when I decided to (for nutrition and health reasons) change what I ate, it was easy to do so. Well, not always easy -- I had to learn to cook better and have a plan about how to fit it in my life -- but not something that was outside the realm of "things one can choose to do if one cares about it." Indeed, WHY I decided to do this, in addition to caring about nutrition and health, is that I knew it would make it easier to control and lower calories (although I was not then counting), and it did. So contrary to what Attia suggests here, I would say that in my mid-to-late 20s I gained weight because I was overeating, and that in order to fix that problem I reduced calories in (in part by changing my food choices and habits) AND increased calories out (I realized I had become inactive -- for reasons NOT discussed by Attia -- and changed that too).

Attia goes on to make a big point about how CO needs to include calories expended in digestion, and that what you eat makes a difference as to that amount. IMO -- and this was covered earlier in the thread -- within the range of a healthy and satisfying diet, it probably does not make that much difference. Increasing protein increases it a bit, but the average person in the US doesn't eat low protein, and there's a pretty set range of protein amount that makes sense, so it's not going to end up making that big a difference. Going from high carb (although average SAD is only about 50% carbs) to low carb will make little or no difference, since fat takes fewer calories to digest than anything else and refined carbs are close to the same. Higher fiber carbs like vegetables are, of course, a little higher, and high fiber foods can even be quite inefficient to digest, but I'd say whatever your diet or macro percentage you should be eating vegetables, so again this is not likely to make a lot of difference.

Or, at most, it could make a difference if you are currently eating a terrible diet, but it's easy enough to get fat not eating a terrible diet, so you can't say that calories expended in digestion are a huge factor. But sure, yeah, they are part of the equation which does absolutely nothing to debunk OP's point or the usefulness of the CICO balance in weight loss.

Attia also claims that a high carb meal is less likely to result in satiety than a high protein/fat meal. That's actually quite misleading and disingenuous, as it's mostly PROTEIN that matters and anyway people are different when it comes to satiety. For me, both high carb and high fat without protein suck for satiety, but high carb would be better. Both, however, are great, IF combined with adequate protein.

Moving on again, Attia claims that obesity occurs because your body prioritizes the storage of fat over the use of fat. If we are assuming the same activity and CI, I think that's just not true. You can't store net fat if at a significant deficit (at a very slim deficit, yeah, the body can adjust metabolically, although you'd need conditions that led to that).

He then goes on to say something that I kind of agree with: the question is whether the calories in create a condition where you want to consume more calories than you expend. Put more simply, he's talking about satiety and, perhaps, energy, how you feel. I think this matters, but I honestly think you have to be dumber than most (OR, more likely, other factors are at play) not to change what you eat if you find you are hungry. If I'm hungry and know I've already eaten a lot, and my ONLY concern is not being hungry and not overeating, I'll grab carrots or celery or something, wait 'til the meal, and think "geez, what I ate didn't seem to satisfy me, I'll rethink it." Similarly, if you feel low energy, changing what you eat makes sense.

Why do people overeat, then? Well, because they aren't paying attention to how much they eat and eat more because something looks tempting than explicit hunger, IMO.

Good example: when I was a kid and would say "mom, I'm hungry," she'd say "dinner is in 2 hours, wait." If I said "but I'm really hungry," she'd normally say "have a pickle" or "have a piece of fruit (but don't spoil dinner" or "have some carrots." That's what you do for hunger. But in my 20s sometimes I'd be at work late and be depressed and someone would say "let's order dinner from an Italian place as long as we have to be here, work will pay, and let's start with fried calamari and end with tiramisu." And I'd think "well, that's a way to improve the evening, and plus it sounds delicious." Was it because I was just so hungry or something was CAUSING me to overeat? Or was I choosing to overeat? I think the latter.

Curious about responses from @psuLemon or others.

I am in complete agreement with this.

Taking a binary approach and polling those successful in achieving their goals on MFP the vast majority identifying personal behavior as the root cause in their overeating. Those who blame "Big Food", metabolic disorder, etc. are unsuccessful in achieving their goals, simply because they have not addressed the root cause.

Why do people overeat? The same reason people overspend - they can and they are generally ignorant of how to maintain a budget.

Tacklewasher wrote: »

ndj1979 wrote: »

endlessfall16 wrote: »

This is what I was talking about in my first post in this thread. CICO loving arguers are stuck in the same crude gear arguing on a nonargument. As someone else put it...majoring in minor? Trolling?

There's no argument from me re CICO. I have no problem or misunderstanding with it. Nothing complex about it. I just don't care for the jargon. It's crude as a term used for describing something. "Eat less, move more", "Eat less, exercise more" are better language, but none of these, CICO included, is significant a piece of info. or any real revelation for me.

It would be million times better if someone posted new insights, ways to make dieting better, more effortless, even that would only help a handful of people... That would be worthwhile.

that is the thing though, we are not arguing CICO. We are stating that it is a math formula that if one simply learns to follow they can lose weight, maintain weight, or gain weight. The insight is that it is not super complicated.

But, for me, learning about CICO helped tremendously. Forget the accountant stuff, it made weight loss so much easier than figuring out which foods I shouldn't be eating, or which diet to follow, or how much do I need to exercise and what exercise and all the crap you see i the checkout lines at the store (or my wife finds in her facebook feeds). This WAS the freaking insight I needed to make this work for ME. It was "a million times better" than anything I had heard about up to that point. If I hadn't had seen the "Sync with My Fitness Pal" on the Garmin Connect dashboard, I'd still be confused, working my friggen *kitten* off and not getting anywhere near the results.

So, @endlessfall16 It helped me. I has helped those like me. It will help others like me. I can only relate what has worked for me, with the caveat that while it worked for me, it may not be the right way for others. For me, understanding CICO meant that calorie counting instantly made sense to me, and the tools here work for me. But as I said in my initial post, CICO is not calorie counting. But even if someone doesn't want to count, understanding what is going on in the background may help.

geneticsteacher wrote: »

GaleHawkins wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

Repeating: CICO is not calorie counting. You need not count, calculate, or (in the normal sense of the word) estimate calories in order to use CICO to lose weight. You need not know how many calories you eat. You need not know how many calories you burn. You cannot lose weight without 'using CICO'. Or gain weight, or maintain weight, for that matter. It's trivially true.

However . . . employing it conciously and intentionally helps some people. A lot. Whether they count calories, or not.

The arguments here about whether CO (or CI) are knowable, precise, accurate, etc., have more to do with whether calorie counting works. The many people who are successful here on MFP by using calorie counting would lead us to conclude that it does work . . . even if it's no more scientific than standing in a pentagram painted in blood on your basement floor, and sacrificing a virgin goat.

Maybe calorie counting works by placebo effect, simply because We Believe.

(I'm pretty sure it fails for some because they don't.)

So basically if one does not use CICO they get put in a coffin to be buried or cremated?

One does not "use" CICO. CICO is simply the equation that describes energy balance. Methods of achieving energy balance, i.e. calorie counting and/or keto, etc. are not CICO.

psuLemon wrote: »

GaleHawkins wrote: »

I understand some do calorie counting to spit shine their physical appearance and some like me have counted calories to stay alive until we learn how to come up with a macro (that may evolve over time) that resolves our over eating disorder.

@psuLemon I see you are trying to be helpful here to others as you teach yourself. You are not a MFP cyber bully that may be willing to run off new MFP forum members before they get started very well. CICO is a good tool but it is not a long term scientific solution as some non professionals preach.

Energy balance to me is what it takes to maintain a stable weight level.

CICO is a great tool as we work to learn how to develop the correct macro that enables our brain to take control of our eating disorders so counting calories are not required to eat that automatically have a CI=CO state of energy balance.

Counting calories for over/under eaters is like training wheels on a bicycle in that manually managing our intake and burn of food sources is possible as we work to understand we have an eating disorder and work to find the cause then solution.

A kid that for some reason (there are several that come to mind) who never develops the skill of riding a two wheel bike can just move to a three wheel bike. I see one in town all of the time that is now about 50 years old pedaling a tri.

CICO does not explain WHY we humans come to eat in an unbalanced way no more that why an alcoholic drinks in an unbalanced way. Dr. Peter Attia is concerned with overcoming eating disorders starting with himself if you have read much of his research.

Thank you for being an asset to all MFP members. I can see how you may sometimes view me as being greater than ninety degrees but less than 0ne-hundred and eight. Those are hard to set in a corner.

Gale, I mean this in the most helpful matter... i think you need to do some research on some a basic understanding of what energy balance (CICO) actually is.

I will repeat what I have said to you and others in the passed debates when it comes to CICO. We are not discussing the social, economical, behavioral, psychological or multifaceted issues that come into play when it comes to losing weight. We are debating or meaning discussing the merits of energy balance as the basis for weight management. Energy balance is a core concept to understand to drive your results and address deficiencies in plans when they occur.

Subsequently, counting calories is just as much of a tool as any other tool, such as: bathroom scale, food scale, fitbit, tape measure, etc. Failing to recognize that is a failure on your own belief. Looking for other silver bullets is not going to provide any additional justices if you do not recognize the most basic of concepts; it's the equivalent of taking supplements without addressing caloric requirements. Or doing a bro-split laden with isometric moves instead of starting with a full body routine focused on compound lifts with built in progressive overload.

GaleHawkins wrote: »

psuLemon wrote: »

GaleHawkins wrote: »

I understand some do calorie counting to spit shine their physical appearance and some like me have counted calories to stay alive until we learn how to come up with a macro (that may evolve over time) that resolves our over eating disorder.

@psuLemon I see you are trying to be helpful here to others as you teach yourself. You are not a MFP cyber bully that may be willing to run off new MFP forum members before they get started very well. CICO is a good tool but it is not a long term scientific solution as some non professionals preach.

Energy balance to me is what it takes to maintain a stable weight level.

CICO is a great tool as we work to learn how to develop the correct macro that enables our brain to take control of our eating disorders so counting calories are not required to eat that automatically have a CI=CO state of energy balance.

Counting calories for over/under eaters is like training wheels on a bicycle in that manually managing our intake and burn of food sources is possible as we work to understand we have an eating disorder and work to find the cause then solution.

A kid that for some reason (there are several that come to mind) who never develops the skill of riding a two wheel bike can just move to a three wheel bike. I see one in town all of the time that is now about 50 years old pedaling a tri.

CICO does not explain WHY we humans come to eat in an unbalanced way no more that why an alcoholic drinks in an unbalanced way. Dr. Peter Attia is concerned with overcoming eating disorders starting with himself if you have read much of his research.

Thank you for being an asset to all MFP members. I can see how you may sometimes view me as being greater than ninety degrees but less than 0ne-hundred and eight. Those are hard to set in a corner.

Gale, I mean this in the most helpful matter... i think you need to do some research on some a basic understanding of what energy balance (CICO) actually is.

I will repeat what I have said to you and others in the passed debates when it comes to CICO. We are not discussing the social, economical, behavioral, psychological or multifaceted issues that come into play when it comes to losing weight. We are debating or meaning discussing the merits of energy balance as the basis for weight management. Energy balance is a core concept to understand to drive your results and address deficiencies in plans when they occur.

Subsequently, counting calories is just as much of a tool as any other tool, such as: bathroom scale, food scale, fitbit, tape measure, etc. Failing to recognize that is a failure on your own belief. Looking for other silver bullets is not going to provide any additional justices if you do not recognize the most basic of concepts; it's the equivalent of taking supplements without addressing caloric requirements. Or doing a bro-split laden with isometric moves instead of starting with a full body routine focused on compound lifts with built in progressive overload.

healthyenough.net/calorie-counting/

I did find this about CICO that meshes with the world of science as it seems to relate to healthcare. It also mentioned how the Calorie is a Calorie thought came out of Harvard- Fredrick John Stare (April 11, 1910 – April 4, 2002).

hlblakeley wrote: »

I love this thread. OP your points hit it on every level, but watching this discussion is like watching a video of all the "reasons" I gave myself that I couldn't lose weight for so many years. When I finally just admitted that I needed to eat less and move more, the most amazing thing happend...... I lost weight!