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Why do people deny CICO ?
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Why do people do anything stupid?
We're not a species made to last.3 -
RecognitionT wrote: »Why do people do anything stupid?
We're not a species made to last.
No no. I completely trust natural selection. They might not last. I am.14 -
Explain how CICO relates to all the woo Dr. Oz type "supplements" such as apple cider vinegar, green coffee bean extract, raspberry ketones, hoodia, 'detox tea', and all the other so-called "fat burners" or "weight loss aids".
I'm not talking about what ridiculous pie-in-the-sky claims they make in their advertising hype, I'm talking about what actual relation they have to CICO.
Having done a Herbal Magic diet here in Canada. 95% is about restricting calories in creative ways, 0% is about exercise, and about 5% is from "supplements". Those supplements such as caffeine (main ingredient in majority of fat burners), fiber, CLA, etc, are claiming through limited studies, that they increase the "calories out" slightly or the appetite (make it easier to follow those portions). So yes, those supplements to varying degrees also support CICO but only if they work as claimed.10 -
CICO is problematic to many because:
1) There is no marketable product associated with it. Who is going to make money if you switch to CICO? You don’t need a commercial product to make it work, and if you can’t sell it, no one is going to push it.
2) There isn’t anything colorful or exciting about it. People just want some crazy diet plan with a colorful name or some other type of quick fix (cleanse, detox) unsustainable habit change for a few days or weeks that is going to reverse all of their problems. Being told that they can just take their current diet, making a few tweaks, reduce the volume, and try to exercise occasionally over a long period of time is usually met with a yawn and skepticism.
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gebeziseva wrote: »Why? Because people are not taught in school that science is not made like in ancient Greece - through deduction. Also they have no idea what the difference is between a hypothesis and a theory. Also they can't be arsed to learn these. Therefore you shouldn't be arsed to explain or prove anything to anybody.
I recently tore into a PhD candidate that did not know the difference between hypothesis and theory. A *kitten* PhD candidate!?!?!
The Socratic method isn't taught anymore. I'm not overly concerned as I just think it makes it better for those who can think and reason.8 -
Bry_Fitness70 wrote: »CICO is problematic to many because:
1) There is no marketable product associated with it. Who is going to make money if you switch to CICO? You don’t need a commercial product to make it work, and if you can’t sell it, no one is going to push it.
This is pretty funny because Under Armor owns MFP and they don't even sell a kitchen scale.
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gebeziseva wrote: »Why? Because people are not taught in school that science is not made like in ancient Greece - through deduction. Also they have no idea what the difference is between a hypothesis and a theory. Also they can't be arsed to learn these. Therefore you shouldn't be arsed to explain or prove anything to anybody.
The Socratic method isn't taught anymore. I'm not overly concerned as I just think it makes it better for those who can think and reason.
My point is that the scientific method is not taught either.2 -
fitoverfortymom wrote: »Bry_Fitness70 wrote: »CICO is problematic to many because:
1) There is no marketable product associated with it. Who is going to make money if you switch to CICO? You don’t need a commercial product to make it work, and if you can’t sell it, no one is going to push it.
This is pretty funny because Under Armor owns MFP and they don't even sell a kitchen scale.
Why would Under Armor sell a kitchen scale?1 -
My favorite is people that claim they eat 1200 calories but still aren’t losing weight. Here’s the kicker- they don’t own a food scale because that’s just “crazy.” I just stopped talking after that nonsense.
Not all, go in the keto community for example, many will claim carbs are bad and evil, then you have other groups who blame sugar and when I listen to the nonsense being thrown by my coworkers about nutrition....I get the impression the majority of the people have no clue how weight loss really works. My mom for example thinks she eats 1200 calories, but she doesn't weigh anything and visually I can tell she eats more calories than that, but she denies it.terryritter1 wrote: »The fact is that the principle of CICO for weight loss is effective in practice. Recording what you eat and keeping a calorie deficit, which is, at the fundamental level, what causes weight loss, is highly effective process for someone with that goal. But, it's also way too simplistic. Though it is a "simple scientific concept", the body isn't. When you have a biological environment that has higher insulin, that does change how people's bodies manage metabolism.
So, at one level, CICO is a good tool. At deeper level, it's not that simple. Anyone that has a deeper understanding of biology knows this, or should. Just because it is a good methodology doesn't mean it's all things. We argue about this because we want to live in a binary world. Calories matter, not doubt. But, composition does, too.
Ultimately, who's more right isn't important. If CICO works for someone's quest to lose weight, it just doesn't matter (and no blog of an anecdotal nature will convince me otherwise, though I will cheer your success nonetheless).
Very well said. Our bodies are not simple. There is so much people don't understand about how hormones control metabolism, cravings, hunger, fat storage, muscle development, etc. CICO works, but for some it is much harder to master, and not because they are lazy or not trying.
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My favorite is people that claim they eat 1200 calories but still aren’t losing weight. Here’s the kicker- they don’t own a food scale because that’s just “crazy.” I just stopped talking after that nonsense.
Not all, go in the keto community for example, many will claim carbs are bad and evil, then you have other groups who blame sugar and when I listen to the nonsense being thrown by my coworkers about nutrition....I get the impression the majority of the people have no clue how weight loss really works. My mom for example thinks she eats 1200 calories, but she doesn't weigh anything and visually I can tell she eats more calories than that, but she denies it.terryritter1 wrote: »The fact is that the principle of CICO for weight loss is effective in practice. Recording what you eat and keeping a calorie deficit, which is, at the fundamental level, what causes weight loss, is highly effective process for someone with that goal. But, it's also way too simplistic. Though it is a "simple scientific concept", the body isn't. When you have a biological environment that has higher insulin, that does change how people's bodies manage metabolism.
So, at one level, CICO is a good tool. At deeper level, it's not that simple. Anyone that has a deeper understanding of biology knows this, or should. Just because it is a good methodology doesn't mean it's all things. We argue about this because we want to live in a binary world. Calories matter, not doubt. But, composition does, too.
Ultimately, who's more right isn't important. If CICO works for someone's quest to lose weight, it just doesn't matter (and no blog of an anecdotal nature will convince me otherwise, though I will cheer your success nonetheless).
Very well said. Our bodies are not simple. There is so much people don't understand about how hormones control metabolism, cravings, hunger, fat storage, muscle development, etc. CICO works, but for some it is much harder to master, and not because they are lazy or not trying.
They just feel it's too much work...it's funny because I hate estimating my calories these days.5 -
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Because they don't want to admit that there is a problem and the solution is SIMPLE, but requires DEDICATION. My wife is a solid believer in CICO. One day, early on in her weight loss, or possibly just before, we were in the store and she reached for a bottle of supplements/diet pills and I said "It doesn't come in a bottle". She asked what I meant and I said "Skinny doesn't come in a bottle". She immediately put them down and we walked off down the aisle. I knew she wasn't too excited about my comment, but I later found out that it *really* bothered her. Shortly thereafter she took up running, counting calories, and lost 70lbs over a period of time. It was because she was ready to admit that she had to change her ways to achieve what she wanted, and she did it.26
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DomesticKat wrote: »I've had this conversation a few times with people who are chronic yo-yo, fad dieters within my circle. They've seen how successful I've been with losing weight and always ask about it. At first they INSIST that they can't ever lose weight unless they cut out whole food groups, exercise excessively, create extreme deficits, or completely change their diets to foods they don't even like. Stuff that isn't sustainable. And they know it. I press them about it and eventually they concede that yep, it's that simple to just eat less.
It's wild how simple it is. But it's not fast enough for them. It doesn't take the weight off quickly enough. People demand instant gratification and a modest deficit over a long period of time doesn't provide that. The ability to stick to something for a long period of time and not give up when it isn't instantaneous requires trust. It requires trust in ourselves and trusting the process and having faith in a result that can't yet be seen. Humans generally don't do a great job with that. So I guess they'd rather yo-yo and keep regaining the weight they lose over and over again, and trying something different each time to see if it provides an instant result.
Thank you for this post...you just helped me understand why people do what they do in one post, and these are the exact things I've been trying to grasp for several years now.
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seltzermint555 wrote: »
Thank you for this post...you just helped me understand why people do what they do in one post, and these are the exact things I've been trying to grasp for several years now.
The more people talk to me about what their ideas of weight loss consist of, the more that explanation makes sense to me. Humans are just bad at being patient and planning long-term for anything. I have one friend who insisted she could not lose weight if she ate more than 1000 calories a day doing some meal replacement diet. I talked to her about BMR, about all the things that went wrong with her plan, about how she couldn't stick to it and crashed, binged, and gained weight back. Her response was that she enjoyed losing so much weight every week. It was motivating. So it wasn't that she couldn't lose weight eating more. She just wanted to see huge losses every week regardless of the toll it took of her health. Cognitive dissonance, I guess.
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I suspect it's because CICO is simple (simple not neccessarily easy) and people don't like to fail at something that's simple. So they pick difficult, they pick complicated, they pick drastic. Then when they fail they have a ready made excuse as to why they didn't stick with it.
I also suspect that it is SO simple that it's hard for people to believe. It almost smacks of "Whatif I told you you could lose weight with no exercise and continuing to eat the same foods you always have with one simple trick!". It's the stuff of spam email and pop up ads and people are conditioned to distrust something that seems "too good to be true"
Thirdly I suspect that people like to boast and CICO doesn't sound impressive. A picture of steamed rice, boiled chicken breast and broccoli makes much better Facebook fodder than a post about how you choose to only eat 3 slices of pizza instead of the whole thing. People also like to be a martyr and complain and CICO doesn't really give you much to complain about in my experience. Or my favourite, *bragplaining* this is where you combine both braging and complaining at the same time. "Oh I hate when co-workers to bring in donuts while I'm on my diet #temptation #eatingclean #notgivingin #yayme"
Oh and when I say people, I mean me in the past
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Hmmm...I think what people are perhaps saying is that, of course, anyone who is calorie restricted will eventually lose weight. It’s just not a simple linear relationship. At 1200 calories/day, starting at the same weight, some will lose a lot of weight, and quickly, while others will lose less weight and slowly. Most women know the pain of going on a diet with their male partner, only to see them lose weight rapidly by cutting out desserts, while they struggle to lose weight on a restrictive low calorie diet. Hormones. Someone who was formerly obese, and has lost a significant amount of weight, will unfortunately have a lower resting metabolic rate. So yes, they can still lose weight by cutting calories, but they’ll have to cut their calories far more drastically than someone without a history of obesity who is on their first diet. It’s not always as simple as telling someone who’s struggling that they need to do a better job of weighing and measuring, because they ”should” be losing weight at the caloric intake they’re at.23
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terryritter1 wrote: »It is that simple. The problem is with those who believe they have a deeper understanding of biology, but have enough just enough basic knowledge to create confirmation bias.
This is why there's just a textbook titled "Biochemistry" and not "Terry's Biochemistry".
Oh, I've read more than my share and anyone else's share of biochemistry. My masters degree is in Human Nutrition and Advanced Metabolism, and I've been practicing in the health and wellness community for the past 20 years, so I'm pretty sure I don't fall under the category you stated.
There are a whole host of factors that influence how calories are stored and which are more effectively digested. So, yeah, if you could know all that, I guess you can do a CICO...but you can't. It's not the concept that's amiss, but the practicality of arguing it. No one can tell me what their CI is...or their CO for that matter. But, again, if it gets you to create a deficit, that serves the purpose.10 -
Yes, exactly.0
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CICO has to work. It’s a basic law of the universe. If we can’t agree on that, we can’t move forward.
However, estimating the CO is a lot more challenging than many people (especially those of us losing weight) like to admit. Even the CI is an estimate. Not every piece of pork or broccoli that weighs the same amount calories. It just doesn’t. One has more water or one piece of pork has more fat or whatever. They are guidelines that work for most people.
As a biomedical engineer I have seen special people that had biological processes that went against every principle known to be true. Things that I would not have believed could be true if i did not see them.
CICO works. It’s accounting for the CI and especially the CO that’s problematic.21 -
Hmmm...I think what people are perhaps saying is that, of course, anyone who is calorie restricted will eventually lose weight. It’s just not a simple linear relationship. At 1200 calories/day, starting at the same weight, some will lose a lot of weight, and quickly, while others will lose less weight and slowly. Most women know the pain of going on a diet with their male partner, only to see them lose weight rapidly by cutting out desserts, while they struggle to lose weight on a restrictive low calorie diet. Hormones. Someone who was formerly obese, and has lost a significant amount of weight, will unfortunately have a lower resting metabolic rate. So yes, they can still lose weight by cutting calories, but they’ll have to cut their calories far more drastically than someone without a history of obesity who is on their first diet. It’s not always as simple as telling someone who’s struggling that they need to do a better job of weighing and measuring, because they ”should” be losing weight at the caloric intake they’re at.
What kind of a difference in rate of loss do you think two people starting at the same weight, both eating the same 1200 calories, would see? In your hypothetical example, do they have the same activity level and exercise routine as well? So what are the causes for the differences in the rate of loss? The example of husband and wife isn’t relevant because they likely wouldn’t be starting at the same weight and husband shouldn’t be cutting to 1200.
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