Calorie in calorie out method is outdated

amusedmonkey wrote: »

I just don't understand this "replace fat with sugar" argument. There may or may not be a couple of grams increase in processed foods for lower fat varieties of things that already have sugar (and even then it's not always), but just because I personally eat low-ish fat I don't feel compelled to fry my eggs in syrup. I just opt for a small teaspoon of oil in order to be able to eat more vegetables (which includes broccoli, more than 100 calories of it sometimes) because they're great for volume and more starches because they're great for satiety. Broccoli is not LCHF exclusive and is in fact low fat and relatively high in carbs for some diets.

I think people believe that lower fat foods have had sugar added because they've read it on advocacy sites.

I've actually had argu-, um, disagreements here with people who insisted that skim milk and nonfat yogurt always have added sugar.

In one case, the other person posted a label from a highly-sugared sweet yogurt as "proof" (from captions & such, it was evident it came from an advocacy site). I posted my nonfat yogurt, which has . . . milk, and good bugs, that's it.

In another case, the other person said that skim milk had to have added sugar because there were more sugar grams per cup than in whole milk. I had to go through a whole example about how that came about because the fat had been removed, so the remaining liquid had to have more of all the "other stuff" unless it was diluted with water.

A lot of bad stuff comes from believing what one reads, in cases where it's plenty easy to check it out oneself, or . . . think.

I think it is very important to separate the idea of a concept from application of that concept in a real world situation.

CICO is a concept. It states, quite simply, that food contains energy measured in the form of calories and that your body requires energy to operate and function. If you eat more food then you take in more calories and if you are more active or larger then you utilize more calories to function. That if the calories you take in balance with the calories you expend you will maintain your weight. If the calories you take in are more than the calories you expend then you will gain weight. If the calories you take in are less that the calories you expend then you will lose weight. That is it, that is all that CICO is. It says nothing at all about how accurate we are in measuring either CI or CO.

Now comes this application to trying to lose weight and what strategies one employs and if foods are rapidly metabolized or slowly metabolized or how efficient your digestive system is relative to someone elses and whether with your specific microbiome you get 80% of the calories out of carbs but only simple carbs, complex carbs your body only gets 60% of the calories even though Joe over there with his microbiome gets 70% from complex carbs. Or that packaging might not be entirely accurate or that not everything that has caloric value can be digested and that digestion can vary and that it can be almost impossible to accurately measure expended calories and that one person running on a treadmill for an hour can burn 700 calories where the next person with a similiar body type burns 500 and blah blah blah.

Does any of that complexity somehow negate the concept that the balance of calories in to calories out is what underpins weightloss and weightgain? That we should therefore assume that the very concept of conservation of energy that CICO represents if somehow flawed? No...no it doesn't.

If I say that the force of gravity attracts things towards the center of mass and then someone says they don't believe that because airplanes have mass and yet they can move away from the surface of the earth then they are just kind of missing the point. If you think CICO is "outdated" because certain foods are more rapidly metabolized than others then frankly I think you are just sort of missing the point as well.

Can't keep up with all these CICO hate threads.....

I lost 15 lbs in 4 weeks living on Taco Bell and Culver’s ice cream. I didn’t intend to lose that fast but was cycling 80 miles or so a week and not eating enough. My point however is I was eating almost 100% junk and lost a ton of weight quickly just because I was burning more than I was taking in. I’ve been at goal weight since then, my diet is more balanced now but instilll eat more junk than I should and don’t follow any particular diet and I’ve managed to maintain for almost 2 years just by making sure caloric intake and energy expenditure match.

As a physician I can’t hardly recommend a diet of fast food and ice cream because there is more to consider than just weight but as far as gaining and losing weight if you burn more than you take in you will lose and vice versa. It’s simple physics. Remember energy is neither created or destroyed.

Physics 101. First Law of conservation of energy.

Now can different diets impact your overall health and energy levels? Can they impact your food cravings and satiety? Can they impact your rate of metabolism and how energy from food is stored. Of course!! So different diets may work better than others, and different diets may work better for some people than others. But the bottom line stays the same. No matter what your eating. If you take in more calories/energy than your body burns your body has to do something with the extra energy so it stores it. ie youbgain weight. And vice versa. You burn more than you eat your body will have to take the extra energy from your fat stores and you lose weight.


From my own personal experience and my experience with patients the more straight forward and simple the approach the better. Crash diets tend to lead to increased weight gain in the long run, mostly because they are hard to stick to. It’s best to find a diet approach that you can stick to, small permanent changes!!

mdbradley85 wrote: »

I lost 15 lbs in 4 weeks living on Taco Bell and Culver’s ice cream. I didn’t intend to lose that fast but was cycling 80 miles or so a week and not eating enough. My point however is I was eating almost 100% junk and lost a ton of weight quickly just because I was burning more than I was taking in. I’ve been at goal weight since then, my diet is more balanced now but instilll eat more junk than I should and don’t follow any particular diet and I’ve managed to maintain for almost 2 years just by making sure caloric intake and energy expenditure match.

As a physician I can’t hardly recommend a diet of fast food and ice cream because there is more to consider than just weight but as far as gaining and losing weight if you burn more than you take in you will lose and vice versa. It’s simple physics. Remember energy is neither created or destroyed.

Physics 101. First Law of conservation of energy.

Now can different diets impact your overall health and energy levels? Can they impact your food cravings and satiety? Can they impact your rate of metabolism and how energy from food is stored. Of course!! So different diets may work better than others, and different diets may work better for some people than others. But the bottom line stays the same. No matter what your eating. If you take in more calories/energy than your body burns your body has to do something with the extra energy so it stores it. ie youbgain weight. And vice versa. You burn more than you eat your body will have to take the extra energy from your fat stores and you lose weight.


From my own personal experience and my experience with patients the more straight forward and simple the approach the better. Crash diets tend to lead to increased weight gain in the long run, mostly because they are hard to stick to. It’s best to find a diet approach that you can stick to, small permanent changes!!

Will you be my doctor?

AnnPT77 wrote: »

jrulo16 wrote: »

Have you ever noticed those who argue CICO doesn’t work are usually overweight and refuse to actually use a food scale?

To be fair, no. Some, sure. But I can think of several vociferous "CICO isn't the story" advocates (I won't name names) who post regularly in these threads who are reportedly at a healthy weight (with photo evidence), often having lost a material amount of weight via some specialized formula (often low carb/keto or whole foods/plant based sorts of things, or "find your macro").

For clarity, for other readers: I'm not saying that people who prefer those ways of eating routinely deny CICO. I'm saying that some people who don't think CICO is the key underlying principle have in fact lost weight successfully, using some method that they're somehow able to think of as "not CICO".

On this topic I had a somewhat bizarre encounter with a co-worker a while back who fits this description. I ran into him (I'll call him 'Bob') in the mail room one day a couple of years ago. Bob looks to be at a pretty healthy weight, and after our conversation I'd peg him as a Taubes disciple, though at the time I'd never heard of Taubes and didn't know that sugar was 'poison' and carbs were from the Devil. Silly me.

By way of background, I joined MFP just about 4 years ago, and over about an 8 month period lost 50 pounds and got myself to my goal weight. I've successfully maintained since, but for some people who only see me periodically, it's still quite a shock when they see the 'new' me.

Bob: "Bill you look fantastic! You must have cut carbs out of your diet."

Me: "Er, no, I started tracking calories using this website called myfitnesspal. For me, knowledge is power and once I got a handle on how much I was consuming vs burning it was easy to lose the weight"

Bob: "But there's an easier way! Just eliminate carbs from your diet"

Me: "Um, well, I like carbs"

Bob: "Of course you do - you're addicted to them! But I can tell you your body doesn't like them very much"

Me (backing away and wondering how I get away from this loon): "Look this has worked for me, my last medical exam came back with great results and..."

Bob: "I'm telling you those carbs are your enemy..."

Me: "Gotta run Bob, I'm late for a meeting!"

crazyravr wrote: »

annaskiski wrote: »

Can't keep up with all these CICO hate threads.....

You wouldnt have to if someone made CICO a diet and told ppl not to eat certain foods.

Maybe for every “keto!” “Anyone trying keto?!” “3 Days keto anyone else?” “New to Keto!” Thread in the recent discussions we should start one about CICO...

nvmomketo wrote: »

WinoGelato wrote: »

crazyravr wrote: »

annaskiski wrote: »

Can't keep up with all these CICO hate threads.....

You wouldnt have to if someone made CICO a diet and told ppl not to eat certain foods.

Maybe for every “keto!” “Anyone trying keto?!” “3 Days keto anyone else?” “New to Keto!” Thread in the recent discussions we should start one about CICO...

Might as well.

Could get overwhelming if you did it for every vegan, vegetarian, paleo, IIFYM, clean eating, military, grapefruit, and IF thread though....

Not really.... there are currently three threads about keto on the recent discussions front page. There are zero right now asking about any of the other things you mentioned.

GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »

BayouMoon wrote: »

I'm going to jump in blind here being new to the debate and challege the hard-liners. Saying it's simply CICO is pretty narrow minded. There is nothing simple about bodies. A "calorie" is simply a unit of measure. I heard a doctor say that your body does not have calorie receptors and calories don't mean anything to your body. A calorie is a concept, not a fact. If you burn piece of word, it my read 10,000 calories on a meter. If you ate it, your body would not convert it to fat, it would simply pass through you. If you ate 10,000 calories of sugar, your body's insulin would spike and trigger all kinds of hormones to be released, some of which would signal your body to store some of that excess energy as fat. Then when your insulin level fell again, it would trigger your body to send hunger signals to your brain and your body would search for more calories and start the cycle of storing fat again. So I pose if your ate 10,000 calories of wood everyday, you would probably lose weight, as opposed to eating 10,000 of sugar every day, which would make you gain weight. So it is not just calories in and calories out. It's what you eat, when you eat it and your bodies reaction to what you eat.

This is the oddest false dichotomy ever presented on these forums.

I thought the example of diet coke vs avocado one time was a strange comparison, but I have to agree that this is the most unusual I've seen...

WinoGelato wrote: »

GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »

BayouMoon wrote: »

I'm going to jump in blind here being new to the debate and challege the hard-liners. Saying it's simply CICO is pretty narrow minded. There is nothing simple about bodies. A "calorie" is simply a unit of measure. I heard a doctor say that your body does not have calorie receptors and calories don't mean anything to your body. A calorie is a concept, not a fact. If you burn piece of word, it my read 10,000 calories on a meter. If you ate it, your body would not convert it to fat, it would simply pass through you. If you ate 10,000 calories of sugar, your body's insulin would spike and trigger all kinds of hormones to be released, some of which would signal your body to store some of that excess energy as fat. Then when your insulin level fell again, it would trigger your body to send hunger signals to your brain and your body would search for more calories and start the cycle of storing fat again. So I pose if your ate 10,000 calories of wood everyday, you would probably lose weight, as opposed to eating 10,000 of sugar every day, which would make you gain weight. So it is not just calories in and calories out. It's what you eat, when you eat it and your bodies reaction to what you eat.

This is the oddest false dichotomy ever presented on these forums.

I thought the example of diet coke vs avocado one time was a strange comparison, but I have to agree that this is the most unusual I've seen...

Serve up some shredded bark mulch at your next book club. It's what all the cool kids are doing.

BayouMoon wrote: »

I'm going to jump in blind here being new to the debate and challege the hard-liners. Saying it's simply CICO is pretty narrow minded. There is nothing simple about bodies. A "calorie" is simply a unit of measure. I heard a doctor say that your body does not have calorie receptors and calories don't mean anything to your body. A calorie is a concept, not a fact. If you burn piece of word, it my read 10,000 calories on a meter. If you ate it, your body would not convert it to fat, it would simply pass through you. If you ate 10,000 calories of sugar, your body's insulin would spike and trigger all kinds of hormones to be released, some of which would signal your body to store some of that excess energy as fat. Then when your insulin level fell again, it would trigger your body to send hunger signals to your brain and your body would search for more calories and start the cycle of storing fat again. So I pose if your ate 10,000 calories of wood everyday, you would probably lose weight, as opposed to eating 10,000 of sugar every day, which would make you gain weight. So it is not just calories in and calories out. It's what you eat, when you eat it and your bodies reaction to what you eat.

I do understand what you are saying but as far as your analogy goes I am pretty sure wood would count as fiber and would not be listed as having a caloric value on food packaging. You will note that on food ingredients list the digestible and non-digestible elements are listed separately and only the digestible elements are given caloric value in the total. I mean any package that has fiber will show you that. Just from a random google image search:



Fat 3.5 grams, carbs 23 grams, protein 7 grams. If you just did the 9 cal for 1 gram fat, 4 for 1 gram carb/protein you would predict (3.5*9)+(23*4)+(7*4) = 151 calories. Yet the packaging says 110 calories. that is because 13 grams of the carbohydrate count are fiber (wood in your analogy) and although they are listed they are not used for the calorie total.

I agree with you in principle but I feel like you are putting up a bit of a strawman here. I'm not sure the type of person you are refering to here actually exists. Do you know someone who would actually claim that eating 10,000 calories of wood is dietarily equivalent to eating 10,000 calories of sugar?

GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »

WinoGelato wrote: »

GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »

BayouMoon wrote: »

I'm going to jump in blind here being new to the debate and challege the hard-liners. Saying it's simply CICO is pretty narrow minded. There is nothing simple about bodies. A "calorie" is simply a unit of measure. I heard a doctor say that your body does not have calorie receptors and calories don't mean anything to your body. A calorie is a concept, not a fact. If you burn piece of word, it my read 10,000 calories on a meter. If you ate it, your body would not convert it to fat, it would simply pass through you. If you ate 10,000 calories of sugar, your body's insulin would spike and trigger all kinds of hormones to be released, some of which would signal your body to store some of that excess energy as fat. Then when your insulin level fell again, it would trigger your body to send hunger signals to your brain and your body would search for more calories and start the cycle of storing fat again. So I pose if your ate 10,000 calories of wood everyday, you would probably lose weight, as opposed to eating 10,000 of sugar every day, which would make you gain weight. So it is not just calories in and calories out. It's what you eat, when you eat it and your bodies reaction to what you eat.

This is the oddest false dichotomy ever presented on these forums.

I thought the example of diet coke vs avocado one time was a strange comparison, but I have to agree that this is the most unusual I've seen...

Serve up some shredded bark mulch at your next book club. It's what all the cool kids are doing.

It's better than snorting condoms or eating tide pods.


If anyone is looking for some mulch I have a pile in my backyard that I'm looking to get rid of. There's also a dead tree back there that needs to come down, if anyone is so inclined to come get it.

janejellyroll wrote: »

GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »

Wait. Did I seriously just read an argument predicated on the assertion that scientifically backed reasoning is an appeal to emotion?

Alice just went down the rabbit hole. There is no discussion to be had with this kind of "reasoning".

To be fair, I think they're under the mistaken impression that those who are referencing studies are willing to accept any study and aren't using their own critical thinking skills and ability to evaluate the quality of individual studies. Which, you know, can happen when you don't bother to read a thread, you wind up being really mistaken about what is being discussed and how people are discussing it.

Oh, like the people who deny the CICO model

estherdragonbat wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »

BayouMoon wrote: »

I'm going to jump in blind here being new to the debate and challege the hard-liners. Saying it's simply CICO is pretty narrow minded. There is nothing simple about bodies. A "calorie" is simply a unit of measure. I heard a doctor say that your body does not have calorie receptors and calories don't mean anything to your body. A calorie is a concept, not a fact. If you burn piece of word, it my read 10,000 calories on a meter. If you ate it, your body would not convert it to fat, it would simply pass through you. If you ate 10,000 calories of sugar, your body's insulin would spike and trigger all kinds of hormones to be released, some of which would signal your body to store some of that excess energy as fat. Then when your insulin level fell again, it would trigger your body to send hunger signals to your brain and your body would search for more calories and start the cycle of storing fat again. So I pose if your ate 10,000 calories of wood everyday, you would probably lose weight, as opposed to eating 10,000 of sugar every day, which would make you gain weight. So it is not just calories in and calories out. It's what you eat, when you eat it and your bodies reaction to what you eat.

This is the oddest false dichotomy ever presented on these forums.

You say that now, but wait until the world gets a load of my new MIRACLE WOOD DIET. Eat whatever (wood) you want, the pounds just melt away!

Apparently, this is a thing in Argentina: http://www.molecularrecipes.com/molecular-gastronomy/edible-wood-modern-delicacy-rustic-flair/

And some barks can make it onto a survivalist menu too: https://www.outdoorlife.com/blogs/survivalist/2011/11/survival-foods-can-you-really-eat-tree-bark

Wow, people really will try everything!