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Why do people deny CICO ?

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  • paperpudding
    paperpudding Posts: 8,992 Member
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    michaelwyatt8262 wrote: »
    It’s like people think that calories are a substance. Like carbs or something. Calories are a unit of measurement. It’s the “energy” in your food. Counting your calories, ultimately, is how weight works. You will never gain weight eating under your calories. And never lose weight eating over. That’s just factual, objectivity, factual information. I don’t get it either. And also why do people find it unappealing. Like you said - this “diet” you can eat literally whatever you want. If you get really good at counting you can even manipulate your calories with net counting and eat all kinds of ways. Idk. People are so resistance to factual information. Count your calories folks.

    Eating less than you burn is ultimately how weight loss works.

    This may or may not involve counting calories.

    I can undetstand why some people find calorie counting unappealing - and fair enough too. It is not the only way or neccesarily the best way, to lose weight.
  • johnslater461
    johnslater461 Posts: 449 Member
    edited April 2018
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    Jadub729 wrote: »
    mk2fit wrote: »
    OK, fake woman aside. I eat anywhere between 2000-3000 calories/day. I also run anywhere from 4 - 7 miles/day and walk a bit. I am 59 years old, have been here for a few years and have been on maintenance for over 2 years. My weight stays constant. Height has nothing to do with anything. CICO

    of course it does. My 6'4 husband will most definitely require more calories than my 5'2 self assuming our activity level is the same

    Do you weigh the same?

    Because this is the brunt of the question. According to calorie calculators, a taller person will require more calories than a shorter person-- even if all their other stats are the same (sex,age,weight, etc)
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    edited April 2018
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    mk2fit wrote: »
    OK, fake woman aside. I eat anywhere between 2000-3000 calories/day. I also run anywhere from 4 - 7 miles/day and walk a bit. I am 59 years old, have been here for a few years and have been on maintenance for over 2 years. My weight stays constant. Height has nothing to do with anything. CICO

    Interesting point about height...I don't see why it in and of itself should influence CO other than through its correlation to weight. Weight matters and the amount of muscle you have matters but yeah I don't know that the distance from the ground the top of your head matters. Maybe there is something I'm not thinking of though.
  • TR0berts
    TR0berts Posts: 7,739 Member
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    @jofjltncb6 You want a dumpster fire? Go check out the "It's my body..." thread.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    edited April 2018
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    mk2fit wrote: »
    OK, fake woman aside. I eat anywhere between 2000-3000 calories/day. I also run anywhere from 4 - 7 miles/day and walk a bit. I am 59 years old, have been here for a few years and have been on maintenance for over 2 years. My weight stays constant. Height has nothing to do with anything. CICO

    Okay I thought of one thing. Height is going to be some indication of skeletal mass. Picture a person who is 5' tall and 180 pounds versus someone who is 6' tall and 180. Of course the 5' tall person is going to be a lot fatter or a lot more muscular looking but they might actually have the same amount of muscle or fat pound for pound as the taller person. What the taller person definitely has though is a larger and therefore heavier skeleton right? So because of that the 5' persons fat + muscle has to be greater than the tall persons fat plus muscle because the short person skeleton/water is less heavy than the tall persons and yet they weigh the same. A heavier skeleton likely takes more muscle to move so I would think, statistically speaking, the taller person with the larger skeleton would need more muscle mass than the shorter person and therefore the tall person would tend to have a much much lower bodyfat percentage than the short and have more muscle which is related to CO. That said that would be just how a distribution would skew, you could find examples of 5' tall body builders with 5% bodyfat who would certainly have more CO than a 6' tall person of the same weight who is just average. It would be sort of like BMI in that way, an assumption based on a statistical distribution that if you are taller at the same weight you likely have more muscle and therefore you likely require slightly more calories.

    All of the above is guesswork, I didn't read that anywhere and I don't know that it is true...just spitballing.
  • TR0berts
    TR0berts Posts: 7,739 Member
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    Well, taller people generally have longer limbs. As such, whenever they move (lift their limbs, get out of bed, rise from sitting, etc.), they're likely moving their bodyweight (parts of it) higher, which would require slightly more energy.

    Of course, that's just looking at it from a pure physics POV. There may be other things, such as more work in transporting nutrients/energy to extremities?
  • cqbkaju
    cqbkaju Posts: 1,011 Member
    edited April 2018
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    Per Steve Reeves
    Presumes a male somewhere around 8% - 10% body fat

    "Ideal muscular body weight for male by height"
    5'5" 160lbs
    5'6" 165lbs
    5'7" 170lbs
    5'8" 175lbs
    5'9" 180lbs
    5'10" 185lbs
    5'11" 190lbs
    6'0" 200lbs
    6'1" 210lbs
    6'2" 220lbs
    6'3" 230lbs
    6'4" 240lbs
    6'5" 250lbs

    Measurements:
    Arm size = 252% of Wrist size
    Calf size = 192% of Ankle size
    Neck Size = 79% of Head size
    Chest Size = 148% of Pelvis size
    Waist size = 86% of Pelvis size
    Thigh size = 175% of Knee size

    The numbers for the "Grecian Ideal" (based on the Golden Ratio), as well as John McCallum's numbers are all close / similar.

    Being too far from these numbers is considered to be not symmetrical and out of proportion.
    But in my experience, the Resting Heart Rate has a greater impact on TDEE than 5 or 10 pounds of extra body fat.
    I haven't seen any calculators that take RHR into account.

    Of course there is a big difference between 5 pounds of extra fat vs 50 pounds of extra fat, so YMMV.

    https://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/drobson207.htm
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    edited April 2018
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    TR0berts wrote: »
    Well, taller people generally have longer limbs. As such, whenever they move (lift their limbs, get out of bed, rise from sitting, etc.), they're likely moving their bodyweight (parts of it) higher, which would require slightly more energy.

    Of course, that's just looking at it from a pure physics POV. There may be other things, such as more work in transporting nutrients/energy to extremities?

    Well if we want to get into that the taller person's head experiences slightly less downward force from the atmosphere due to there being several inches less atmosphere above them than a shorter person. Therefore if a tall person weighs exactly the same as a shorter person (weight includes that downward force from the atmosphere) then that would mean that the taller person actually has slightly more mass. And by slightly more I probably mean like micrograms.

    Also their head would experience less downforce due to gravity because it is slightly further from the center of mass of the earth...so gotta account for that.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    mk2fit wrote: »
    OK, fake woman aside. I eat anywhere between 2000-3000 calories/day. I also run anywhere from 4 - 7 miles/day and walk a bit. I am 59 years old, have been here for a few years and have been on maintenance for over 2 years. My weight stays constant. Height has nothing to do with anything. CICO

    Interesting point about height...I don't see why it in and of itself should influence CO other than through its correlation to weight. Weight matters and the amount of muscle you have matters but yeah I don't know that the distance from the ground the top of your head matters. Maybe there is something I'm not thinking of though.

    Height matters because a 6'0 person who is 200 is going to have a lot more muscle mass on average than a 5'3 person who is 200 lb. The calculators estimate what your muscle mass is from other factors (like weight, height, age, sex). The calculator (Katch-McArdle) that uses body fat percentage only asks weight, and in theory if you knew body fat percentage that would be all you'd need. (Also, activity level/exercise to take it to TDEE, of course.)

    So yeah, height on its own doesn't matter, but it being a good way (with weight) to estimate muscle mass does matter.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
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    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    mk2fit wrote: »
    OK, fake woman aside. I eat anywhere between 2000-3000 calories/day. I also run anywhere from 4 - 7 miles/day and walk a bit. I am 59 years old, have been here for a few years and have been on maintenance for over 2 years. My weight stays constant. Height has nothing to do with anything. CICO

    Interesting point about height...I don't see why it in and of itself should influence CO other than through its correlation to weight. Weight matters and the amount of muscle you have matters but yeah I don't know that the distance from the ground the top of your head matters. Maybe there is something I'm not thinking of though.

    Height matters because a 6'0 person who is 200 is going to have a lot more muscle mass on average than a 5'3 person who is 200 lb. The calculators estimate what your muscle mass is from other factors (like weight, height, age, sex). The calculator (Katch-McArdle) that uses body fat percentage only asks weight, and in theory if you knew body fat percentage that would be all you'd need. (Also, activity level/exercise to take it to TDEE, of course.)

    So yeah, height on its own doesn't matter, but it being a good way (with weight) to estimate muscle mass does matter.

    I don't think that is a guaranteed thing at all. A 5'3 person who is 200 lb could be obese or they could be a completely jacked body builder. A 6' tall person who is 200 lb could be average or they could be low muscle and overweight.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    edited April 2018
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    Whatever it is I assume height is being used with some sort of population average to make assumptions about muscle content. Sort of like Height to weight gives you BMI which makes assumptions about your percent bodyfat based on population averages. I think people understand that, the question for me is more esoteric...does height itself matter at all for CO or is it just a corollary for something else like muscle content?
  • cqbkaju
    cqbkaju Posts: 1,011 Member
    edited April 2018
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    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    I don't think that is a guaranteed thing at all. A 5'3 person who is 200 lb could be obese or they could be a completely jacked body builder. A 6' tall person who is 200 lb could be average or they could be low muscle and overweight.

    A 5'3" guy "jacked" at 200 lbs seems to be impossible without large amounts of steroids, HGH and the like.

    150 lbs is around "perfect" muscular weight for that frame and presumes literally world-class genetics at ~9% body fat.
    Your example implies he managed to add 50 lbs of additional muscle beyond that; enough to fit the frame of a 6 foot tall "natural" body builder, i.e. someone 7 inches taller than him.

    200 lbs of natural, lean muscle at 6 foot is nearly perfect, presuming symmetry, balanced muscle mass and ~9% body fat; way beyond "average".
    It is about as "jacked" as a natural body builder can get at that height. Again, we are talking in terms of world-class genetics and training.
    One might be able to cut a percent or two off the body fat, but in doing so they will not be able to naturally sustain the muscle mass and training intensity to build new muscle forever.
    Diminishing returns kicks in without supraphysiologic doses of drugs.

    People often have distorted ideas of how big some guys are (or should be) due to a number of factors.
    Things like steroid abuse, fake / exaggerated "measurements" and inaccurate accounts / ideas of body fat levels are among some of the main reasons.
    Those people also have probably never seen a real, properly measured 18.5" arm up close in their life and if they did there is a better than 50% chance that the person who owns the arm used|uses chemical assistance to get|keep it.

    Your point is completely valid -that is why I warn the people I coach against using terms like BMI in my presence- but the math falls apart in your particular examples.
  • kchuch77
    kchuch77 Posts: 31 Member
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    I think when you tell people you lost weight by calorie counting and eating less calories than you burn, (CICO), their response is usually “well of course you lost weight, you were starving yourself!” And “once you go back to eating normal, you’ll just gain it all back!” So then people (my past self included lol), believe that oh no, I don’t want to lower my metabolism by eating at a deficit, so I must do some other fad diet to lose the weight...and then they try every crazy fad diet out there, fail, start over on some other fad, fail...over the course of a few years & gain weight cause they can’t stick to it & are denying CICO.

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