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Why do people deny CICO ?

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  • johnslater461
    johnslater461 Posts: 449 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    mmapags wrote: »
    J72FIT wrote: »
    nettiklive wrote: »
    nettiklive wrote: »

    Tracking CI is far from a perfect science but at least it's visible and somewhat within our control. CO is the hard part - that's the part that's invisible and we have no idea what's happening on that end, we're just guessing. As I mentioned somewhere, if they could come up with a mobile wearable device that would track your exact caloric output all the time, around the clock, I'd be willing to bet a lot more people, at least those motivated enough, would be successful at using caloric restriction to lose weight.

    Is it really that hard to track CI or CO? Or is it that people try to go right up to the line drawn as the upper limit of CI for the day?

    If you drive a car, it probably has a fuel gauge. For the purposes of this thought experiment, the gauge works. Now do you drive until the car stops, or do you, at some point, notice the gauge is getting close to the E mark and you need to refuel?

    I'd say the vast majority of people don't take the gauge past E to the W or Walk reading.

    So why not take that same approach with CI vs CO. Yes, it can be inaccurate. OK, so if you are given 2250 calories/day, as my dietitian gave me, how much margin do you leave yourself so you don't fall victim to inaccuracies?

    There are ways to mitigate the inaccuracy. Much like the fuel gauge isn't a scientific instrument, giving you 64bit precision with respect to fuel level, CI measurement, when done properly and with some margin, can give the user an idea of where they are in their calorie allowance for the day.

    If I know I'm going to drive 300 miles today, I'm going to get some fuel before the trip. I'll need 8-10 gallons of fuel for that trip. If I know I'm going to a birthday party today, I might shave a few hundred calories off of breakfast so I can have a small square of cake and not run out of allowance.

    If I'm measuring cheese for my omelette and 28g is my target, 27g is close enough. I don't need to go right up to 28g if my goal is LIMITING my caloric intake. On the other side of the equation, if I get an extra gram of raw vegetables, such as spinach or peppers, the costs of being wrong are not as high as with cheese or ice cream. So I pick my battles and try to be under on the most calorie (and carb) dense foods and don't mind if I'm over on green leafy vegetables and the like.

    In other words, I try to build in reserve and adjust my behavior before I ever reach the reserve.

    But how many people leave no margin? They are bad at reading the gauge. They didn't measure how much fuel they put in during breakfast, so they overflow their tank at lunch.

    How do I get around the CO portion. I don't eat my exercise calories. Then it simply doesn't matter. If my fit-bit is off by 10 or 20% on how many calories I burned in that 60 minute spin class or my last 25 mile bike ride, it doesn't matter because I'm not eating into my exercise calories.

    I get 2250/day with 225g of them being carbs and the other 60% being fat and protein. It doesn't really matter if I channel surfed or ran a 10k, I get 2250 calories, limited to 225g of carbs.

    That way, if I happen to go over, it's really no big deal. But that's a once or twice a month thing and isn't going to do anything other than delay my progress for a fraction of a day.

    And as I lose weight, I'll adjust that 2250/day proportionally. So if I've lost 10% of the weight when assigned that 2250 calorie target, I can downward adjust my targets so I have say 2025-2140 calories and a similar adjustment to my carb limits.

    FWIW, my carb limits are due to repeated fasting BG readings in the 170-180 mg/dL range. By limiting my carb intake, I have those numbers consistently down below 120 and some days, I'm below 100 when I wake. They want me to get no more than 40% of my caloric needs via carbohydrates.

    Haha.

    As a short, small, sedentary woman close to goal weight , my maintenance is around 1400-1500 and losing .5 lb a week means 1200. Leaving a margin for failure is much much harder than with another 1000 calories.

    Don't be sedentary and your margin for error will increase...

    Yes, for the majority of sedentary people being sedentary is a choice. If you don't like the results being sedentary has on the amount of calories you burn per day, you can choose to no longer be sedentary.

    There is a proverb that says, "some would rather curse the darkness than light a single lamp."

    Being a Mean Girl, I'd put it a bit differently:

    We each have a limited amount of mental and emotional bandwidth.

    If I use it to focus on the factors I personally influence and control, and act on those, I gain a sense of agency and mastery, and usually effect some improvement. The extreme alternative would be to focus on why circumstances are so unfair and try to find a way to understand and change the currently uncontrollable factors, which tends to lead to failure, frustration, and a sense of powerlessness. (It does give me a handy list of reasons why I'm not succeeding - conversation fodder ;) - though).

    Even if the only factors I control are my own emotional reactions to circumstances, there's usually room for choice between feeling OK with things and moving on, or becoming mired in unhappy resentfulness. I don't enjoy being unhappy; it's a waste of valuable time.

    TL;DR: I have two choices, change myself, or change the uncontrollable circumstances. One has higher odds of success.

    I don't really need to say how this applies to CICO or its denial, do I? ;)

    The serenity to accept the things I cannot change
    The courage to change the things I can
    And the wisdom to know the difference