CICO - it’s truly that simple!!!
Options
witchaywoman81
Posts: 280 Member
Why have we made weight loss so complicated? I’ve been following the advice of a few folks here for about 5 days. I’m pretty active and have a Fitbit Charge 2...I can’t believe how accurate my cico seems to be when combining Fitbit and mfp. I have struggled with my weight for a good bit of my life. I’ve tried Weight Watchers too many times to count, South Beach, Slim Fast, low carb, you name it but I’ve always been so hungry...and I just kept getting heavier.
Granted, I only have a few days of data to back this up, but it seems to be working really well! I’m not hungry and I’m eating what I want.
Just browsing the boards, my initial mindset of “I can only eat 1200 calories” or “I’ve resigned myself to being hungry” are fairly common.
Guess what??? You CAN eat!
Granted, I only have a few days of data to back this up, but it seems to be working really well! I’m not hungry and I’m eating what I want.
Just browsing the boards, my initial mindset of “I can only eat 1200 calories” or “I’ve resigned myself to being hungry” are fairly common.
Guess what??? You CAN eat!
26
Replies
-
There will be challenges sooner or later, I suspect, but you're off to a good start with a great attitude. Many of us find calorie counting liberating and surprisingly easy - I sure did.
Best wishes!16 -
Weight loss is made complicated by people trying to sell something.25
-
For just weight loss, yes, it's, just as simple as CICO but for strength, health and fitness it isn't that simple at all.18
-
-
For just weight loss, yes, it's, just as simple as CICO but for strength, health and fitness it isn't that simple at all.
Very true, and I’m definitely not advocating eating nothing but junk or not exercising. I try to eat a decently-balanced diet and I’m active, but I see a lot of people saying low carb is better, keto is better, etc. Eat what makes you happy in reasonable portions.
10 -
There will be challenges sooner or later, I suspect, but you're off to a good start with a great attitude. Many of us find calorie counting liberating and surprisingly easy - I sure did.
Best wishes!
Yes! This has been such a wake up call...and how much I can eat and still lose! Granted, I’m 50-60 pounds overweight, but still.
0 -
-
witchaywoman81 wrote: »For just weight loss, yes, it's, just as simple as CICO but for strength, health and fitness it isn't that simple at all.
Very true, and I’m definitely not advocating eating nothing but junk or not exercising. I try to eat a decently-balanced diet and I’m active, but I see a lot of people saying low carb is better, keto is better, etc. Eat what makes you happy in reasonable portions.
People who say X_diet is the best for weight loss just believe it because that diet helped them achieve their caloric deficit, they believe that it's their diet that directly caused them to lose weight.....when in reality, it's the other way around. I have been bulking (Gaining weight to build muscles) and cutting (losing weight to reveal the muscles I had built on my bulk) for many years now, did all kinds of different diets....the end results were the same, not one diet was better than the other. I achieved my goal every time regardless of the diet, calories is king...for whatever reason, people don't want to hear that, they prefer to hear some snake oil salesmen miracle diet over the "eat less calories than you burn".5 -
Glad to hear you are finding success!1
-
MFP makes it so easy. To go in and track everything however one decides to do it. To me having one place to look up all the nutrition and create recipes has made it just so easy. I can honestly say I never remember working on changing the way I eat for one month before with so little of an issue. Kudos to you!3
-
Motorsheen wrote: »
And Sacramento is the capital of California is pretty much true, too -- but both statements are changing the subject from what was stated in the OP.4 -
CICO implies (to me at least) that weight loss is linear. That it’s nothing more that entering numbers into a spreadsheet. Well my expirence has not been that. Many times I have ended the week with my 3500 cal deficit. Did I always lose a pound??? Of course not. Have gained at that deficit- yep. So please there are other factors other than simple math. It is not simple math and simple calorie counting.
I promise two people who are the exact age and weight and build same exercise level could eat exactly the same thing and same amt in a week and they will not gain and lose at the exact same rate.
Therefore it is not an exact measurement that so many on here claim. If so no one would ever complain about plateaus. But they do. All the time. Which tells me there are other factors at play other than simple calorie counting. Far too many people struggle with weight for it to be that simple.
There are too many people who do all the right things and still fail. I do not buy simple solutions in the face of so many people who fail. They are not all doing it wrong if it’s as simple as CICO.43 -
CICO implies (to me at least) that weight loss is linear. That it’s nothing more that entering numbers into a spreadsheet. Well my expirence has not been that. Many times I have ended the week with my 3500 cal deficit. Did I always lose a pound??? Of course not. Have gained at that deficit- yep. So please there are other factors other than simple math. It is not simple math and simple calorie counting.
I promise two people who are the exact age and weight and build same exercise level could eat exactly the same thing and same amt in a week and they will not gain and lose at the exact same rate.
Therefore it is not an exact measurement that so many on here claim. If so no one would ever complain about plateaus. But they do. All the time. Which tells me there are other factors at play other than simple calorie counting. Far too many people struggle with weight for it to be that simple.
There are too many people who do all the right things and still fail. I do not buy simple solutions in the face of so many people who fail. They are not all doing it wrong if it’s as simple as CICO.
The CICO formula applies to body mass. The scale is affected by water fluctuations and by fluctuations in the amount of food in your digestive tract at any given time. The latter factors often mask changes in body mass.20 -
I'm noot sure I've seen anyone here state that CICO is exact. In fact, it's pretty much the opposite; just about everyone here states that weight loss isn't linear. It's impacted by water weight. It's impacted by whether you ate and moved exactly the same from one week to the next. It's impacted by the Thermic Effect of Food, among other things. None of which disprove CICO.
Galileo posited that two objects dropped from the same height will hit the ground at the same time, regardless of weight. And yet, if I drop a feather and a wrench, the feather will hit the ground after the wrench because friction impacts each object differently. However, in a vacuum, both would hit at the same time. (Source: http://physics.ucr.edu/~wudka/Physics7/Notes_www/node49.html). The fact that, on earth, if I drop a sheet of paper and a ball from the same height, the ball will hit the ground first does not negate Galileo's discovery.
The main reasons for plateaus? Inaccurate estimation of intake and output and failure to adjust calories downward as size decreases. Oh, and water weight of course.
You're correct that there are other factors in play, but none of them disprove or discredit CICO.12 -
CICO implies (to me at least) that weight loss is linear. That it’s nothing more that entering numbers into a spreadsheet. Well my expirence has not been that. Many times I have ended the week with my 3500 cal deficit. Did I always lose a pound??? Of course not. Have gained at that deficit- yep. So please there are other factors other than simple math. It is not simple math and simple calorie counting.
I promise two people who are the exact age and weight and build same exercise level could eat exactly the same thing and same amt in a week and they will not gain and lose at the exact same rate.
Therefore it is not an exact measurement that so many on here claim. If so no one would ever complain about plateaus. But they do. All the time. Which tells me there are other factors at play other than simple calorie counting. Far too many people struggle with weight for it to be that simple.
There are too many people who do all the right things and still fail. I do not buy simple solutions in the face of so many people who fail. They are not all doing it wrong if it’s as simple as CICO.
No it doesn't imply that weight loss is linear. It seems you forgot that water retention/dehydration and if you have pood lately and the actual weight of the food you have eaten and not eliminated yet also change your weight. Weight loss or gain is never 100% fat unless you have liposuction.
Most plateaus are usually either 1. The person is underestimating their intake and overestimating their calorie burn 2. The person hasn't adjusted their intake after losing weight or 3. They are retaining fluid.
Say if I were to drink a liter of water right now and then step on the scale I'd be up 2.2 lbs even if I am in a calorie deficit. That doesn't disprove CICO
13 -
CICO implies (to me at least) that weight loss is linear. That it’s nothing more that entering numbers into a spreadsheet. Well my expirence has not been that. Many times I have ended the week with my 3500 cal deficit. Did I always lose a pound??? Of course not. Have gained at that deficit- yep. So please there are other factors other than simple math. It is not simple math and simple calorie counting.
I promise two people who are the exact age and weight and build same exercise level could eat exactly the same thing and same amt in a week and they will not gain and lose at the exact same rate.
Therefore it is not an exact measurement that so many on here claim. If so no one would ever complain about plateaus. But they do. All the time. Which tells me there are other factors at play other than simple calorie counting. Far too many people struggle with weight for it to be that simple.
There are too many people who do all the right things and still fail. I do not buy simple solutions in the face of so many people who fail. They are not all doing it wrong if it’s as simple as CICO.
The problem doesn't lie with CICO. It lies with your misunderstanding of what CICO is and how it actually works.
People fail at diets for a lot of different reasons. One thing that does not ever fail is that if you consistently consume less calories than you expend, you will lose weight.18 -
For just weight loss, yes, it's, just as simple as CICO but for strength, health and fitness it isn't that simple at all.
Not easy or simple, but also not complicated. Takes a little more effort
For health: a variety of veggies, some fruit, lean protiens, complex carbs, snacking in moderation. Daily cardio (walking is just fine)
Fitness: Cardio to increase heart rate to good cardio levels add in resistance training on par with your goals.
Although it does become a vicious cycle, the healthier I eat, the more active I become. The more active I become, the more I crave healthier foods.7 -
CICO implies (to me at least) that weight loss is linear. That it’s nothing more that entering numbers into a spreadsheet. Well my expirence has not been that. Many times I have ended the week with my 3500 cal deficit. Did I always lose a pound??? Of course not. Have gained at that deficit- yep. So please there are other factors other than simple math. It is not simple math and simple calorie counting.
I promise two people who are the exact age and weight and build same exercise level could eat exactly the same thing and same amt in a week and they will not gain and lose at the exact same rate.
Therefore it is not an exact measurement that so many on here claim. If so no one would ever complain about plateaus. But they do. All the time. Which tells me there are other factors at play other than simple calorie counting. Far too many people struggle with weight for it to be that simple.
There are too many people who do all the right things and still fail. I do not buy simple solutions in the face of so many people who fail. They are not all doing it wrong if it’s as simple as CICO.
CICO is an exact measure. In your body, no calorie gets lost, they don't get forgotten, they don't roll under the rug or get stuck in the couch cushions. Every single calorie you actually consume and every single calorie your body actually uses or excretes is accounted for, always. Because the laws of physics exist.
Calorie counting is not an exact measure. You don't know exactly how many calories were in the food you just ate and you don't know exactly how many calories you burned that day. The good news is you don't have to. Because you get feedback over time from the scale. It's like a very long game of hot and cold. If you're losing weight over time at the rate you were going for, your counting is close to the actual amounts, if you're not losing weight at the rate you were going for, you have to adjust.
So, again, this boils down to you conflating the fact of CICO with the measuring system of calorie counting. It's like saying distance isn't an exact science because you bought a crappy ruler once.21 -
Some of the responses feel like a case of overthinking, which isn’t surpsring considering that was the entire premise of this thread, how people tend to complicate what it takes to lose weight.
Again, all I’m saying is that if you eat in a calorie deficit, you WILL lose weight. It’s probably not going to be, for example, 1.5 pounds a week every single week (that’s what my current goal in MFP is) but it WILL come off. In no way was I implying that weight loss is linear, but that you don’t have to eat special food or go on a special diet. It’s all about deficits. Nothing more, nothing less.
Of course, I’m also not saying that you should eat nothing but chips all day, and it’s “fine” as long as you’re in a deficit. Sure, you might lose weight, but would it make you healthy and strong? Probably not.18 -
Let me also add, I think this information can be particularly liberating for someone who has just decided to lose weight but doesn’t know where to start. Maybe their diet isn’t the best, health-wise, right now, but as a first step, they can eat what they normally eat at a calorie deficit, then gradually work in healthier choices. It can be intimidating to think that they have to go on a special diet or eat foods they don’t enjoy.11
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 391.7K Introduce Yourself
- 43.5K Getting Started
- 259.8K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.6K Food and Nutrition
- 47.3K Recipes
- 232.3K Fitness and Exercise
- 395 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.7K Motivation and Support
- 7.8K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.3K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.3K MyFitnessPal Information
- 23 News and Announcements
- 960 Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.3K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions