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Why do people deny CICO ?
Replies
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Yeah, can't agree with you more. The equalizer for CICO is the margin of error and CICO will always win because it's an easy fix, just eat less, which your friend seems to not understand at all, and confirmation bias appears to have occupy her frontal cortex. Hopefully on that journey she looks at conflicting evidence and looks at the totality of evidence, she seems like a smart person, so I hope she does. cheers0
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CICO "doesn't work" if you're not willing to implement it! Also, if you stop tracking your calories as soon as you achieve your weight goal, you will likely gain the weight back. In a nutshell, counting calories is a lot of effort!
@annpt77 : You acted just as anyone should. Your friend asked you and you answered. The hard part is to walk away and let people do what they will with your advice. (Maybe it's not that hard for you!)
So far, I've never convinced anyone to adopt my approach of counting every stinking calorie, logging it, and trying to stay within a program. I also have used fitness watches to estimate my calorie burn for the past many years. My failed apprentices include my wife and her sister, neither of whom can stand the practice. It makes them miserable! My wife has lost weight at times using a rules-based approach, but never by calorie counting.0 -
Jthanmyfitnesspal wrote: »CICO "doesn't work" if you're not willing to implement it! Also, if you stop tracking your calories as soon as you achieve your weight goal, you will likely gain the weight back. In a nutshell, counting calories is a lot of effort!
@annpt77 : You acted just as anyone should. Your friend asked you and you answered. The hard part is to walk away and let people do what they will with your advice. (Maybe it's not that hard for you!)
IME, going head to head, arguing with someone who's a more black and white thinker (or maybe arguing with anyone
) is not a good way to win them over, if it's even possible. IME, kind of wearing them down over time, gradually, with demonstrated example and occasional minor neutral-seeming factual comments . . . that's more likely to work.
IOW, maybe I can wear her down with a dribble of science and practice, get her to try it. Dunno.So far, I've never convinced anyone to adopt my approach of counting every stinking calorie, logging it, and trying to stay within a program. I also have used fitness watches to estimate my calorie burn for the past many years. My failed apprentices include my wife and her sister, neither of whom can stand the practice. It makes them miserable! My wife has lost weight at times using a rules-based approach, but never by calorie counting.
I was able to convince one friend to try it long enough to lose a meaningful amount of weight . . . I think it was around 20 pounds. She was pretty excited about it . . . for a while. She's a bit of a flitter-flutterer by nature (diagnosed with adult ADHD) which is part of her charm . . . but it bodes ill for long term commitment to anything dull.
I do have a couple of friends who lost a bunch of weight on Weight Watchers (earlier versions, not the current). One has stayed very slim, the other has had some regain but far from all the way back to her original weight.
Many approaches can work for a subset of people. Pretty much nothing works for everyone, when we're talking methods. (Obviously, under the covers it's about calorie balance; but counting the calories isn't the only method that can work.) Realistically, no matter what weight loss approach people choose, most of us will regain some or all of it . . . maybe regain more than we lost.
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Important to differentiate between CICO and calorie counting.
I agree calorie counting doesnt work for everyone - it is a method that doesnt suit everyone
CICO works for everyone and calorie deficit is universally neccesary to lose weight
but calorie counting is not.5 -
paperpudding wrote: »Important to differentiate between CICO and calorie counting.
I agree calorie counting doesnt work for everyone - it is a method that doesnt suit everyone
CICO works for everyone and calorie deficit is universally neccesary to lose weight
but calorie counting is not.
Well put. cheers0 -
paperpudding wrote: »Important to differentiate between CICO and calorie counting.
I agree calorie counting doesnt work for everyone - it is a method that doesnt suit everyone
CICO works for everyone and calorie deficit is universally neccesary to lose weight
but calorie counting is not.
An honest question - if you aren't counting the calories in, how are you accomplishing your goals in CICO?0 -
Bry_Fitness70 wrote: »paperpudding wrote: »Important to differentiate between CICO and calorie counting.
I agree calorie counting doesnt work for everyone - it is a method that doesnt suit everyone
CICO works for everyone and calorie deficit is universally neccesary to lose weight
but calorie counting is not.
An honest question - if you aren't counting the calories in, how are you accomplishing your goals in CICO?
For me personally it's the low carb diet I've been on for just over a dozen years and have fundamentally maintained my weight during this time as well. Some find the diet more satiating or basically the desire to overeat is mitigated and I suspect a lot of that is hormonal. A low carb diet does increase glucagon which is basically a signaling hormone that controls appetite and I suspect it works similarly as do GLP-1 but my appetite for sugar and sugary carbs is basically gone, even when my partner brings home Cinnabon's, which always amazes me and I suspect that is more in the brain, where Glucagon's action is in digestion. Of course not everyone will have the same results on low carb and it does eliminate starch and is basically a whole food diet, which most find the sustainably aspect challenging, because Cinnabon's lol.
Saying that, right now I am counting calories to help with my goal of increasing muscle and I find counting to be essential to my success which is to make sure I'm within the parameters I've set out. Cheers2 -
paperpudding wrote: »Important to differentiate between CICO and calorie counting.
You are totally right that CICO has to work-- it's just an energy balance statement. The complications are 1) there is no easy way to know accurately what your "calories out" are for any given day (despite advances in fitness watches, etc.) and 2) measuring your "calories in" requires significant effort.
So, while CICO is always the case, applying CICO (e.g., counting calories) doesn't work for a lot of people.
Although, it works for me, every time I adhere to it.
And, predictably, it stops working when I don't! 
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Bry_Fitness70 wrote: »An honest question - if you aren't counting the calories in, how are you accomplishing your goals in CICO?
My wife's approach has always been to adopt dietary rules that help limit intake. Simple things like no sweets, no alcohol, no bread, limited carbs with meals (e.g., a potato at dinner), drinking 24oz of lemon water before every meal, no snacks after dinner. When she follows the rules, she loses weight.
The main reason I can't just do that is that I do 500+ kcals of exercise on many days and I need to eat at least some of it back as carb. I can't get it right without accounting.1 -
Simply put, CICO ignores the mental and genetic and lifestyle aspects of weight loss (and any other variable you have to determine for yourself)
For those of you that don't know have issues with insulin or stress eating and counting calories works for you GOOD FOR YOU.
But let me say this, each person has to find what works for them. Yes fundamentally it's calories in calories out. But when you eat all your morning calories in the form of a honey bun you're likely not going to stay at your goal. Not all calories are equally satiating.
On top of that our calorie burn is not an exact science. No one truly knows exactly how much their body burns. If you have x amount of muscle you will burn more calories per minute than the guy sitting next to you that has less muscle.
Then there is body composition. My son's orthodontist is crazy skinny can eat like a maniac, and not put on the kind of muscle my husband or father can. My husband and I are the type of people who are either Fat or Fit but we are never skinny. Our kid is falling under the same umbrella. We have found that our fitness grove needs to focus on muscle building (which isn't easy) We can run, but it just doesn't do for us what lifting does.
Fitness is complex and frankly that is what the discussion is about.
People who make snarky comments like the OP drive me nuts because it's clear to me that they have never truly struggled with weight loss. I have battled my weight since I was 11 years old. I didn't understand back then that I was a very muscular little girl and I should protect that muscle.
CICO is just part of the equation. It's not that it's false, it's that it doesn't tell the whole story. Statements like the OP are incredibly tone deaf. Its like saying "Oh to have a home you just need a good foundation" Yes you need a good foundation but you also need a roof, and 4 walls. Then to do it better those 4 walls and that roof needs to be watertight....etc.
Like wise with LONG TERM fitness and weight management (the real issue here) you have to have a strategy that works for body in the LONG TERM. The result of that strategy is CICO. You don't start with CICO and hope that it all works out. Instead you start with a strategy that is flexible and works for you. That strategy should result in CICO being at a deficit. CICO by itself is a failed plan for most.5 -
Jthanmyfitnesspal wrote: »paperpudding wrote: »Important to differentiate between CICO and calorie counting.
You are totally right that CICO has to work-- it's just an energy balance statement. The complications are 1) there is no easy way to know accurately what your "calories out" are for any given day (despite advances in fitness watches, etc.) and 2) measuring your "calories in" requires significant effort.
So, while CICO is always the case, applying CICO (e.g., counting calories) doesn't work for a lot of people.
Although, it works for me, every time I adhere to it. And, predictably, it stops working when I don't!
The calories in food aren't exact either. I can eat tons of almonds that would in theory put me way over my calorie limit. BUT the truth is, the next day you can see those almond bits in my toilet and I end up losing weight. In theory if you go to family christmas dinner with all the pies and calorie rich food, you should be 5lbs+ heavier the day after. But that doesn't happen. My guess is that the amount of time it would take for your body to absorb those calories is longer than it would take for your body to push it out the poop shoot. But the excess goes to fat and if you did eat like that regularly then yes you gain massive amounts of weight.
Pure physics of your body and it's process states that your body can only absorb a certain amount of calories in a given time per pound of body weight.
A 200lb body will absorb more calories than a 150lb body on a given day because it needs those calories to function. However if the 150lb body routinely eats more than it's need, it will eventually become the 200lb body.2 -
Bry_Fitness70 wrote: »paperpudding wrote: »Important to differentiate between CICO and calorie counting.
I agree calorie counting doesnt work for everyone - it is a method that doesnt suit everyone
CICO works for everyone and calorie deficit is universally neccesary to lose weight
but calorie counting is not.
An honest question - if you aren't counting the calories in, how are you accomplishing your goals in CICO?
Not the person you asked, but as a generality, consider the scope of time (decades, up to a century or so). Science has known that calories were key for body weight in quite specific terms for that amount of time, and it was popularized information by fairly early in the 20th century, IMU.
Even before that, in times when the average person was more connected to agriculture, people understood that if you were raising a hog (or whatever), how much and what you fed that hog affected its weight and body composition, though they didn't formally know about calories.
People used that knowledge to lose weight. Maybe they just cut back, maybe they specifically targeted cutting back high-calorie foods (since it was known which those were), maybe they used structured published meal plans, whatever - they were consciously applying CICO, the idea of calorie balance.
As an example, my dad did that in his 60s, around the 1980s - he just cut back, and ate more of lower calorie foods, less of high calorie foods, but without quantifying/estimating the details. He lost a bunch of weight, not sure how much, but an obvious multiple tens of pounds, probably 30-50, and stayed slim thereafter by watching the scale and cutting back if it crept you.
In my view - as someone who tried calorie counting when a person had to look up calories in a very limited book (in my case, 1970s) - calorie counting has only been a practical method since the apps became available. I admit that some people tried to do it earlier (via the books or mix-y matchy-y meal plan schemes), but it wasn't a very viable or practical long-term strategy, realistically.
I find it odd, here on MFP, that people sometimes seem to think that calorie counting and CICO are ultra-tightly linked (bidirectionally). (I'm not saying you're doing that. You just asked a question. I don't know what you think about the linkage, won't assume.)
(As an aside, there was even some dude on a thread here who asserted that people couldn't lose weight in the 1960s because they didn't know about calories yet . . . most people are much more well informed than that, I only digress to mention it because it was hilarious.)
People have used CICO, as a concept, to lose weight for many decades, at minimum. Calorie counting as a method has been relatively unusual, until recent times.1 -
If the goal is quick weight loss, then CI/CO is important to know. However, if a person is getting calories from calorie dense foods, then that person will obviously be eating a smaller bulk of food. This affects satiation, how full you feel after a given meal, and satiety, how full you remain between meals. What is surprising to me is that studies have found that those who eat a low fat diet have higher satiation than those who eat low carb diets. That is to say that if your diet is low fat (which generally means mostly plant based), you will want to eat less (those on a low fat diet ate 500-700 fewer calories per day) and you will enjoy your food as much as those who eat low carb diets (participants reported no differences in hunger, enjoyment of meals, or fullness between meals). More importantly, the study shows that while both those on a low fat and those on a low carb diet lost weight, the people on the low fat diet lost more body fat than the people on the low carb diet.
There are other studies that demonstrate that there are some combination of nutrients and salt which are able to cause dysregulated eating. These foods have been deemed "hyperpalatable foods" and they are artificially rewarding and they are able to bypass our brains' satiation signals. This means that you crave these foods which makes them harder to resist and once you do indulge, you are very likely to overindulge. Getting your calories from hyperpalatable foods greatly increases the risk that you will have a setback in your diet.
And then there are the long term consequences of eating non-nutritious foods. Our bodies are amazing at being able to tolerate poor nutrition for a while. A low carb diet is probably not going to be harmful to you if you are on it for a few months (although, given that you'll lose mostly muscle and water weight, it isn't nearly as helpful as we have been led to believe). However, you will probably end up dying much too early from one of the diseases that kill most people in developed nations, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, or a disease of the mind.
The fact is that it does matter where you get your calories. While you can be successful strictly at losing weight in the short run by eating fewer calories than you burn, you will probably find that you are losing weight that you would prefer to keep and keeping weight that you would prefer to lose. And in the long run, eating an unhealthy diet can have disastrous consequences on your health.0 -
Bry_Fitness70 wrote: »paperpudding wrote: »Important to differentiate between CICO and calorie counting.
I agree calorie counting doesnt work for everyone - it is a method that doesnt suit everyone
CICO works for everyone and calorie deficit is universally neccesary to lose weight
but calorie counting is not.
An honest question - if you aren't counting the calories in, how are you accomplishing your goals in CICO?
Not sure this question means general you or you specifically to me.
I didn't say I lost weight without counting calories. I did lose weight counting calories with MFP
But many people lose weight without doing so - my husband, for example,just stopped drinking sugar containing drinks and cut back on sweets and started exercising more.0 -
If the goal is quick weight loss, then CI/CO is important to know. However, if a person is getting calories from calorie dense foods, then that person will obviously be eating a smaller bulk of food. This affects satiation, how full you feel after a given meal, and satiety, how full you remain between meals. What is surprising to me is that studies have found that those who eat a low fat diet have higher satiation than those who eat low carb diets. That is to say that if your diet is low fat (which generally means mostly plant based), you will want to eat less (those on a low fat diet ate 500-700 fewer calories per day) and you will enjoy your food as much as those who eat low carb diets (participants reported no differences in hunger, enjoyment of meals, or fullness between meals). More importantly, the study shows that while both those on a low fat and those on a low carb diet lost weight, the people on the low fat diet lost more body fat than the people on the low carb diet.
There are other studies that demonstrate that there are some combination of nutrients and salt which are able to cause dysregulated eating. These foods have been deemed "hyperpalatable foods" and they are artificially rewarding and they are able to bypass our brains' satiation signals. This means that you crave these foods which makes them harder to resist and once you do indulge, you are very likely to overindulge. Getting your calories from hyperpalatable foods greatly increases the risk that you will have a setback in your diet.
And then there are the long term consequences of eating non-nutritious foods. Our bodies are amazing at being able to tolerate poor nutrition for a while. A low carb diet is probably not going to be harmful to you if you are on it for a few months (although, given that you'll lose mostly muscle and water weight, it isn't nearly as helpful as we have been led to believe). However, you will probably end up dying much too early from one of the diseases that kill most people in developed nations, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, or a disease of the mind.
The fact is that it does matter where you get your calories. While you can be successful strictly at losing weight in the short run by eating fewer calories than you burn, you will probably find that you are losing weight that you would prefer to keep and keeping weight that you would prefer to lose. And in the long run, eating an unhealthy diet can have disastrous consequences on your health.
Once there was a long beautiful thread running by a guy who decided to bulk eating fast and processed food as an experiment. He had blood work done periodically--always perfect. Even he was astonished. He posted progress pics that were amazing. He was ripped. His thread was pointed out every time someone did a post like yours. The denial was ferocious, so the thread was taken down. Things are not as you think.2 -
snowflake954 wrote: »If the goal is quick weight loss, then CI/CO is important to know. However, if a person is getting calories from calorie dense foods, then that person will obviously be eating a smaller bulk of food. This affects satiation, how full you feel after a given meal, and satiety, how full you remain between meals. What is surprising to me is that studies have found that those who eat a low fat diet have higher satiation than those who eat low carb diets. That is to say that if your diet is low fat (which generally means mostly plant based), you will want to eat less (those on a low fat diet ate 500-700 fewer calories per day) and you will enjoy your food as much as those who eat low carb diets (participants reported no differences in hunger, enjoyment of meals, or fullness between meals). More importantly, the study shows that while both those on a low fat and those on a low carb diet lost weight, the people on the low fat diet lost more body fat than the people on the low carb diet.
There are other studies that demonstrate that there are some combination of nutrients and salt which are able to cause dysregulated eating. These foods have been deemed "hyperpalatable foods" and they are artificially rewarding and they are able to bypass our brains' satiation signals. This means that you crave these foods which makes them harder to resist and once you do indulge, you are very likely to overindulge. Getting your calories from hyperpalatable foods greatly increases the risk that you will have a setback in your diet.
And then there are the long term consequences of eating non-nutritious foods. Our bodies are amazing at being able to tolerate poor nutrition for a while. A low carb diet is probably not going to be harmful to you if you are on it for a few months (although, given that you'll lose mostly muscle and water weight, it isn't nearly as helpful as we have been led to believe). However, you will probably end up dying much too early from one of the diseases that kill most people in developed nations, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, or a disease of the mind.
The fact is that it does matter where you get your calories. While you can be successful strictly at losing weight in the short run by eating fewer calories than you burn, you will probably find that you are losing weight that you would prefer to keep and keeping weight that you would prefer to lose. And in the long run, eating an unhealthy diet can have disastrous consequences on your health.
Once there was a long beautiful thread running by a guy who decided to bulk eating fast and processed food as an experiment. He had blood work done periodically--always perfect. Even he was astonished. He posted progress pics that were amazing. He was ripped. His thread was pointed out every time someone did a post like yours. The denial was ferocious, so the thread was taken down. Things are not as you think.
Bulking and ripped, that is amazing. Cheers0 -
neanderthin wrote: »snowflake954 wrote: »If the goal is quick weight loss, then CI/CO is important to know. However, if a person is getting calories from calorie dense foods, then that person will obviously be eating a smaller bulk of food. This affects satiation, how full you feel after a given meal, and satiety, how full you remain between meals. What is surprising to me is that studies have found that those who eat a low fat diet have higher satiation than those who eat low carb diets. That is to say that if your diet is low fat (which generally means mostly plant based), you will want to eat less (those on a low fat diet ate 500-700 fewer calories per day) and you will enjoy your food as much as those who eat low carb diets (participants reported no differences in hunger, enjoyment of meals, or fullness between meals). More importantly, the study shows that while both those on a low fat and those on a low carb diet lost weight, the people on the low fat diet lost more body fat than the people on the low carb diet.
There are other studies that demonstrate that there are some combination of nutrients and salt which are able to cause dysregulated eating. These foods have been deemed "hyperpalatable foods" and they are artificially rewarding and they are able to bypass our brains' satiation signals. This means that you crave these foods which makes them harder to resist and once you do indulge, you are very likely to overindulge. Getting your calories from hyperpalatable foods greatly increases the risk that you will have a setback in your diet.
And then there are the long term consequences of eating non-nutritious foods. Our bodies are amazing at being able to tolerate poor nutrition for a while. A low carb diet is probably not going to be harmful to you if you are on it for a few months (although, given that you'll lose mostly muscle and water weight, it isn't nearly as helpful as we have been led to believe). However, you will probably end up dying much too early from one of the diseases that kill most people in developed nations, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, or a disease of the mind.
The fact is that it does matter where you get your calories. While you can be successful strictly at losing weight in the short run by eating fewer calories than you burn, you will probably find that you are losing weight that you would prefer to keep and keeping weight that you would prefer to lose. And in the long run, eating an unhealthy diet can have disastrous consequences on your health.
Once there was a long beautiful thread running by a guy who decided to bulk eating fast and processed food as an experiment. He had blood work done periodically--always perfect. Even he was astonished. He posted progress pics that were amazing. He was ripped. His thread was pointed out every time someone did a post like yours. The denial was ferocious, so the thread was taken down. Things are not as you think.
Bulking and ripped, that is amazing. Cheers
Yeah--hard to believe, but I'm thinking that most of the research is probably done on overweight or obese individuals. Many people post that they know people that are thin and eat junk food, sweets,--whatever they want. I'm thinking that maybe people that are thin to begin with and eat correct amounts (naturally) for their daily calories, ARE able to eat whatever they want. The problem arises when they eat too much, which they don't. My husband is one. And yes, for a 69 yr old, he has a great bod--lots of muscle, no gut.
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Bry_Fitness70 wrote: »paperpudding wrote: »Important to differentiate between CICO and calorie counting.
I agree calorie counting doesnt work for everyone - it is a method that doesnt suit everyone
CICO works for everyone and calorie deficit is universally neccesary to lose weight
but calorie counting is not.
An honest question - if you aren't counting the calories in, how are you accomplishing your goals in CICO?
To me, this is like asking if you aren't calculating your mass and the mass of every other body in the universe and your distance from all of those points and their relative vectors and accelerations, how are you accomplishing your goals in gravity?
There are no "goals" in CICO. It just is.3 -
If the goal is quick weight loss, then CI/CO is important to know. However, if a person is getting calories from calorie dense foods, then that person will obviously be eating a smaller bulk of food. This affects satiation, how full you feel after a given meal, and satiety, how full you remain between meals. What is surprising to me is that studies have found that those who eat a low fat diet have higher satiation than those who eat low carb diets. That is to say that if your diet is low fat (which generally means mostly plant based), you will want to eat less (those on a low fat diet ate 500-700 fewer calories per day) and you will enjoy your food as much as those who eat low carb diets (participants reported no differences in hunger, enjoyment of meals, or fullness between meals). More importantly, the study shows that while both those on a low fat and those on a low carb diet lost weight, the people on the low fat diet lost more body fat than the people on the low carb diet.
There are other studies that demonstrate that there are some combination of nutrients and salt which are able to cause dysregulated eating. These foods have been deemed "hyperpalatable foods" and they are artificially rewarding and they are able to bypass our brains' satiation signals. This means that you crave these foods which makes them harder to resist and once you do indulge, you are very likely to overindulge. Getting your calories from hyperpalatable foods greatly increases the risk that you will have a setback in your diet.
And then there are the long term consequences of eating non-nutritious foods. Our bodies are amazing at being able to tolerate poor nutrition for a while. A low carb diet is probably not going to be harmful to you if you are on it for a few months (although, given that you'll lose mostly muscle and water weight, it isn't nearly as helpful as we have been led to believe). However, you will probably end up dying much too early from one of the diseases that kill most people in developed nations, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, or a disease of the mind.
The fact is that it does matter where you get your calories. While you can be successful strictly at losing weight in the short run by eating fewer calories than you burn, you will probably find that you are losing weight that you would prefer to keep and keeping weight that you would prefer to lose. And in the long run, eating an unhealthy diet can have disastrous consequences on your health.
Carbs are the one macronutrient that is not essential, in the sense that our bodies can manufacture it out of other types of intake when needed. (There are essential amino acids and essential fatty acids that we can only get from eating protein and fats respectively, and that are required for the body to function adequately.)
The implication is that carb intake is very flexible in humans. There's every indication that we can safely eat anything from none up to using up every calorie that we don't need in order to get adequate protein and fats. (Achieving zero carbs is fairly difficult in practice, though.)
IOW, the thing I bolded in your post is incorrect, IMU. That's not the only thing I think is incorrect. Or misleading. If you have research studies that support your contention, maybe post them.
P.S. I'm not a low carb eater. I'm a high-carb eater, typically over 225g of carbs daily, and that's as a non-large person (5'5").neanderthin wrote: »snowflake954 wrote: »If the goal is quick weight loss, then CI/CO is important to know. However, if a person is getting calories from calorie dense foods, then that person will obviously be eating a smaller bulk of food. This affects satiation, how full you feel after a given meal, and satiety, how full you remain between meals. What is surprising to me is that studies have found that those who eat a low fat diet have higher satiation than those who eat low carb diets. That is to say that if your diet is low fat (which generally means mostly plant based), you will want to eat less (those on a low fat diet ate 500-700 fewer calories per day) and you will enjoy your food as much as those who eat low carb diets (participants reported no differences in hunger, enjoyment of meals, or fullness between meals). More importantly, the study shows that while both those on a low fat and those on a low carb diet lost weight, the people on the low fat diet lost more body fat than the people on the low carb diet.
There are other studies that demonstrate that there are some combination of nutrients and salt which are able to cause dysregulated eating. These foods have been deemed "hyperpalatable foods" and they are artificially rewarding and they are able to bypass our brains' satiation signals. This means that you crave these foods which makes them harder to resist and once you do indulge, you are very likely to overindulge. Getting your calories from hyperpalatable foods greatly increases the risk that you will have a setback in your diet.
And then there are the long term consequences of eating non-nutritious foods. Our bodies are amazing at being able to tolerate poor nutrition for a while. A low carb diet is probably not going to be harmful to you if you are on it for a few months (although, given that you'll lose mostly muscle and water weight, it isn't nearly as helpful as we have been led to believe). However, you will probably end up dying much too early from one of the diseases that kill most people in developed nations, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, or a disease of the mind.
The fact is that it does matter where you get your calories. While you can be successful strictly at losing weight in the short run by eating fewer calories than you burn, you will probably find that you are losing weight that you would prefer to keep and keeping weight that you would prefer to lose. And in the long run, eating an unhealthy diet can have disastrous consequences on your health.
Once there was a long beautiful thread running by a guy who decided to bulk eating fast and processed food as an experiment. He had blood work done periodically--always perfect. Even he was astonished. He posted progress pics that were amazing. He was ripped. His thread was pointed out every time someone did a post like yours. The denial was ferocious, so the thread was taken down. Things are not as you think.
Bulking and ripped, that is amazing. Cheers
It was this guy.
https://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=141807961&p=822484731#post822484731
He posted his diet on that bodybuilding.com thread, and there are photos of him there. Last I knew there were still some before and progress photos of him scattered around MFP, and he posted semi-often on other threads here for quite a while, so it's not likely to be some made-up thing IMO - too much self-consistent information over a long period of time.
He was very active, as I recall, in diverse ways, so a pretty high TDEE, and he did pay some attention to macros, but IIRC experimented at times with relatively lower protein than the usual bodybuilder recommendations, and absolutely did eat lots of what most people would consider junk food.
It was sort of like the bodybuilder equivalent of the Twinkie diet guy. It's pretty amusing.0 -
If the goal is quick weight loss, then CI/CO is important to know. However, if a person is getting calories from calorie dense foods, then that person will obviously be eating a smaller bulk of food. This affects satiation, how full you feel after a given meal, and satiety, how full you remain between meals. What is surprising to me is that studies have found that those who eat a low fat diet have higher satiation than those who eat low carb diets. That is to say that if your diet is low fat (which generally means mostly plant based), you will want to eat less (those on a low fat diet ate 500-700 fewer calories per day) and you will enjoy your food as much as those who eat low carb diets (participants reported no differences in hunger, enjoyment of meals, or fullness between meals). More importantly, the study shows that while both those on a low fat and those on a low carb diet lost weight, the people on the low fat diet lost more body fat than the people on the low carb diet.
There are other studies that demonstrate that there are some combination of nutrients and salt which are able to cause dysregulated eating. These foods have been deemed "hyperpalatable foods" and they are artificially rewarding and they are able to bypass our brains' satiation signals. This means that you crave these foods which makes them harder to resist and once you do indulge, you are very likely to overindulge. Getting your calories from hyperpalatable foods greatly increases the risk that you will have a setback in your diet.
And then there are the long term consequences of eating non-nutritious foods. Our bodies are amazing at being able to tolerate poor nutrition for a while. A low carb diet is probably not going to be harmful to you if you are on it for a few months (although, given that you'll lose mostly muscle and water weight, it isn't nearly as helpful as we have been led to believe). However, you will probably end up dying much too early from one of the diseases that kill most people in developed nations, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, or a disease of the mind.
The fact is that it does matter where you get your calories. While you can be successful strictly at losing weight in the short run by eating fewer calories than you burn, you will probably find that you are losing weight that you would prefer to keep and keeping weight that you would prefer to lose. And in the long run, eating an unhealthy diet can have disastrous consequences on your health.
Carbs are the one macronutrient that is not essential, in the sense that our bodies can manufacture it out of other types of intake when needed. (There are essential amino acids and essential fatty acids that we can only get from eating protein and fats respectively, and that are required for the body to function adequately.)
The implication is that carb intake is very flexible in humans. There's every indication that we can safely eat anything from none up to using up every calorie that we don't need in order to get adequate protein and fats. (Achieving zero carbs is fairly difficult in practice, though.)
IOW, the thing I bolded in your post is incorrect, IMU. That's not the only thing I think is incorrect. Or misleading. If you have research studies that support your contention, maybe post them.
P.S. I'm not a low carb eater. I'm a high-carb eater, typically over 225g of carbs daily, and that's as a non-large person (5'5").neanderthin wrote: »snowflake954 wrote: »If the goal is quick weight loss, then CI/CO is important to know. However, if a person is getting calories from calorie dense foods, then that person will obviously be eating a smaller bulk of food. This affects satiation, how full you feel after a given meal, and satiety, how full you remain between meals. What is surprising to me is that studies have found that those who eat a low fat diet have higher satiation than those who eat low carb diets. That is to say that if your diet is low fat (which generally means mostly plant based), you will want to eat less (those on a low fat diet ate 500-700 fewer calories per day) and you will enjoy your food as much as those who eat low carb diets (participants reported no differences in hunger, enjoyment of meals, or fullness between meals). More importantly, the study shows that while both those on a low fat and those on a low carb diet lost weight, the people on the low fat diet lost more body fat than the people on the low carb diet.
There are other studies that demonstrate that there are some combination of nutrients and salt which are able to cause dysregulated eating. These foods have been deemed "hyperpalatable foods" and they are artificially rewarding and they are able to bypass our brains' satiation signals. This means that you crave these foods which makes them harder to resist and once you do indulge, you are very likely to overindulge. Getting your calories from hyperpalatable foods greatly increases the risk that you will have a setback in your diet.
And then there are the long term consequences of eating non-nutritious foods. Our bodies are amazing at being able to tolerate poor nutrition for a while. A low carb diet is probably not going to be harmful to you if you are on it for a few months (although, given that you'll lose mostly muscle and water weight, it isn't nearly as helpful as we have been led to believe). However, you will probably end up dying much too early from one of the diseases that kill most people in developed nations, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, or a disease of the mind.
The fact is that it does matter where you get your calories. While you can be successful strictly at losing weight in the short run by eating fewer calories than you burn, you will probably find that you are losing weight that you would prefer to keep and keeping weight that you would prefer to lose. And in the long run, eating an unhealthy diet can have disastrous consequences on your health.
Once there was a long beautiful thread running by a guy who decided to bulk eating fast and processed food as an experiment. He had blood work done periodically--always perfect. Even he was astonished. He posted progress pics that were amazing. He was ripped. His thread was pointed out every time someone did a post like yours. The denial was ferocious, so the thread was taken down. Things are not as you think.
Bulking and ripped, that is amazing. Cheers
It was this guy.
https://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=141807961&p=822484731#post822484731
He posted his diet on that bodybuilding.com thread, and there are photos of him there. Last I knew there were still some before and progress photos of him scattered around MFP, and he posted semi-often on other threads here for quite a while, so it's not likely to be some made-up thing IMO - too much self-consistent information over a long period of time.
He was very active, as I recall, in diverse ways, so a pretty high TDEE, and he did pay some attention to macros, but IIRC experimented at times with relatively lower protein than the usual bodybuilder recommendations, and absolutely did eat lots of what most people would consider junk food.
It was sort of like the bodybuilder equivalent of the Twinkie diet guy. It's pretty amusing.
Thanks Ann. Ok, I did casually scan that thread but generally or mostly he was in deficit territory, and a pretty big deficit most of the time from what I saw. I guess I'm missing the point.0
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