Can someone tell me if my thoughts are correct on CICO

#51

Thanks for that clarification and I think you got the nail on the head as far as how newbies like me hear CICO. Just starting keto now and determined to do it right as I’ve failed in the past. And because of this I worry too much about the details such as total calories intake. It’s hard to come out of this mentality… I’m glad I joined this forum and saw this thread as yesterday was officially a successful me to say for me as data as consuming less than 20g of carbs and meeting macros, but I was discouraged at the end of the day when I realized I ate over 2000 calories (most coming from fat) and I know I only burned about 1900 calories for missing my workouts and sitting at a desk all day. I almost through in the towel, but now determined to continue Today! So thank you and Robert_Johnson.

Just a little background, I’ve lost 20 pounds since september by weekly water fasting 2-3 days with eating larger the following 2-3days, than fasting again in such pattern with weekly high intensity workouts 4 times a week. I tracked my calories through it all. I haven’t fasted as committedly since thanksgiving and looking to get back on track now and I see how many fast-ers enjoy doing kept at the same time. I was hoping that with keto and fasting I can get back on track better. Any advice is very welcomed!

(Cindy) #52

@Robert_Johnson is correct in that using CICO like this is a trigger. In fact, that statement above has me feeling very annoyed today. I’m curious, @mememe, about your weight loss journey. Because in a way, you’re correct…restrict calories, increase calorie output and you WILL lose weight. But if you’re doing it with CICO, you’ll also REGAIN that weight and have a lower metabolic set point than when you started. So now you have to eat less again for the next weight loss attempt…and the cycle just repeats.

I understand what you’re saying about calories mattering, but I think it’s wrong to put such an emphasis on them. People need to give their metabolisms time to ramp UP…focusing on limiting calories will just delay or stop that process. Also, using the argument that “Well, even on keto, if you doubled your calories, you’d gain weight” is misleading, because if people are truly listening to their body’s signals, they wouldn’t double their calories.

To put it in another context, use the gasoline vs diesel analogy. Eating carbs is like a car using gasoline. It burns quicker, so you run out of fuel sooner, which means you gas up more often. Diesel is slower burning, so you fuel up less often. But you’ll ruin the gas burning car if you fill it with diesel, so talking about them as IF THEY’RE THE SAME (simply fuel for cars) is misleading. You wouldn’t also intentionally OVERFILL either vehicle, which is what you’re suggesting when you mention going from 3000 cal to 6000 cal.

But if you listen/watch the fuel gauge, you’ll know when you need more. My truck burns a lot more diesel when I’m hauling horses so it needs MORE fuel…and then LESS fuel when I’m driving around town. If I said “Sorry, truck, you get 5 gal of diesel/day (calories) and that’s it, I’d be in trouble!”

Calories are useless. Your body’s metabolism will vary according to WHAT you eat, WHEN you eat, how much exercise, how long you exercise, the temperatures outside, if you’re fighting an illness, your age, your hormone levels, how much sleep you’ve had, etc. And taking that to an extreme (Your fuel tank WILL overflow if you try to put in 100 gals of fuel) is too simplistic and too misleading. It’s an outdated concept that needs to disappear.

#53

I am turning to keto for this exact reason and have turned to extended fasting ealrier. When not fasting, I really upped my calories to 3000 calories even. . I’m about 15 pounds away from my goal and once I get there, I would like to throw in occasional 36 hr fasts, and not have to have strict limited calories to maintain. Basically my biggest fear is to lower my BMR and I would like to find a system I can stick to where I can be lax about the actual number of calories but focus on what type of calories I’m consuming. Would you say I’m on the right direction with this logic?

(Cindy) #54

I think you are. If you read Dr. Fung’s work, he even says that it doesn’t really matter what diet you choose to eat, but that it’s the frequency of eating that’s more important. It’s a bit of a catch-22 though, because I think carb-centric diets make it hard to fast or delay eating, but it’s possible. So I would expect that when you’re doing multiple fast periods, you can be a bit more forgiving about what you eat on feast days.

(Robert C) #55

I think the carb-centric vs. non-carb-centric between fasts should probably be a choice made based on what you are doing.

If regular activity and weight loss is the plan - go keto.

If you are an athletic weekend warrior (cycle 100 miles every Saturday and otherwise live in the gym on weekends) then carb cycling to enhance performance might make sense in your weekend refeeds. In this case, it might not be hard to fast because you are probably burning carbs as fast as you are eating them - so they won’t be around long to keep insulin high.

(Gabe “No Dogma, Only Science Please!” ) #56

Once again, I can hold my tongue no longer! :slight_smile:

Calories DO matter. They 100% matter. I’m tired of this trope in the community that calories don’t matter. They do. Everyone agrees they do. Everyone who understands the science, anyway. Gary Taubes, Eric Westman, Steve Phinney, EVERYONE agrees that calories matter. Except some folks on keto boards who keep thinking that any mention of the word “calories” immediately means you’re in favour of a high carb diet.

Look, Taubes explains it like this: CICO is accurate. You get fat when you take in more calories than you expend. (You really have to be willfully ignorant to deny this.) But, Taubes says, that has no explanatory power. The question is WHY someone is compelled to consume more calories or burn fewer calories. He likens it to asking why a rich man is rich, and answering with “well he spent less than he earned.” Well, obviously he spent less than he earned. But why did he earn so much? The key to making money is to figure out how to make it, not to know that earnings minus outgoings equals disposable income.

Same with fat loss: the key is to understand WHAT REGULATES FAT LOSS. And the answer is hormones. Eat too many carbs and you’ll jack up your insulin and keep yourself hungry because your fat cells are hoovering up the energy. (There are other hormonal influences that are less talked about, which is why, for instance, older people, particularly post-menopausal women, have more challenges dropping fat.)

Honestly, the number of times I hear that CICO is irrelevant simply pisses me off. I told the Dudes @richard and @carl about this at KetoFest Down Under and they were surprised that there’s this notion on the forums at all. I think it was Westman who said that "calories do count, but you don’t have to count calories."

I even put up a relatively popular thread on this topic (well, about a corollary of this topic – people who think calories don’t matter tend to advise other people to “eat more fat” as if fat calories have zero impact on the body, which is utter [spoiler]bullshit[/spoiler]):

(Bob M) #57

You may or you may not. They’ve done overfeeding experiments on humans. Some of them gain weight, some of them don’t. Your body can also increase your expenditure. (You tap your leg more, walk around more, run hotter.) This is particularly true, say if you’re eating a diet “high” in saturated fat (cause fat cells to be insulin resistant) and “low” in PUFAs (cause fat cells to be insulin sensitive). (Last is a theory by Hyperlipid and Dr. Eades.)

It’s a never-ending discussion, with no good answer. See this for instance:

Kevin Hall refuses to believe there is a possible metabolic benefit to low carb diets. Is he right? Personally, I think not.

(Robert C) #58

This is the problem - this all or nothing statement.

Per my example above - if calories “100% matter” then eating 6 X 400 calorie pieces of chocolate cake spaced throughout the day would add just as much weight as an OMAD 2,400 cheese topped ribeye.

We all know that - because of our hormones (and if we’re not insulin resistant or something) that these two add very different amounts of weight.

I am not an expert but I feel this should read “You get fat when you take in and store more calories than you expend.”. (There are people that can eat 5,000 calories of fat and not store any of it, your body does seem to have a choice about what to do with calories coming in and does not have to store it.)

YES - calories do matter - but not 100%.

(Teri) #59

I didn’t read all of the comments to this post, so this may have been mentioned, but here goes:

I have noticed that when I do go over my calorie limit which is often, and is always in fat or protein as I’m diligent about my carb intake, I find that I get night sweats really bad. I also tend to get very hyper and generally just seem to have an excess of energy that my body is getting rid of. The sweating specifically I find interesting because that is my body obviously physically getting rid of heat, which is energy. I wonder if that is not its way of getting rid of the excess that I took in the day before, because I’ve not gained weight… even though I go over my calorie limit often because I’ve been trying to gain weight without success. I started keto to control epilepsy while recovering from an eating disorder. I’ve gained muscle which is clear from my workouts and look, but only gained 3lbs in weight over 3 months.
So side note, it makes it clear to me that this diet works for fat loss, because I’ve lost fat… but we all knew that.

(Bob M) #60

What about the ketones that you exhale or pee out? Those are potential calories that you’re not using. You have not “expended” them.

Those “laws” of thermodynamics are based on closed systems. The body is not a closed system.

Case in point (in addition to my examples above): How many times have you eaten food that’s come out the other end partially or largely untouched? A calorie counting would show these as being energy in, but not all of that energy gets absorbed by the body.

(Justin Jordan) #61

Well, no. That’s clearly not what he’s saying.

What he IS saying is that you can’t consume infinite keto calories and not expect to gain weight. Saying that calories matter does not imply all calories matter equally, or any of a thousand straw men.

Alex’s 10,000 calories from fat experiment has several possible outcomes:

1 - He can’t do it. He just can’t eat that much without getting sick and not being able to keep down.

2 - He can’t absorb. He poops out some amount of fat, undigested.

3 - He compensates by ramping up metabolism to 10,000 calories or more per day.

4 - He gains weight.

3 is certainly possible, but it’s probably the least likely outcome. But IF you can absorb the calories, there will be a level at which activity and metabolism can’t compensate.

Metabolisms are adaptive, within limits that vary. There absolutely are people for whom you need to ramp up 10,000 calories to gain weight. It’s not, from overfeeding studies, a lot of people.

I can tell you, with absolute certainty because I have actually done it, that I can maintain a 280 pound body eating just unprocessed meat. And that to lose weight I need to consciously look at consumption.

That doesn’t mean everyone does.

There’s the pretty reasonable argument that CICO doesn’t work IN THE LONG TERM.Then there’s the patently ridiculous one, which has come up in this thread, that it doesn’t work in the short term. It does.

(Justin Jordan) #62

We do love to dance on the third rail, don’t we?

(Consensus is Politics) #63

Ok. Let me clarify here to the best of my ability without getting verbose it going off track.

Lowering calorie intake will not make you lose weight. Unless you lower it by extreme amounts. By extreme I talking 50% or more.

Lowering your energy intake does not guarantee a loss in weight. Your body will compensate for the loss of energy by just slowing down. Lowering its BMR. Not doing it’s normal repairs that it otherwise would do on a full tank. @gabe as much as you hate hearing CICO doesn’t matter, that’s they way I feel about people comparing it to thermodynamics. Sure, calories referred to a certain amount of energy, but has nothing to do with thermodynamics unless you are using the calorie energy units to calculate heating a vessel of water in a vacuum chamber and you want to calculate how long it takes to cook off while it sits next to a sun lamp.

That said, if you went from 2,000 calories to 1,500 calories, and the 500 calories you cut out were pure carbs, THEN I would agree some weight loss would be in your future. Assuming of course you were over weight.

Yes, eat more fat. Until satiated. Don’t force yourself to eat. There is a reason your body wants you to stop. Listen to it.

(Cindy) #64

That! Exactly. @Gabe, I have to ask…have you tried losing weight JUST by using CICO? And if so, when and how many times? Saying calories 100% matter, again, can go back to the fuel efficiency of a car. Using that analogy, if I know my truck averages 15mile/gallon, and if it has a 30 gal tank, then I’m positive I can travel 450 miles on a tank, right? Well, no. Let me load up my trailer with horses, drive over a mountain, sit in stalled traffic for a while, etc. and see just what happens.

There are simply too many variables to a calorie…where calories are coming from, how the person metabolizes them, etc, so that the unit of measure essentially becomes USELESS.
What I would NOT argue is that it matters how YOUR body processes the food you take in. Higher/lower metabolisms, other metabolic issues, male vs female, activity levels, age, etc, ALL play a role.

So when you say “Calories 100% matter”, that leads people to believe that if they stick to X number of calories based upon some stupid calculator, they’ll gain or lose weight by X amount each week. And when that doesn’t happen, it leads to frustration AND blaming the individual.

When I lost 85 lbs and kept it off for about 10yrs, I was eating 500-600 cal/day…EVERY DAMN DAY. It wasn’t specifically keto, but it was “protein and veg first, carb only if there’s room after.” I was working out 5-6 times a week, multiple times per day (personal trainer 3x/week, karate 4-5x/week, horse back riding 2-3x/week…and near the end of that year, I was also training for my black belt, so it included 3 hrs EVERY day of running, forms, kicks, forms, etc). I would get dizzy during workouts, had anemia by the end of the year…but YES, CICO worked! Hoorah! How much damage do you think I did to my metabolism in that year?

So for a KETO board, considering that calories are very much a part of the CICO philosophy that’s been predominate in the nutrition/weight loss world, I think it’s important to focus on energy needs vs some random caloric number.

Again, a calorie is "the energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water through 1 °C " A piece of wood has calories, horse poop has calories…why are we still using that as a way of determining energy needs for a system that’s as complex as the human body?

(Robert C) #65

Exactly! That is exactly correct - calories in some way matter.

Maybe it is 70% calories and 30% hormones that determines final storage.

Maybe it is 90% calories and 10% hormones that determines final storage.

(Depending on the person.)

But - my point was - that it is definitely not 100% calories and 0% hormones that determines final storage.

Pure calories-in-calories-out and / or if-it-fits-your-macros statements can be very misleading (and disheartening) - especially in a forum where people are trying to manipulate and leverage the XX% hormone contribution to fat storage.

#66

Not really sure where to start with this Cindy. I have NEVER said that CICO is the only way or even that it’s the most important thing in weight loss. I have ALWAYS maintained that CICO works and as such, calories do matter. The vast majority of my posts about CICO here, have been in reply to those who claim that either CICO doesn’t work or that calories don’t matter.

I’m sorry my beliefs on CICO upset you (I genuinely am), but I’m not going to change my belief just because you don’t like it.

There is a definite stigma on this forum, for anyone who dares to point out that calories matter. Most of this stigma is coming from people who just don’t understand it (in my opinion). Then they start telling everyone that calories don’t matter, just eat to satiety. This is a load of [spoiler]crap[/spoiler] and can derail a newbies efforts, if they don’t recognise satiety when they feel it (which a hell of a lot of fat people can’t). It can lead to over eating and weight loss failure.

As for my own keto dieting, I started keto this time around, on 13th August this year. I started at 239lbs, and Monday this week, I weighed in at 178. A loss of 61lbs. I have done this through strict keto. <20g carbs (normally 8 - 9g), protein approx. 30%, fat approx. 65% and calories av approx. 1000 (varing from 700 -1400). The protein and fat were not designed to be at those levels, that’s just where they fell. I am very rarely hungry, but I am very often freezing cold. Here is my loss chart
image

Oh and, you might insist that ‘calories are useless’ but without them, you will die.

#67

Ah Gabe, thanks for adding to the debate. You have put it better than I have.

#68

This is my problem with you Rob. You are very quick to pick up on people who talk about CICO mattering or calories absolutely matter but, when people (many of them) say calories don’t matter or CICO doesn’t work, I don’t see you fighting them with as much vigour. 1 of the above statements is true, but you’d never know which one if you believe what most say here.

CICO is a very simple term used to mean the difference between calories consumed and calories burned. If anyone thinks this doesn’t matter, they will probably fail.

(Robert C) #69

Trying to clarify again - CICO implies you could have done the same weight loss (congratulations by the way) by eating the same number of calories in chocolate cake. But you know you cannot. You leveraged keto to some extent - for fat burn and satiety signaling (which you won’t get with chocolate cake). So, again, rethink the CICO usage considering it is such a loaded term.

(Justin Jordan) #70

This just isn’t true. There are literally millions of people who’ve done it, and there probably hundreds of studies where you can see people losing at much smaller deficits. Some people can’t lose weight with small deficits. Most can.

This is different than being able to keep it off.