Can someone tell me if my thoughts are correct on CICO

(Robert C) #162

Two 120 pound people - one being a marathon runner and one being sedentary run for 1 mile. CICO “science” says they burn the same amount of calories (physics 101 - weight over distance). It is not even close, the marathon runner is so adapted and efficient that they cannot burn nearly the calories of the sedentary person.

2 people of identical physical structure eat 2,500 calories of cheese covered butter fried ribeye. The two people are hormonally completely different with the first having regularly low insulin, good sleep and low stress but the second is has high insulin, sleeps 4 or 5 hours a night and is in the middle of an ugly divorce. Both continue to undertake the same activities. CICO “science” says they will store the same amount of fat but, it is obvious that the person with the better hormone profile will store much less.

CICO “science” applies to cars - put a gallon of gas in an empty car, it will travel a certain distance and then stop. Add a bunch of gas and run it a few thousand miles more until it is empty, add another gallon and again, it will go the same distance as the first time. It cannot “adapt” like people can to use fuel more or less efficiently.

“science-denying stuff” could be thought of as what keto is all about - add calories to lose weight - crazy right? But, it turns out to be healthier (considering everyone’s better blood numbers) and to have better longevity (people commonly seem to bounce on calorie restriction but there are some very long term happy ketoers on this site).

(Jennibc) #163

Yes, what I notice about this group and lots of groups is that people get an idea ‘stuck’ in their heads, they are convinced of its universal correctness and anyone that has experience that runs contrary to their closely held belief is told why they are wrong about their own experience. It’s maddening as it is the same kind of entrenched belief system that we get from ‘nutritional experts’ that are telling us CICO and a calorie is a calorie is a calorie.

If I say I have noticed after a concerted weight loss effort for the past 8 years if I exceed a certain calorie threshold for the day, I gain weight, despite me being in ketosis, it means calories matter for me. I don’t think it’s the same as me saying the calories in calories out paradigm is correct, but acknowledging a trend that I notice. Do I know why? Nope. Does it really matter? Nope. What matters is to learn how my body responds to certain things and to utilize that information to reach my goal which in now in sight. I also share my experience so I add to the Wisdom of the Crowd and anyone else that might get stuck can see if the trend applies to them as well.

I track what I eat everyday, I track my sleep everyday and weigh myself everyday to see what certain things do to me. I know when something is a water gain, or alcohol related, or because of salt or because of lack of sleep. I started tracking about three years ago and that’s what allowed me to be honest with myself with regard to what certain things do to me. Which in turn led to lots of tweaking and then I found myself on a Keto diet without even knowing what Keto was. Basically through observation I tweaked and tweaked figured out what worked and settled into a low carb, higher fat, moderate protein diet that has left me 98 pounds lighter. My biggest drop in the shortest amount of time was when I upped my fat and took out seed oils which is really interesting. It may be that a switch like that doesn’t have as dramatic and effect for other people, but it did for me.

(Robert C) #164

Physics should be applied to machines but not people.

People are adaptive, hormonal and thinking beings - physics (CICO) should not be applied.

Physics was applied in an important decision a half-century ago - carbs are 4 calories per gram and fat is 9 - so, go low fat.

It was hammered into society - even now, many people when asked “Is low fat best?” will answer “yes” - because fat is high calorie. Many people’s knee jerk reaction in the supermarket is to grab the item marked “low fat”.

We have depressed doctors cutting off people feet because of this kind of pure physics thinking.

Humans

  • Adapt - they cannot, as many doctors suggest by saying “move more, eat less”, exercise their way out of being heavy without having a high probability of rebounding or having to continually exercise more as they adapt to the load
  • Have hormones - the onslaught of carbs replacing fats in our diets has caused hormonal issues leading to our current diabetes epidemic
  • Think - satiety signaling is totally messed up with high-carb diets

So, applying physics like this has got us to where we are now (a bad place). Read the “Obesity Code” by Dr. Jason Fung, get educated on the true factors at play (of which calories ARE included but macros and meal timing affect the “human machine” too).

(Jennibc) #165

I feel like you are perhaps not listening to me. I’m telling you, from several years of tracking and how my body responds, that if I eat in excess of a certain amount of calories, even if in ketosis, I show a gain that last for a few weeks. I am not saying it’s calories in calories out, what I am saying is total food consumption in terms of calories effect me is such a way that I gain or lose. I know my own body and what it does. For instance my rings are tight after I consume too much salt in a day and I’ll show a gain but it will be gone the next day. I am a post menopausal woman and my system is going to be very different than yours. What might work for you, will not work for me. I can drink alcohol in moderation one time a week and still show a loss, if I drink more times than that, I will either stagnate or gain. My loss rate is about 3-4 pounds a month since going keto despite other people here losing huge amounts in a short amount of time. I am not discouraged because it’s working and I will be at goal, if I continue on course in in just a few months.

(less is more, more or less) #166

This is just a conversation, not a convocation.

In my post wondering out loud about calories, I purposely reference extrinsic and reliable sources. Other posts are more ponderous, some are poignant or just plain silly, like mine. I’m missing the “anti-science” thread part.

What evidence do you have that this thread is “driving people away?” Your DMs? You understand the difference between anecdotal and empirical evidence, right? Have the admins given you access to the website analytics, proving this? If so, you have my attention.

What I see is an opportunity for those we admire in the medical community to provide more clarifying information on this matter.

Ironically, I’ve liked several of your posts in this thread, even if your posts, here, seem to be more reactive than informative.

Is it your intent to say that posts you disagree with are, therefore, anti-science? There’s a dogmatic reflexiveness to that.

(Jennibc) #167

The pork rinds I eat aren’t fried in oils so the PUFA are very low. Only .5 grams per serving, the bulk comes from saturated fat and then there is mono in there too.

(Cindy) #168

@Jennibc, I think you and @RobC ARE talking the same language for the most part because you’re emphasizing what works for YOU. You’re not relying on some random calorie calculator. And that’s what RobC is saying…as humans, we adapt, we each have hormonal differences, etc.

So your energy needs are different from someone else’s AND I think you’re attuned enough to your body to know that those energy needs might change again at some point so you would then adjust your food intake to compensate.

gabe keeps implying that it’s “just” physics and biochemistry and people shouldn’t be bothered by the use of a physics measurement (calorie) in an application to people. But calories are very inaccurate measurements of energy in food and can be utilized quite differently from person to person.

Going back to a car/gasoline analogy. You can know that a gallon of gas will release X amount of energy in a car, but you wouldn’t then say that putting that gallon of gasoline on an already burning fire was a wise idea. Even in something as simple as gas, the SYSTEM in which it’s used matters.

Even IF this debate is driving people away, I think it’s an important one. How many people don’t try keto because it just does NOT fit into the “calories matter” paradigm? They can’t eat more fat because the almighty calorie goes up. Or they can’t eat to satiety and get their metabolism moving in a healthier direction becomes the calories go up. How often, do we see posts about “I can’t make the macros fit!”. Why do these people think that they should have to fit into certain numbers (vs seeing what numbers work for them, as you’re doing)? Because we’ve had years of saying “You SHOULD eat x amounts of this and that.”

And just one more variable in the “why calories really might NOT matter”…has anyone here been keeping up on the gut flora research?


(Jennibc) #169

Could be that people are getting caught up on the terminology. But calorie amount is one way to quantify my food intake and apparently, the quantity affects my ability to drop inches and poundage. I think the problem here lies in throwing the baby out with the bath water. Yes, as many on this board I am infuriated that for years I was blamed for my obesity and and shamed by health care professionals in that they didn’t believe that I wasn’t ‘over consuming’ calories and must be under reporting because as I remember one saying ‘a calorie is a calorie is a calorie’ However that doesn’t mean there is no place for looking at calorie content of foods when deciding how much one should consume in a day. I think a week or so ago someone on this forum lectured me about how I didn’t have to count calories while on keto. Well, I an on Keto and if I don’t pay attention I stall, as in I show no loss for two to three weeks. Being that I only lose about a pound a week, that’s a frustrating place to be. I am never one of those people that has the 30 pounds in a month loss. That just isn’t how my body works. Even when I was an chubby teen, and started walking 7 miles a day and practically fasting it took me two and half months to lose 40 pounds. I’d never felt better in my life prior to that and my diet consisted of hard boiled eggs and salad. I think back to it and I must have been in ketosis because I was calmer, happier, and did better in school. But unfortunately I went back to eating carbs and while I kept the weight off for over a decade, my focus control issues came back and my mood swings came back.

(Bob M) #170

But the chicken is quite high in PUFAs.

Set up a thought experiment:

Diet 1: pork, chicken, avocados (yes, higher in PUFAs), etc.

Diet 2: grass-fed red meat, coconut oil, grass-fed lamb, fish

You can’t calorie match them, as high PUFA = higher calorie. Which is better?

These pork rinds are mainly monounsaturated fat, which is basically neutral wrt insulin resistance/sensitivity of fat cells:

Regardless, this just shows that counting calories misses a lot.

#171

The 'Obesity Code ’ podcast has a podcast on YoYo dieting. Plus others!
Someone may have already posted this idea but I didn’t have time this morning to read through them all. Check it out! I use the ap ‘Castbox’ and I get the ‘2 Dudes’ and the ‘Obesity Code’ series for free.

(Bob M) #172

OK, let’s say that you want to count calories. If you eat 2,000 calories a day, how much error do you think there is in counting calories? I’d estimate plus or minus 200 calories.

(Jennibc) #173

Yes, if you don’t clean up your diet - take out all the inflammatory [spoiler]shit[/spoiler] then watching calories is of no benefit. Honestly, I have never heard of chicken skins prior to just now. I live in TX and pork rinds are everywhere. Some are flavored and they have all the added crap so we just buy the plain ones and dip in guacamole or homemade queso. On the ingredients list - pork skin and salt. That’s it. Also I feel better when I eat avocado so I don’t think I am having inflammation from that.

(Gabe “No Dogma, Only Science Please!” ) #174

I can’t possibly reply to all of the responses to me here. But I think it’s hilarious that you have people claiming that physics doesn’t apply to the human body (it does) or that calories don’t matter (calories are just units of energy, so of course they matter.)

Funniest of all is that most of you probably applauded David Ludwig’s recent very expensive study that got loads of media and which the Dudes also discussed. One of the best ways to do studies showing that low carb diets are superior to high carb diets is by using calorie measurements — OH MY GOD! CICO! HE SAID “CALORIES!” — and that’s exactly what he did here:

https://health.usnews.com/health-care/articles/2018-11-14/low-carb-diets-may-work-by-boosting-calorie-burn

Low carb diets do not work like magic. They reduce your insulin levels, enabling your body to burn its own body fat. And fat satiates. So generally you’ll be eating fewer calories than you expend. CICO.

You don’t have to count them, you just have to eat to satiety, but calories totally matter, and if you deny that, I hope you’re also denying climate change, evolution, and the efficacy of vaccinations.

Honestly it’s getting really frustrating hearing this constant science denialism. Enough dogma. Your diet is not a religion. Science matters.

#175

Kerrygold all the way! I don’t know how I lived without it before LOL

(Bob M) #176

Just to show the futility of tracking calories, here are my DEXA scan results for a year, beginning about 6 months after I had shoulder surgery:

DEXA
DEXA.PNG1029×426 323 KB

In about a year, I gained 3.3 pounds of muscle and lost 5.4 pounds of fat. The scale showed 2 pounds difference! And even if I counted calories, assuming I eat 2,500 calories a day (low, but let’s use it), that’s 912,500 calories in a year (assuming 1 pounds = 3,500 calories, which is complete crap, but there you go). To lose 5.4 pounds of fat, that’s 18,900 calories, which means I’d have to be accurate in calories to about 2 percent.

It’s no possible to do, even tracking everything.

(Running from stupidity) #177

TBF, words mean things, and thus they are somewhat important :slight_smile:

(Jane) #178

I would be concerned about only eating 700-1400 cal/day and freezing all the time. Being cold all the time is one indication of a lowered metabolism and 700-1400 cal/day is pretty low.

Don’t know if you are male or female - either way not a lot of food to maintain 170+ lbs. Do you expect to have to eat that little from now on? I guess if you aren’t hungry it’s no big deal and sustainable.

(Robert C) #179

In the past I have noticed a trend of receiving likes for agreement (avoiding simple restatement of the same thing) and responses for disagreement.

(less is more, more or less) #180

In twitter-land this is “the ratio.” Not exactly science, but approximate enough.

(Jennibc) #181

I agree! But what I see is that when someone writes ‘calories matter’ for me as I did above it seemed that a few people assumed I meant that ‘calories in calories out’ was what I meant. Like ‘calories matter’ is shorthand for that or something. But that’s not what I wrote.