CICO - more than one path out

(david czech) #1

I have seen a lot of arguing over whether Calories In Calories Out is important in determining weight loss.

I don’t know how many calories I have burned in my lifetime, nor do I know how many I have eaten, but I am VERY CLOSE to CERTAIN that my current body is NOT the only difference between the two. If it was, I suspect I’d weigh many tons by now…

Maybe I’m just full of CO, but:

No one ever seems to mention what I’m guessing is one of the most important things that happens (at least to me) when I increase CI, the amount of calories I excrete by defecation APPEARS to increase as well. I have not tested this by weighing or anything else like that, but it just seems that this path for CO CaloriesOut doesn’t ever seem to be factored into the equation.

(TJ Borden) #2

You pretty much just hit it on the head why CICO doesn’t work. People get fixated on controlling their calories in with the assumption that their calories out is either a fixed target or it’s something they can control, neither of which is the case.

A forced deficit of calories in causes your metabolism to slow, which means your calories out also slows, making it even tougher to loose weight.

A caloric deficit IS necessary to lose weight, but it comes naturally through appetite suppression by becoming fat adapted. Once you’re fat adapted, your body will happily pull from stored fat for energy, but it can only pull so much stored fat a day, so it’s important to still eat to satiety to ensure you’re supplementing the calories being pulled from storage with calories eaten to keep your metabolism burning full steam.

(Ethan) #3

You all have it half-right. CICO is correct. The problem is that the O depends on the I. In other words, it’s a feedback loop. You cannot reliability predict what O will be; you cannot measure it without complex equipment 24/7. Thus, the model appears to fail because you put different I values and don’t get the weight loss/gain expected–but that is only because the O changed.

#4

As I understand it, when one uses calorie restriction metabolism slows but when one fasts (abstaining from all calories) metabolism increases. It seems like an easy choice to me, you could essential reduce the same amount of calories over that period of time, what’s important is the method. For some reason CICO advocates can’t seem to get their head around this even though there is science to back it up. I’ll post the studies here for those interested.

Poop isn’t calories, which is why we can remove fibre from our carb count, it’s literally the bulk in what you eat that can’t be digested. Short of some kind of malabsorption issue, you body will use ever calories you ingest, if not as energy it will store it as fat.

#5

EXACTLY! THIS is what I don’t understand about people and CICO, nobody ever wants to just realize it’s not right… but it’s not wrong either. People want to go to one extreme or the other and nobody wants to admit that (in general) In vs Out matters, BUT we just can’t really count it right so relying on it fails. More than one thing can be correct.

One thing that nobody ever talks of (that I’ve seen) is how the hell do we know we’re even assigning correct caloric values to half the food to begin with? The methods they use are with machines and NOT people! It’s like telling us something is unhealthy because a rat died after eating 2 tons of it. So many variables it’s just stupid.

(Ethan) #6

I am always tempted to try and show it better, but it never looks as good as in my head:

I = O + A
O = f(I) + A,

where f(I) is a complex function that takes input of your hormonal and metabolic statuses, stress, exercise, body composition, and type of food, as well as the calories of that food itself, and A is the amount of weight you will gain (lose).

Thus,

I = f(I) + A,

and you may or may not lose or gain any weight A.

(TJ Borden) #7

I’ve mentioned that several times, but people that cling to CICO don’t want to hear it. The disparity is even greater for people on keto because real whole food is even tougher to guess at. For meat, every cut is a little different. For veggies, the ripeness and the growing region can both have a HUGE impact on its caloric content.

I’ve never said calories don’t matter, but I’m a firm believer that “counting” calories is worthless for MOST people.

(Cynthia Anderson) #8

Over the past 10 years or so I have lost and kept off 40 lbs.

I did so with cico so I know for a fact it worked for me.

I used to drink over 1000 calories a day in the form of soda and sweet tea. I used to eat when stressed not hungry.
I used to eat at least 500 calories in just junk food.

I reduced my soda consumption. Then I switched to tea with Splenda. Now I drink water.

Maybe it’s because I was overeating but I definitely lost weight by cutting calories.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #9

It’s one of my favorite lines by Dr. Westman: “Calories are important, but we shouldn’t count them.”

My favorite way to look at this is Gary Taubes’s observation about causality: People who believe that “a calorie is a calorie” assume that the causality runs in one direction, when it actually runs in the opposite direction. In other words, we’re not getting fatter because we’re eating more calories than we’re expending, we have to take in more calories than we’re expending because our body is in fat-storage mode.

The first point of view is like saying that your teenager had a growth spurt because she suddenly started eating a lot more food, when in reality we all know that her hormones drove her growth and she had to eat more to fuel it. As Taubes points out, we all know that it’s hormones at work in that case, so why do we insist that hormones have nothing to do with it when people get fat?

#10

I remember one episode of The Obesity Code Podcast, where the nutritionist telling her story, said that counting calories became such an obsession for her, that food was nothing more than a number.

On top of that, she wasn’t eating well, and in very poor health. Skinny, but unhealthy.

To me, CICO is just a trap, whether you loose weight or not. CICO isn’t sound dietary advice, it’s a flawed dogma based in conjunction with a flawed diet-heart hypothesis.

I’ve never worried about my calorie intake, but I used to eat out of necessity. I ate because I had to. I thought I liked the food I ate, but I usually didn’t or I felt terrible after eating. But now I look forward to eating, and I know I’m going to love it, AND I know it’s going to be good for me.

I have found freedom to enjoy and love the food I eat through the ketogenic diet. I have improved my health, I’ve lost weight, and I’ve never counted a calorie.

(Doug) #11

Totally agree - the “calories out” part includes burning, excretion and storage, not just burning. Then ‘CICO’ works just fine.

(david czech) #12

OK, so I’m going to somewhat generalize what has been stated in response to my post here (and a little of my own take):

Calories in and calories out matter, but are difficult/impossible to measure accurately, and calories out is at least somewhat a function of calories in.

CI: Difficult to know/measure accurately:
Quality, consistency, etc of food (ie my 1g of bacon <> NOT = your 1g of bacon)
Cal tables based on calorimeter reactions of supposedly representative samples
(is this following point a CI or CO point, or both?)
Caloric generation from food is personal(ie my body can gen more or less per 1g than yours)

CO: Difficult to know/measure also:
Multiple pathways for CO
Tables for CO values of exercises, etc seem based on WAGs (wild guesses)
Real measurement of CO is difficult
(is this following point a CI or CO point, or both?)
Efficiency of absorption/malabsorption from food WILL differ from person to person

(david czech) #13

Crickette, (and anyone else please comment)

I’m not sure how to correctly define my eating pattern:

I typically intermittently fast about 23.5 hours per day.
Or
I restrict my caloric intake to something less than unlimited during my 24 hour period, it just so happens that I only eat during .5 hours of each 24 hours.

Anyway, I WOULD like to see at least the summaries of a few of the studies you (@crickette mentioned) have read detailing how different timing of meals/caloric intake effects metabolism.

I’d generally like to read what these studies have been proven to be effective for increasing lean mass, or at least some hints that would suggest a particular eating pattern to be optimal for this goal.

(TJ Borden) #14

What you’re describing is OMAD (one meal a day). It’s a common and popular approach.

The point is to limit the amount of time you have an insulin response. If you’re insulin resistant, your elevated insulin after eating can last for several hours. But shrinking the eating window to as small as possible, you end up with MOST of your time being in a low insulin state.

With your insulin “switch” turned off most of the time, you are able to burn stored fat more easily.

The challenge, and often the pitfall, of OMAD is making sure it’s one hell of a meal, not a snack. It can be very easy to end up not getting enough calories only eating OMAD at which point your metabolism can slow.

I personally follow Megan Ramos’ advice about mixing things up. In order to avoid homeostasis, I eat OMAD a few days a week, 16:8 a couple days, then on the weekend I might even have brunch and dinner… up to a 10 hour eating window :flushed:

(david czech) #15

I have absolutely NO issue with the meal being big enough. If what I eat qualified as someone’s snack, I would not want anything to do with their food bill !

MUCH more of a problem with it being too much. (at least by CI measurement metrics :wink: ) approx 3500-4000 kCal last night.

I am currently at around 12-14% fat and thinking I’d like to get to about 8% for a while.

BTW, for anyone wondering, I CI approximately 3-4k kCals/day and supposedly burn/CO something around 1.5-3k/day for exercise, with a BMR “calculation” of 1.674k

BMR “calculation”: Men: BMR = 66 + ( 6.23 x weight in pounds ) + ( 12.7 x height in inches ) - ( 6.8 x age in years )
so 66+(6.23x170)+(12.7x70)-(6.8x50) = 1674

(Empress of the Unexpected) #16

I lost weight cutting out eight glasses of milk a day.

#17

The studies are mentioned in this talk by Dr. Jason Fung: Therapeutic Fasting, I am still trying to source the actual studies among the hundreds I have semi-filed away and will provide links.

To create an increase in metabolism it requires extended fasting, I encourage you to watch the talk, as Dr Fung explains it much better than I ever could. He does talk about lean mass and shows a study that indicates that lean mass isn’t affect by extended fasting but also breaks down myths about how the body deals with lean mass loss, in a nutshell, you would have to have no other option for the body to choose lean body mass to use as fuel.

#18

lol

(david czech) #19

Dr Fung gives a good talk for sure.

It did bother me that at 24:50 when showing a chart that VERY CLEARLY shows a 5% decrease in RMR from baseline to day 22, he claims RMR is unchanged. (“really hasn’t dropped” rather than unchanged)
Doesn’t disprove what I took to be his main message that fasting is not bad, but isn’t a 5% RMR decrease in 22 days pretty significant?

I REALLY LIKED the Advantages of Fasting and Add to any diet charts and his discussion of those!

(TJ Borden) #20

Big picture? Not really. It’s also important to remember that Dr Phung doesn’t advocate that long of an extended fast for most people.