Fast Answer to the CICO Contingent

(Karl) #52

Don’t recall having this discussion, but it’s possible :slight_smile: I think the topic is fascinating for sure.

As to that experiment, the big variable is metabolism, right? I mean - when you metabolize food into whatever your body wants to do with it, I would assume a part of that food would be used to synthesize whatever it required for its own purposes, some of it would go to waste, a certain level of fat might be burned off and breathed out, etc. So I have to assume that the weight of the human could be widely variable - at least that’s my knee-jerk answer.

(karen) #53

Yes, precisely. My big question … let’s now torture a pair of identical twins.
If you put, say, 2000 calories of carbohydrate into the box of one twin, and 2000 calories of fat into the box of the other, would there be a difference in weight of body fat in these two people after time? In each box, what would the incoming calories be converted into and how much of that weight would stay in the body. If CICO is actually true, the two people should have exactly the same percentage of body fat, or if we assume there is no difference in the energy used to metabolize these calories they should have the exact same body weight. Would they??

(TJ Borden) #54

I know a set of twins and one is a vegan… let me see if I can get them into boxes

(Karl) #55

Let’s say you got the answer definitively for that set of twins. The experiment makes me ask myself “Am I asking the right question?” Because I think you could get a completely new set of twins and get a potentially different outcome. I mean, isn’t this basically what Ancel Keys kind of did? He found a swath of people who had heart attacks with high fat diets, but then kind of ignored the populations that didn’t despite the fact they too had high-fat diets?

I think I see your point, but I still feel the glass-box test is too narrow to definitively say low-carb is unequivocally better than low-fat (or any other diet for that matter) for all people.

(karen) #56

Ok. :blush:

I’ll agree, I’m looking for continuity and mice would make a better if less entertaining glass box experiment. And you’re right, I doubt every twin or every mouse would point to the same answer. Mice probably can’t even point. Nothing works for everyone. But I would love to see if there was some observable link between type of calorie ingested and weight / body fat percentage, if the majority of subjects swayed the conclusion one way or the other.

– What I take away from the Ancel Keys study is that he was a horrible scientist, from a technical standpoint. The point of scientific method is to disprove your hypothesis, come up with a different explanation, try to disprove that and so on until you have something you can’t disprove, then let your peers have a crack at it. He basically disproved his hypothesis and then cheated until it looked like he hadn’t. So what he basically proved wasn’t that high fat is ok for some people and not others, he proved that there is no observable correlation - and then buried the data.

(Jay AM) #57

This might help a bit with your glass box. Minus dead people.

(Jay AM) #58

That’d be one to explain to the police later.

(Karl) #59

…and there’s the problem, obviously. And I totally agree - that would be a fascinating test. I doubt it would ever get funded. I think you’d see more money thrown at the testers just to BURY it. :slight_smile:

Also, when I say that your test makes me wonder if I’m asking the right question - it’s because I’m not sure it really matters if one wins over the other. Not when the BIGGER question in my mind is whether a human is happy doing it.

Case in point, my wife can do the calorie-counting thing all day long, eat mostly carbs, and be completely content doing it. I go batshit crazy. Let’s say my wife and I switched diets for the duration of this test: She adopts my High-fat-low-carb ways, and I adopt her mostly-carb ways. Now we’re both miserable for the science of it, and let’s say it turns out her way makes me lose more weight… It’s still not sustainable if i’m miserable :slight_smile: In the end, the test would only give “academic” data. It’s not valueless data, but it would become valueless to me if I couldn’t apply the academic data to actual life without being a miserable bastard :slight_smile:

(TJ Borden) #60

It does make me think of that old joke of how you prove dog is man’s best friend:

Put your dog and your wife in the trunk of the car. Open it up after a half hour and see which one is happy to see you.

(karen) #61

Well that is definitely true. It doesn’t apply to the original question of how to propose to a CICO believer that (possibly) a keto diet actually allows you to eat more calories without having them show up on your hips, but sure, if the debate is over which WOE is the best one, the best one is the one that you can live with.

(Alison Romero) #62

You just described me.

#63

That’s fine, but pre-Keto, even when I was bursting, I was still hungry. Not satisfied.

I run out of food on my plate. What Keto has done for me is to give me the willpower to not go and fill up the plate again. But if I kept a bag of sunflower seeds within easy reach for snacking, it’ll be gone by the end of the evening.

(Raj Seth) #64

Oh WOW. I’m a gonna add that to my vocabulary!!
:+1::+1::+1:

(Karl) #65

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(Alec) #66

That reminds me, have you finished the painting yet? :laughing::+1:

(TJ Borden) #67

No… :pensive:

(MooBoom) #68

I’ve seen your answers on a few threads now and you always find a BRILLIANT way of explaining complex concepts in easy to understand terms. Bravo. :raised_hands:

(Jay AM) #69

Well thank you! :blush: I’m glad you got some value from my information and explanations.

(Sarah Slancauskas) #70

Thanks for this! Your examples have helped me understand things a bit more clearly.

(Justin Jordan) #71

Yeah, it is.

it might not be for YOU. But either I stop eating when I decide I have had enough or I eat until I can’t get any more down my throat. For some percentage of people satiety is a unicorn. Why it pains people in this forum so greatly that this could be so is something of a mystery to me.