New one from Precision Nutrition
Good description of CICO and its complexity
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David_Stilley
(Full Metal KETO AF)
#6
@BlueViolet I thought the article was BS. They lost me before this gem came up:
But hereās the deal: Metabolic damage isnāt really a thing. Even though it may seem that way.
It was just the usual move more eat less 
.
Hereās the sales pitch, from the end:
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No thanks, got the weight control thing down, no investment or coaching necessary. We got this already. I almost spam flagged it.
ajbennett
(Jack Bennett)
#7
To avoid any doubt, I have no connection to these guys. I found the article interesting but if itās too sales-oriented or spam-like for our forums I can take it down. How do you delete a topic?
JohnH
(John)
#8
I donāt personally see a need for that. Many sites provide useful information but also want to sell something, otherwise they couldnāt operate the site.
I thought it contained some worthwhile information for thought and consideration. I always try to look at all of the viewpoints on topics like this. There are some who are vehemently opposed to such ideas, but others who think it is a reasonable discussion point.
Fangs
#9
lfod14
#11
Why? Itās valid. It gave plenty of credit to both sides of the CICO debate, the hormonal view, other things coming into it, us not being able to accurately track calories out (or in). The only people that are going to have a problem with that article are people that 100% believe one extreme or the other and give no credit to it being a balance of both of them. So they plugged themselves here and there, so?
ajbennett
(Jack Bennett)
#12
Well, there was a bit of push back and Iām still relatively new so I didnāt want to violate community norms. I think the article is a good, balanced look at CICOās pros and cons.
I did physics in college so my perspective on conservation of energy and/or mass is a bit different from the medical and biochemical approach.
What do we know for certain? If you eat something, it goes somewhere. Either itās processed by your body (metabolized), processed through an alternative means (e.g. gut bacteria ferment fiber into SCFA), or not processed at all. All your ācalories inā has to come from that. And from the physics perspective, it really feels more like āconservation of massā than āconservation of energyā.
(And of course, this may be a fun philosophical point, but it doesnāt tell you anything about how to lose some body fat. In that sense, CICO is not very helpful to dieters who want to eat healthy and lose some weight.)
BlueViolet
(hottie turned hag)
#13
Nah dude, donāt sweat that! ALL threads about CICO have that element present therein.
I liked the article, it was written for laypersons and seemed balanced to me as well.
OldDoug
(Doug)
#14
Jack, indeed - there has to be the physical/mathematical reality of what happens. I always feel that to say, āCICO is wrong,ā is silly, because of course there is no getting around the physical laws at work.
What I see happening is the conflating of peoplesā struggles to lose weight by mere calorie restriction with the mathematical basis and truth of what occurs. It is not that CICO is wrong, itās that theyāre denying the logical premise - keeping the āOutā less than the āInā for weight loss. This is not an intentional failing - I think that almost everybody has trouble maintaining the necessary conditions if itās just āeating less,ā per se, because the āOutā can and eventually does decline due to slowing metabolism.
The āmagicā of keto is that it allows much better access to our stored fat, versus a diet with substantial carbohydrates in it, when insulin resistance is a problem. Now the āInā is larger, and our bodies donāt feel as much need to slow down and conserve energy, so the āOutā remains higher.
This does not mean that ācalories donāt matterā - of course they matter, because whether we speak of calories or kilos or pounds right down to numbers of molecules and individual atoms, it is as you said, this stuff goes somewhere.
Thereās another thread - Can we please stop repeating the āYou have to eat at a deficit to lose weight on KETOā lie?
I think in practice itās not a concern, at least not as we start eating ketogenically - letās get the hormonal healing going, letās start the process of improving insulin sensitivity, etc. Seems to me that most people end up eating less when eating keto, without struggling - itās more satisfying fare and thereās not the increased hunger from carb-induced greater insulin secretion and other hormonal effects of a non-keto diet.
Once weāre fat-adapted and things are really going in the right direction, then perhaps later on the āweight-loss stallsā come into play, and some adjustments or fine-tuning is advisable.
You mentioned the āconservation of massā - Iād add that the body is always aware of its energy balance. It is not that āall calories are the sameā (Iād state the opposite, there), but still - the body needs a reason to burn its own stored fat.