If CICO doesn‘t work (as per Fung) why does IF work?

(Justin Jordan) #71

Yes?

#72

If CICO “worked” then the entire world wouldn’t be fat and diabetic. That has been the practice for 60 years.

There are WOE that work for some people and not others. For the majority it doesn’t that is clear.
Ketogenic diets have been proven the most effective in clinical trials over all others. I’m not sure about IF, if there have been any but I’m certain it will be found effective

For IF I guess people can for now disagreed but for Ketogenic WOE the science is settled.

There are so many studies on why CICO is useless I can’t believe it is being discussed.

I saw a podcast a guy increased his caloric intake to 6000 calories for a month. Eating it in in a LCHF WOE no weight gain.
The machine speeds up and slows down plane and simple

(Justin Jordan) #73

I stayed 280 pounds eating literally meat and cheese. Close to zero carbs per day.

So yeah, the 5000 calorie trick doesn’t work for everyone.

(Shane) #74

I did something like this (without the podcast :slight_smile: ).
Upped intake to 3000-5000kcal for 2-3 months. No weight loss, but I dropped 2 clothes sizes and increased lean mass and strength. My body loved all the extra protein.
Then went away for 5 or 6 days and upped input to 5000-7000kcal and came home lighter. :slight_smile:

Could be an insulin resistance thing and cheese.
I’ve been eating up to 600g of sour cream and 1/2 to 1 cup of cheese a day on top of my normal food which may be stopping weight loss (not fat loss), but seems to help fuel my workouts and could also help protein uptake. The main downside so far is my average BG sits a little higher now. Peeks as high as 5.4 and rarely dropping below 5.0. It use to be below 5 most of the time before adding so much dairy.
Might be time to reinvent myself. Last year I went from low carb to fasting to keto to carnivore and lost 100lb (from 285) and started reshaping. This year is aimed at building lean mass and losing up to another 30lb (40lb of fat). I don’t think what I’m doing now is sustainable long term, but who knows.

(Utility Muffin Research Kitchen) #75

I guess you know quite well that we have way too few studies with keto, and that a chief issue with nutrition in general is that they are almost always against a high-carb background. So we I only speculate because there is no study that I know of. However, there are plenty of people that eat just one meal a day and are very happy with that, or do alternate day fasting. It’s fairly hard to eat 2000 calories in one meal, or 4000 calories on one day. So yes, I’m pretty sure that the physical response is different on keto.

It makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint. Carby diet was always associated with surplus food (summer), it just didn’t happen for long stretches that we had to go with limited calories and a high carb ratio. (Or if it did happen, those people would starve in the winter anyway.) In the summer, in fattening mode, the body does everything it can to hold on to its fat. Of course we will see weird responses if we don’t get enough calories. But on keto, in the winter, it would be quite bad if our metabolic rate was reduced or if we became depressed and agitated, because all this would lower our chance to catch the next beast in order to have meat.

If you get down to it, evolution was incredibly smart in the way it designed us. The more I understand about it, the more in awe I am. Creating an energy system that provides severe drawbacks in a scenario that was the rule and not the exception (limited energy intake in the winter) would be foolish. And evolution is never foolish :slight_smile:

(Utility Muffin Research Kitchen) #76

That’s the protein. Protein is insulinogenic for some of us. It seems to be some damage from high glucose or high insulin, because it seems to happen a lot more frequently amoing diabetics. Bottom line, insulin flatlines for most of us if we eat meat on keto, while for a minority a lot of protein is converted to glucose.

I just went off a phase where I ate ~90% of calories from carnivore sources (and the remaining 10% keto), and noticed all the bad things that a high carb diet gives: Cravings, frequent hunger, I’m cold all the time (reduced base metabolic rate) and I started to have less energy overall. And I put on 2 pounds after losing 4 pounds a month previously. Now, a few days back on veggies (still keto of course) I feel much better.

You can’t monitor insulin easily, and you can have high insulin without having high blood sugar. I did monitor my blood glucose during that 2-month carnivore, I don’t think I was ever above 120 after a meal, and never below 80 or so. And yet I showed all symptoms of a high-carb diet. I guess I’m a Kraft IIa (normal glucose, high insulin). https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Identifying-hyperinsulinaemia-in-the-absence-of-An-Crofts-Schofield/90827aadd2efdf64eae0aa38ee6a13ad6a23e3be/figure/1.

Food prep question for experienced carnivores
(Justin Jordan) #77

Honestlu, I think there’s a tendency here, not surprisingly, towards ‘when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail’ thinking. In that people tend to think insulin is everything, which I don’t actually think is the case.

That’s not crucially, to say it doesn’t matter, and isn’t often very important or most important. But there’s lots of other stuff, I think. But that’s not keto specific - Stephen Guyent seems to think it’s ALL about palability (as it goes, I suspect hyper palatability is part of it)

In my case I don’t think insulin is a major driver of how much I eat, although it’s probably an issue of how I process those calories. I think this because I’ve used, at various points, both exogenous insulin and drugs that cause my pancreas to shoot out extra insulin.

And the amount I eat seems disconnected from that. Point in case, I’m off all insulin enhancing stuff AND I’d been fasting, and yesterday I ate 5500 or so calories. Short of taking actual fasting insulin tests I am as confident as I can be that my insulin is as low as it’s been for a long while. Still ate a whole bunch.

Which is fine, as it goes. And I wouldn’t generalize my situation to others. I don’t really have either hunger or satiety responses, which is, obviously, a mixed bag. But in my case, since I can pretty much eat until I am physically unable to, I have the psychological drive to do so. I don’t, usually, which is why I don’t weight 280, but I’ve never experienced any diet mechanism that actually changed this, from carb restriction to fat restriction to protein restriction to everything restriction.

#78

Probably most fat and diabetic people overeat so the effectiveness of CICO is a moot point.
CICO requires we need below our energy need and even I found that horribly difficult (except when I was really fat), usually plain impossible (and I didn’t lose fat, not surprisingly for me. not even on keto+IF, I don’t get a bonus just doing them. Even the simplest, wrong CICO works for my fat-loss wonderfully, I just can’t eat little). And many people, even with diabetes, do way less I do (but it’s a bit easier with more excess fat).

#79

Exactly most people are fat because they overeat and don’t exercise.
It is so simple. I wonder how they can all be so lazy and uncaring. Even about their own health. It is just so weird these same people using keto and IF do actually lose weight… I mean with them being so lazy and uncaring

(Jane) #80

Not true. But I used to believe that before I got fat

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #81

If your insulin/glucagon ratio is haywire how much you eat and exercise/move won’t much matter. If insulin is consistently high, you are going to store energy. If glucagon is consistently high you are going to burn energy. Independent of how many calories of energy you consume and use or not. We all know folks who gain weight just by ‘looking at food’ and those who can eat whatever they want whenever they want and never gain an oz. I was like the second until I got to 60 years old.

Before my dad had his thyroid nuked, he could eat anything, whenever he pleased and never gained an oz. In fact he was always thin. After his thyroid was nuked he would gain weight, and did so for the rest of his life, eating anything no matter how little. Did not matter how much he moved, the weight stayed. Either his insulin/glucagon ratio was always haywire, but his thyroid managed to keep him in catabolic mode so he stayed low in weight and otherwise relatively healthy. Or his thyroid was haywire and kept him in catabolic mode constantly, no matter what the insulin/glucagon ratio. Whichever, once the thyroid was gone, anabolic mode took over and he stored everything that entered his mouth. Calories were pretty much irrelevant. The insulin imbalance led to obesity, insulin resistance, pre-diabetes and finally diabetes. It also led to CVD - he had his first heart attack at the age of 63 and quadrupal bi-pass surgery before he was 65. He lived with a pacemaker for more than 20 years and was on statins for the same period.

My dad was not obese because he overate, was lazy and failed to exercise. He led as active a life he could given his weight. He finally got some small control by reducing carbs, not calories. Not even keto or close to it, just reduced carbs. It was enough to get him out of anabolic storage mode and back into catabolic burn mode for the last couple years of his life. He managed to lose significant weight. ‘Calories’ had little to do with it - carb calories everything.

I suspect I’m a lot like my dad. The difference is I still have my thyroid. I very likely share the same insulin/glucagon haywiredness that he did, which is why I struggle to maintain weight, not lose it.

#82

completely agree. My apologies if the sarcasm wasn’t clear.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #83

Sorry, I missed your sarcasm as well. I will leave my post, because I think it helps to explain my attitude towards carbs.

(Jane) #84

Oh I thought you were serious. My bad!!! :astonished:

#85

Edit: Sorry I missed the sarcasm as well as some people truly thinks this AND it’s really true in many cases.
I think we all know people who eat a ton every day and harm their bodies and rather takes pills despite they don’t solve their problems…

It’s NOT always that simple but overeating and little exercise is very common.
I admit I am naturally lazy but it never kept me from exercising (I am quite inactive now but not because of that) but it mattered little, I ate more than I needed. And I overate because I was HUNGRY. There were other reasons as well but it was the main one. I still am the same. If I am hungry, I eat. If I get tempted, I eat… It’s just vastly different when I don’t eat much carbs. But finding the right diet is often very hard and most people have lots of prejudices I don’t have. And yep, most people care WAY less about their health than I do. I don’t get it but people doesn’t like to do something for their health. Many do but much more don’t.
Exercise is usually the smaller part even for the ones who lose fat easier with exercise.

And for many people this topic is super complicated and way more difficult than for me (often both emotionally and physically).

#86

Sorry for the confusion guys and gals.
As someone who went on a year long vegan , 500- 1500 calorie a day diet. Low fat, low protein and low carb… Yes exactly real starving. I can say the CICO is a completely bogus model of weight loss it sort of triggers me.
I remember the first week of going Keto and IF. Adding salmon, half an avocado, and egg to my lunch salad , and losing weight. So adding I can’t remember 600+calories, causes weight loss. but the simple fact is the difference between eating the getting your nutrition in a defined period of time (IF), is completely different then not getting enough calories all of the time (starving)

In regard to exercise. People are not fat because they aren’t exercising.
Exercise does not help you lose weight. Steven Phinney’s experiement showed that restricting calories or exercising over you calorie intake has the same impact. It lowers your BMR.

#87

In a strange refraction of the light, I can see your tongue in your cheek. :grinning:

I know it’s a bit late to mention that. But I hadn’t read all the way down to your update post (above).

I would contend that it does help. If one exercises to deplete the muscle glycogen stores, the muscles can use more free fatty acids for energy. If the muscles are drawing free fatty acids and glucose (to replenish glycogen stores) from the blood, that increases the mobilisation of body fat stores in the absence of ingested carbohydrate. On the flip side, if the muscles aren’t exercised and have adequate glycogen they don’t take part as much in the energy metabolism, thus reducing the fat storage mobilisation with subsequent body fat loss.

#88

Since we are speaking in general. Mileage my vary.

I would agree that exercise can make a good diet better, but if you are on a bad diet you are sunk.
The diet is the key.

As you indicate exercise can help to make you more insulin sensitive but it will also make your "more hungry " so you will tend to eat more.

I guess my main point is for CiCO using exercise to increase the CO part of the equation doesn’t really work.

I’m totally not against exercise I think we all need to get it consistently cardio and weights.

(Mame) #89

I don’t know who originally said ‘you can’t out-exercise a crap diet’ but it’s true

Exercise is great for many things. It can increase one’s well-being in many, many ways which indirectly can help one lose or maintain weight. Sometimes… or not.

I love to go out dancing. I get a mood lift, my body feels great, I connect with people (and then get to go home alone), it stretches my muscles, it’s anti-aging, there’s music so I get that good brain pathway connection, makes my bones stronger, probably helps my metabolism health. However it also makes me super hungry and if I do it on Sunday night it fucks my fasting for Mondays…

nothing is perfect :grinning:

#90

We MAY eat more, it’s not a given. My little exercise usually lowers my hunger but I am almost never hungry anyway. If I go for a long hike, I do get hungrier but I still will have a huge energy deficit as I just can’t eat a ton afterwards and anyway, I do higher-calorie days even when being inactive, they just happen and feel right.
My SO eats the same, no matter his activity.
And yes, many people get hungrier, that’s a different case. Some people thinks they may eat an extra slice of cake after a short walk, well, that’s the worst case…

But exercise has its benefits, it’s good if people do it even if they do it for the wrong reason that doesn’t even work so well for them, hopefully they will feel their body needs it… It seems we quite agree about it.