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

[FatMan]

There is NO chemistry without physics. Neither happens in a vacuum and simply dogmatically dismissing CICO as a simplistic model is, well, simplistic.

One other thing to think about is that you are using the measurement of glucose as a proxy for insulin levels and assuming a positive correlation. Mrs. Hanson, a T1 diabetic, does just the opposite, and for good reason, that is Susi assumes a negative correlation and when her blood sugars are elevated she increases the amount of insulin she is injecting. If insulin was as easy to measure as glucose, then perhaps the treatment for T2 diabetics would focus on insulin resistance rather then blood glucose levels.

I love wine, and we have almost 600 bottles at the house. The oldest wine I have ever tasted was an 1867 port from Quinta des Carvelhas. I had to spit. I have had no port since since going keto, no Sauternes, no Qualitätswein mit Prädikat Trockenbeerenauslese, but a fair dribble of dry reds over the last few years.

Santé.

I hope you get this sorted out and best wishes.

Keto for life,
Richard

[amwassil]

@FatMan Richard, I think most here recognize that energy input/output is relevant. The biggest problem with CICO, I think, is that it assumes we are thermodynamic closed systems. We’re not. We’re thermodynamic open systems. Thermodynamics applies rigorously only to closed systems. Thermodynamics of open systems is far more complicated, with inputs and outputs that result in ‘messy’ non-zero-sum results.

Thermodynamics - Open systems

[FatMan]

Good Morning Michael,

Some few people might assume that CICO implies a closed thermodynamic system, but no one that understand physics would make this mistake. Life is obviously dependent on CI. Indeed, the concept of CICO explicitly defines an open system as the “I” is energy entering the system and “O” is the energy leaving the system.

There is no evidence that life violates the conservation of matter and energy and I would assert that their are no non-zero-sum results with respect to life. I am happy to agree that life is complicated and messy.

Keto for Life,
Richard

[amwassil]

I’m not arguing about thermodynamics, physics and chemistry. I’m saying that advocates of CICO simplify the inputs/outputs and presume a level of precision that is not possible to attain.

Noob trying IF with too many unanswered questions

Actually, the science of thermodynamics applies rigorously only to a closed system. Like a lab calorimeter, where you put in a gram of stuff, heat it until it’s gone, measure the heat expended to do so. We are open not closed systems, which means there are inputs/outputs that are not precisely measurable and result in ‘messy’ non-zero-sum results. For example. Maybe that particular cut of meat has a few more or less calories per gram than the published number. Animals don’t live in a calorimet…

Noob trying IF with too many unanswered questions

@flybyjohn Here’s how I dealt with this. I did not start keto specifically to lose weight, but I thought why not lose the 25-30 pounds that make me feel clunky while I’m at it. Knowing nothing and assuming I had a daily caloric requirement of about 1800-2000 calories (I was 71 years old and not particularly active since it was mid-winter, and testosterone had been declining for years presumably), I decided to eat to a ‘slight caloric deficit’ of 1500 calories per day. This worked and I lost a c…

[amwassil]

Also, there’s a matter of ‘energy wastage’ that Bikman discusses, or at least describes in one of his videos floating around on the forum. If I can find it I’ll post a link. Essentially, we waste ketones by the ‘spontaneous’ breakdown of acetoacetate into acetone then exhalation of the resulting acetone; and, by peeing acetoacetate itself. We’re exhaling and peeing fat out of the system. But we have no way to measure that loss with precision. I described an experience I had here:

Whole coconut oil and breath acetone (BrAce) observation

My daily routine includes my morning keto coffee with coconut oil (and MCT oil) among several other ingredients. But I have not eaten coconut oil by the spoonful. @PetaMarie remember this comment ? Periodically during the afternoon and evening of May17 I ate about a tablespoon of coconut oil every couple of hours or so. I was attempting to determine whether or not it would break a cold that was just starting to manifest. It seems to have done so but I’ll know for sure in a couple of …

[FatMan]

“I’m not arguing about thermodynamics, physics and chemistry. I’m saying that advocates of CICO simplify the inputs/outputs and presume a level of precision that is not possible to attain.”

I would assert that all models simplify reality, not just CICO. Discussing thermodynamics, physics and chemistry is far more interesting then arguing about what other people think, perceive or presume. As I can not ascertain the thoughts of another man, such data are not intersubjectively verifiable, at least not by me, I am not interested in arguable about what other people think, perceive or presume.

Keto for Life,
Richard

[amwassil]

Sorry, Richard. My mistake.

[Justin_Jordan]

Honestly, I’ve rarely seen CICO as it’s commonly talked about here used that way in diet books or by fitness people, or even doctors. The idea that people generally think that your calories output is fixed and unrelated to intake is mostly a strawman.

They DO say eat less and exercise more, which is not actual helpful, but that’s a different animal than what is commonly presented as CICO around here.

[amwassil]

Watch the video in this prior comment:

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

For me it works quite simple. I can eat around 800kcal in a healthy meal. No doubt I can eat 1.600 or even more when eating crap. But vegetables, moderate protein and high fat = 800 for me. IF 16:8 or 18:6 result in 2 meals. 20:4 results in 1 meal and a snack. Omad results in 1 meal. This way for me it is either to consume around 1.600kcal, 1000kcal or around 800kcal = calorie deficit. I think Fung explains the mechanics of all this nicely in this video After watching it for the 5th time or…

[Justin_Jordan]

Yes?

[Weeverrm]

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]

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.

[kingfisher]

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.

I did something like this (without the podcast ).
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.

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.

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.

[Fruno]

Take a group of 36 men who are healthy, that is they are not fat and without any need to loose weight, and greatly restrict their CI while also forcing them to exercise and they are going to loose weight, in this case roughly 25%, even on a diet that was intentionally high in carbs.

Under such circumstances, would a person consuming the same energy from fats fair significantly better?

Show me the study where keto men, young and healthy with no need to loose weight are placed on a 1600 kcal a day keto diet with forced exercise without have substantially similar physiological responses.

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

[Fruno]

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

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.

. I have been monitoring my blood myself, a collecting N=1 data on my bodies reaction to different foods for 5+ years,

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.

[Justin_Jordan]

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.

[Shinita]

If CICO “worked” then the entire world wouldn’t be fat and diabetic.

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).

[Weeverrm]

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

[Janie]

Exactly most people are fat because they overeat and don’t exercise.

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

[amwassil]

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.