I'll Say One Thing for CICO


#21

Hmmmm…maybe that’s my problem.


(Karen) #22

Can’t wait!!!

K


(Justin Jordan) #23

I regret I have but one like to give for this post


(Aimee Moisa) #24

That happens to me all the time. I can’t snack if I am going to be eating dinner late 'cause I just get hungrier sooner. I wonder if it means I had a big insulin spike in response to whatever I ate? How would I test for that?


(Ron) #25

There is no home test for insulin production, sorry.:slightly_frowning_face:


(Aimee Moisa) #26

Blah.


(Sarah Slancauskas) #27

I think you captured a lot of people’s frustrations very well here.
If a person has a genuine issue with the keto diet it seems to spark a defensive response in some people. Keto diet is good, but it’s not perfect, and sometimes you have do something a bit unconventional while trying to remain within the keto framework to get things moving in the direction you want. I have read countless issues related to energy/fatigue, constipation and weight stall to see the person told, repeatedly to keep calm and keto on/add salt/ add salt/ trust the process/add salt. :exploding_head:
I’m enjoying the keto diet but am finding my energy and power with exercise has taken a blow. It’s better than it was, and electrolytes helped, but I have lost performance and I’m not doing anything wrong. Instead of keeping calm and ketoing on (by that I read do nothing and eat butter) I decided to try targeted carbs half an hour before my workout and bang! Problem solved. Keto the rest if the time. But butter and fat and salt just weren’t getting me there. Waiting forever for this to magically happen by ‘trusting the process’ was not an option either.


(Bunny) #28

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(Rob) #29

Bob, I think it’s us that have the hard time, because we can’t perfectly account for excretion and storage of calories along with burning them. I have no problem with counting calories, but with hormones acting like ‘gates’ - either opening the gate to fat storage or to using the calories for energy, I know that things are going to be rather fuzzy indeed.

Couldn’t figure out how to like @OldDoug’ s first/initial response that included the words quoted above but wanted to toss in a +1 for the response. It’s complicated and an individual journey. I suspect many who have been successful with keto have used some variant of limiting calories in … or doing something to impact calories out. When the CICO acronym gets tossed in the conversation, all the things wrong with a straight CICO approach muddy what could otherwise be helpful.


#30

With you 100%. Zen like “Trust the process” serenity messages can make me crazy, even though I understand the well-meaning behind them. I’m sorry, but it makes no sense to me that someone who has significant weight to lose, has been stuck for 6 months, and who is adhering 100% to keto should just keep on doing what they’re doing. I certainly don’t have that kind of patience and intestinal fortitude!

I’m 67 and female. I started in January with a fasting insulin of 37 and 50 pounds of overweight. I’ve lost 36 pounds and am still losing. One would think that if anyone was going to have a long stall, it would be me, since I have all the slow loser characteristics. But I don’t cheat—-ever. A day off keto would be a week of recovery for me. I’m extremely sensitive to carbs.

And yes, I DO keep calories down, because I’m short and old. I don’t count them, but I don’t eat extra fat “just because”. It seems completely counterintuitive to me to overeat fat when I have lots of body fat to get rid of.

I believe 100% in keto. But I also believe in common sense, which says, if what you’re doing isn’t working, for heaven’s sake, change it! Or admit to yourself that you’re possibly doing something to sabotage yourself. Of course there are metabolically deranged people who have issues losing weight, but I should certainly be one of them. And keto works for me, just like every other weight loss method has, if I stick to it. This is a life change for me, but it wouldn’t be if it didn’t work!

Watching a TV weight show one of the patients wasn’t losing weight after surgery, and the surgeon basically said it just wasn’t possible not to lose, unless she was eating more than prescribed. These patients all follow a low carb diet. While I don’t think everyone who stall for months falls into that category, I do think everyone who does should change something, for heaven sake!

Rant over. KCKO lol.


(Central Florida Bob ) #31

In keeping with reconciling that this is the Show Me the Science category…

The problem with CiCo is that they are not independent variables. CaloriesOut is a function of CaloriesIn (in the mathematical sense), and CaloriesIn is a function of CaloriesOut - at least in a “free living human”. That is, someone not deliberately trying to restrict the CaloriesIn. For those of us who have taken control theory in engineering school, this is a feedback loop; a self-regulating system. That was evident to me about 30 years ago.

There is nothing you can do your output that doesn’t end up affecting your input, and nothing you can do to your input that doesn’t end up affecting your output. These are things that are beyond our control.

Jason Fung, as I’m sure you know, likes to say that CiCo has a perfect track record of not ever working in an experiment. I think we’ve all experienced that, or at least most of us have.

In fact, I wonder if the reason many of have had problems like this with stalling or gaining back on keto is that we’re very experienced dieters and our body has learned to adapt to whatever we throw at it. I have no proof of that in any real sense.

I like Gary Taubes’ view that it’s not that calories don’t matter, it’s that saying your weight change corresponds to more calories (in or out) isn’t telling you anything. Gary’s view is that we don’t gain weight because we ate more calories, we ate more calories because we were gaining weight.

I recall reading about some researchers looking to study something related to weight loss diets and who needed a population of overweight college students who had never dieted. The gave up because they never found a population who had never dieted.

I hear anecdotal reports of people stalled at some weight who suddenly broke the stall and spontaneously lost weight. Nina Teicholz spoke about that in the last podcast. But that’s not an unbiased sample; people are more likely to tell you they spontaneously lost weight by “KCKO”, but don’t seem to say they spontaneously gained weight.

I think.


(Pete A) #32

This should be a stickie on this site! Thanks for sharing.


#33

Certainly a challenging subject and probably gets down to the fact that there is a lot of variation in our indiviual base metabolic situation and how we respond in the long run. We have to also appreciate that a lot of this is relatively new information as a long term practice - so not all the answers are there that will apply to all equally. I have noted that there seems to be a lot of folks that report very good responses to keto in the early stages, and then kind of level off - and then you have to tweak things individually.

But what seems to be true, if you stay on keto - what doesn’t seem to happen is the extreme bounce back to pre-keto weights/metabolic markers. I know for myself this is the case - and as much as I would like to speed up the process to lose that last chunk of weight, I really can’t do much different than keto becasue to do otherwise would mean the return of hypertension, digestion/sleep/inflammation/general circulatory problems (to name a few). We are so, so conditioned to CICO theory its hard not to revisit, but it may be for some to be mindful of. But its also coming to a way to create that balance of being mindful vs overly obsessive. And actually if someone is determined to return to COCI - then I say try it out and see what happens for you.

Again, personally the closest I will go to considering calories is to implement fasting, which I appreciate is moving closer toward considering calorie theory - but its the way its done that I think is different. Fasting has quite a different effect on metabolism than daily calorie restriction. Also I’ve had a lifetime of calorie counting and just don’t have the will to go back to that. And if that means giving up few extra vanity inches off my butt - then so be it because the other benefits are worth it.
And that my friends is my two bits! :blush:


(Central Florida Bob ) #34

The really hard part about the calorie theory is knowing how to fit it in with the hormonal model, because at some level, everyone agrees calories really do matter. The hormonal model certainly seems to be the important part, but the complication is that no one can publish studies on various approaches to weight loss unless the diets are isocaloric.

I heard Dr. Westman saying he had done a paper on his success with patients and the journal review “peers” objected that the patients were losing weight and he couldn’t prove that if they lost weight by any other means that they wouldn’t get the same result. His view was that he’s a clinician first and it doesn’t bother him if patients reversed their diabetes because they lost weight.

I don’t think that anybody who has improved their “digestion/sleep/inflammation/general circulatory problems (to name a few)”, as you say, really cares very much if the benefits are from losing weight or eating low carb. Especially if you’re like me and likely to think you can’t reliably lose weight by any other approach.


#35

@SarahSlan - Thank you!

Whaddya doing that for? You need to go back to doing what you know doesn’t work. And do that for 3 years.

Seriously, the targeted carbs is pretty amazing – it feels like rocket fuel to me. I almost think that when on Keto, I get more energy from the carbs than when I was not fat adapted.


(Edith) #36

Could you explain a little more about “targeted carbs?” I think it might be something I need.


(karen) #37

My two bits is that I feel different when I fast (EF) … I can tell that something different is going on, and it melts off weight. So far, keto hasn’t been a miracle in itself, so I’m basically holding out hope that using fasting to achieve weight goals and using keto as a way of more-or-less maintaining + avoiding western diseases associated with metabolic syndrome will work as my personal health-and-weight protocol. I like the idea that not counting calories and eating lots of fat works because of a metabolic difference in how fat and carbs are processed so I’m biased to hope it’s true, but I’m open to the idea that it’s not so much metabolic magic as natural calorie ‘restriction’ based on satiety signals that maintains my weight in keto. Either way, for now I will KC and KO.


(Sarah Slancauskas) #38

Yes of course. Just for context, I watched a really interesting interview on YouTube by High Intensity Health (a keto channel) and Danny Lennon, from Sigma Nutrition. The latter was talking about how he helps to get the athletes in his care to perform at their best while respecting their ketogenic diets. He said for some physical activity the keto diet actually helps performance but for others (HIIT, for example, which is what I do) you need a hit of easily digestible carbohydrate to kick into high performance. There was loads of science behind it but basically after testing some of his athletes (some with target carbs, others without) the ones without the carbohydrates really struggled to give powerful performance and struggled to give their best because they didn’t have access to enough glycogen. To combat this he recommends having some carbs, targeted about 30-40 minutes before a workout and afer a workout. This helps with performance and refeeding.
I have been trying to do my usual workouts (I believe I am fat adapted) without carbs but I was finding that they were suffering significantly. I increased my electrolytes, which helped somewhat, but I found I lost power and strength despite this which I had before I went ketogenic. After feeling very frustrated and disappointed after my last workout I decided to look into carb cycling. This wasn’t for me, but then I read about targeted carbs and tried it out. Wow! The difference was incredible. I couldn’t believe the difference in performance. I felt like I did before keto in that I was able to push myself and regain some of my old strength and it felt wonderful. I don’t use grains- I have removed those permanently from my diet with no chance of return. But I had some sweet potato and a ‘Bounce’ protein ball pre workout and a larger portion of fruit and veg afterwards with some meat. I am definitely going to build this in to my life as it’s so effective. I know for some it is not acceptable keto but I don’t mind that. I’m not a purist if the pure version doesn’t work for me. I’m into this to improve my life and not make it harder! So I’m keto the rest of the time, and on non exercise days I keep carbs to under 20g, but on workout days I add in carbs.


(Karen) #39

You got some glucose and burned it off. . :fire::fire::fire:. No foul. Definitely something for athletes to consider.

K


(Nicole Sawchuk) #40

I find that interesting. I know for me, it took at least 6 months to become fat adapted and than my workouts improved. Now I find that I perform even better in a fasted state! I actually hate it when I have to do HIIT on days I am not fasted because I am sluggish on those days. But again, that took over a year to get to that point. But I am definitely able to perform way better while fasted and without any carbs than I did before. But you had to be patient.

Of course, I am not an athlete, nor will I ever be so I am have the luxury to be patient.