I'll Say One Thing for CICO

#81

Is this true for an uncontrolled T1 diabetic? Can that person eat 10000 calories and gain, or, in the absence of insulin, are they going to never store any fat? How can they store fat without insulin? Or do we say, well, “10000 in” means 10000 - BMR and the rest is excreted? If I am keeping my insulin suppressed by being in ketosis, am I not excreting excess calories after my body has what it needs to run?

(TJ Borden) #82

I mis spoke, it’s not really a healthy metabolism issue as much as a SAD issue . If you’re eating a SAD diet then the signals are getting fucked up enough that satiety never triggers. The real issue, to me, is there is an assumption that you can know exactly what your caloric output is, and you really can’t. Even the metabolic tests to get a baseline are a snapshot, not a fixed number.

Also, following keto will generally create a caloric deficit, but it allows hunger and satiety to signal what the body wants and needs. If someone wants to count calories for curiosity’s sake, fine. The idea of setting and/or adjusting your caloric intake based on what some online calculator told you should be your BMR is insanely flawed.

(Pete A) #83

As in counting macros in general. I believe one has to find out what works best for their body and situation. Hard, fast, black and white beliefs verge on a rigidity that I think hinders flexibility and long term success.

(TJ Borden) #84

For an uncontrolled T1D (in theory, since in practice is fatal), there is no storage mechanism so they would burn/release whatever goes in.

The idea of 10,000 calories actually plays very well into the real issue. With a SAD diet where hormones have been so fucked up that satiety signals have been shut off completely, it’s pretty easy to eat 10,000 calories in a day.

Unfortunately, the same mechanisms that shut down satiety also keep the storage switch flipped on, so your body is trying to burn as few calories as possible in order to store whatever it can. A reduction in calories, doesn’t “fix” that broken mechanism.

Following a ketogenic way of eating, the hormones are brought back to balance and (especially with the addition of IF/EF) the “storage” switch is allowed to flip over to “burn”. Once that has happens, you’d be hard pressed to put away 10,000 calories in a day without puking your guts out.

(TJ Borden) #85

Of course you realize that’s exactly what counting calories is, right?

(Pete A) #86

I don’t mind you having the last word @Baytowvin , or being defensive here in my last post on the subject. I count calories like I count everything else, with flexibility. I’m not advocating for only counting calories as much as I wouldn’t advocate for only counting anything. I go up and down on everything regularly, and look at my average over time vs results.

And my results are without blemish, or much fuss.

My simple version of Keto is counting CARBS. Beyond that it all falls into place however.

That’s your cue! :grinning:

(Central Florida Bob ) #87

I’m far from an expert on T1 diabetes. When you say “uncontrolled” I assume you mean they’re not getting any insulin whatsoever. From what I’ve heard, I would say they would not put on fat regardless of how much they ate because that was one of the original diagnosis criteria. Type 1 diabetics were described as not being able to gain weight, and most died soon. As I understand it, it was considered invariably fatal.

I’m less confident about the last question. I think it’s possible that if your insulin is suppressed by a keto diet that you are wasting energy that could be stored. I just don’t know if we ever get our insulin that low.

(Kaiden) #88

That was so confusing… I couldn’t tell Sam Feltham from Dave Feldman when I was searching for that 5000 calorie keto thing.

(Terence Dean) #89

The Elephant in the room, with all this debate regarding whether CICO vs Keto or a combination of both is the best way to lose weight, is unfortunately not everyone can stick to a diet. Or even if they do manage to get down to their goal weight, many people including myself have not kept it off because we think, “Ok I’ve dropped the weight, starved myself to get here, deprived myself of cakes, beer, hamburgers, etc. Now its time to let it rip and eat whatever the hell I want”.

Anyone who has fallen off any diet wagon will understand what I’m talking about. So we argue about how to get the weight off sure CICO or pure Keto just get it off BUT the real question we should (also) be debating is how the hell do we stop repeating the mistakes of the past and falling back to our old ways of eating. Is it just will power?

Sorry @CFLBob this reply is not directed specifically at your post I clicked the wrong link by mistake.

(Karen) #90

I have seen several people on this site who eat keto, but did lose while restricting a bit. Those people are currently in maintenance. I am certainly watching them carefully. You know who you are. :blush:

K

(Central Florida Bob ) #91

Well, the main reason I think of counting calories as a last a resort is my experience. The first time I was told to do it was 46 years ago, and I experienced all of the classic reasons why it didn’t work. I was 18, and my doctor told me to go on a 1200 calorie a day diet - probably half or what I was burning. I lost some weight, stalled, got sick, and of course he yelled at me for cheating - which I wasn’t. Since then, I’ve done various weight loss approaches and have counted calories, grams of carbs, macros and generally counted everything short of the number of cells in what I was eating. I’ve run, walked, hiked, cycled, weight lifted, done biathlons, combined with reducing CI, and it never got me “fixed”. I don’t believe I have defective character, but I think the doctors have thought so.

In that light, yeah, I know a lot of people restrict calories and it works, but as Dr. Fung points out, in virtually every published study, after a year or two (or five) they’re back to their starting weight plus a little. Keto and fasting seem to do better than that, but I can’t help but want to say, “that’s nice - wake me up in five years if you haven’t gained it back”.

I absolutely do not know what The Answer is, if there is one, single “The Answer”.

(Justin Jordan) #92

As anecdata, I was able to maintain a 280 pound body for a loooooong time eating as close to zero carbs as possible (i was essentially a carnivore, although I didn’t think of it that way). Which was good for my blood sugar, which was the primary reason why I did it.

Actually losing weight (I go about 220 now) required me to keep an eye on how much I was actually eating. I don’t find this particularly difficult or onerous, but that’s me. There’s a LOADS of people on this forum who have a really visceral negative reaction to the idea that they can’t just eat how much they want and it’ll all work out. As this thread demonstrates.

Which, if eating to satiety works, and you are hitting your goals, then huzzah. But if you’ve gone months and months without hitting your goals, it may be worth looking at what you’re doing. KCKO is fine advice for not freaking out about the small stuff, but if you’ve been doing something for a long time and aren’t getting the results you want, you either need to adjust or accept.

But things are complex - for me, for instance, I have places where my weight ‘sticks’ and both gaining weight and losing weight don’t work in the ways a simple CICO model would indicate.

(shane ) #93

I think this is a really good point as well as a lot of additional really great points were made in this thread.

Losing up to a set point on keto I would think would be somewhat easy. However, how many people are actually truly lean.

Say someone goes from 350 to 275 pounds and is stuck. Now what?

How many here who don’t track cals live in the 12 -18 percent body fat that are not also cardio junkies?

How about how do you bulk on Keto? How do you keep you body fat in check while putting on muscle and weight lifting?

3 main reasons counting cals fails.
1.People fail to realize the original calculation based on height/age/activity is just that, a calculation. Proper tracking will give you your numbers.
2.People don’t use a food scales or have any idea of an “actual” portion size.
3.People over estimate their actual workout burns and eat back their cals.

I will add a 4th. Mindless eating. Grazing, eating off their kids plates. etc.

Reason people gain back. They gain the weight back because they stop doing what works. Additionally they don’t take diet breaks. They are always dieting.

The reason Keto works so well for me and most others is that it is so satiating that you are not hungry.

Why is dieting hard? The freaking hunger.

As I said, ultimate diet hack. In addition to this, I have also found other great benefits but that is not for this reply.

Keto plus Cal counting and you will take the mystery out of why your weight loss has stalled.

(karen) #94

Two thoughts:

A calorie is a measure of energy, it’s a physics constant that, when applied to mass, is basically about the number and strength of chemical bonds. The body burns calories (in other words, it extracts energy from food by breaking those chemical bonds), but it’s not a one-stop, one-process furnace. So while the energy content of a particular amount of a particular food remains constant, how the body manages the food, where “excess” energy may end up (inside or outside the body) and how many calories the body uses to process those calories depends on the chemical composition of the food, not just its total bond energy. So yes, while it’s 1000 calories worth of energy going in, what happens to those 1000 calories inside the body is not the same. Thermodynamics does apply if you isolate the body + its byproducts, creating a closed system, it’s not magic, but where the energy winds up - heat, excretion, body fat - is the key.

The body will access fat stores during calorie restriction regardless of what kind of food is being eaten or whether the body is fat adapted. But it’s not necessarily very good at it, and given a small amount of food, seems to prefer metabolic slow down to upping body fat consumption. Obese people have starved to death before their fat stores were completely depleted.

So … “calories in” do matter, but they’re a simple, technical measure of energy going in, while “calories out” is a dynamic and complicated equation that is affected by many factors including the composition of the food ingested.

(the cheater) #95

You’re right; for instance, it would probably require about 3500 calories just to eat 100,000 calories! That sounds exhausting :smile:

(Adam Kirby) #96

What if people diligently count calories and still fail to lose weight? This is a completely ubiquitous situation, happens to almost every dieter, keto or no. Is it inevitably a failing on their part? Something in their control that they must have done wrong?

Or is it a failing of a simplistic math equation that purports to explain all of this?

(karen) #97

I know that this was directed at Dv, but just putting in my two cents: Something about the body’s process has changed. It’s up to the dieter to make an adjustment. Maybe that adjustment is fewer calories. Maybe it’s more calories. Maybe it’s a shot of carbs, or a day of fasting, or a week of eating nothing but bacon. The dieter and the body are no longer working as a team, and it’s not so much that the dieter is “wrong”, it’s that the body is not open to an earnest debate.

(shane ) #98

If they are diligently counting calories with no weight loss I would ask for how long has the “stall” been?

Most people give up the second they see the scale not continue to fall. I know throughout my weight loss my graph line looks a lot more like a mountain range than a free fall off a ledge.

Trends are more important than daily measurements as we all know. However, people who are not tracking trends and instead tracking their daily weight that didn’t fall means their diligent process is failing them.

If you are not losing, or for myself if I am not losing, I will check my data. I will double down on using my food scale again and making sure my portion sizes are correct. Typically my food scale gets used on items I use that are new, as well as all highly caloric foods. However, people become complacent, myself included, and as I quit using my scale over time my portion sizes grow little by little and my deficit can quickly turn into eating at maintenance or worse, above it.

Sodium, stress, etc can also have large effects on daily weight which is why trends in the direction you are wanting to go are so important. Much more so than the daily scale weight.

My entire point in all of this is that track what you can control

If you are not losing weight and don’t know why. Track what you are eating, and adjust it back. If you call that CICO than so be it. I call it easily a repeatable process to get to the direction I am going.

(Central Florida Bob ) #99

From which comes the title of this thread @kib . If you staunchly believe in CICO, you always know the answer. No trials and experiments required. Eat less move more.

Don’t me wrong; it’s not that I’m saying it will always work, I’m saying that’s always what they’ll tell you. It’s literally the only answer the system is capable of giving you if you’re trying to lose weight… From the other side of the coin, I have a friend who has tried to gain weight and bulk up and no matter what he eats and no matter what he does, it makes no difference. His only answer is “eat more, workout harder”.

For those of us with a more nuanced view of the subject, all sorts of puzzling over what to do is our option.

Hmmm. I could live with eating nothing but bacon for a while… :rofl:

(karen) #100

No problem!