I'll Say One Thing for CICO

(Sarah Slancauskas) #161

Thanks for that example. I see what you’re highlighting and it does make sense to me. My head is so jumbled now!
I can’t help but believe (and know from lived experience) that calories matter and that a deficit is needed for weight loss. But I concede that the calories out theory is looking more tentative…

(Adam Kirby) #162

Here’s the dismal truth about the calorie balance theory… if you ate 9.5 extra calories a day, you would gain a pound a year. In 50 years you’d be 50 pounds heavier, all from 9.5 extra calories a day. It is literally impossible to achieve this precision, not when calorie labeling can be legally off by 20%, and you have no way of knowing how many calories you burn unless you’re in a metabolic chamber.

How then did our ancestors ever maintain a stable weight, if a precision of <9.5 cals/day is required?

Hell, if you ate a paltry 95 extra calories a day that would result in a pretty hefty 10 lb gain per year.

(Jane) #163

I used to be like you. I watched my weight and all I had to do was cut back a bit for a couple of days and my weight dropped.

I thought all obese people had to do was quit eating so much! Based on what I ate in any given day I figured the very obese must spent 22/24 hours a day eating! By my calculations they had to consume 5-10,000 calories a day to maintain such a high weight. Maybe some do.

Boy, was I ignorant! But all I had to base it on was my own metabolism… n=1

(Adam Kirby) #164

Ok so this point is what some keto peeps misunderstand, and you are quite correct on it.

If you lose ANY weight, you are in an energy deficit. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t track anything and ate to satiety and are never hungry, if you lose weight you are in a negative energy balance. Period.

The question is, why are you in the energy deficit. I like Peter Attia’s article on fat flux, does a deep dive into hormones.

https://peterattiamd.com/how-to-make-a-fat-cell-less-not-thin-the-lessons-of-fat-flux/

(TJ Borden) #165

Exactly. The deficit is needed, but it happens naturally.

(Jennifer Kleiman) #166

Unless it doesn’t, & then you gotta do some introspection and maybe need to retrain your brain, learn how to listen to satiety signalling, learn if you got some addiction pathways lighting up & how to avoid triggering them, learn different eating techniques to manipulate those satiety signals, etc.

(TJ Borden) #167

But that’s one of the main points of keto is letting that process fix itself and learning to recognize those signals.

(Jane) #168

And there is so much we do not understand how this deficit works!

Another n=1 example. My college roommate was rail thin - I was curvey but small (110 lbs). We cooked and ate all our meals together. We both rode our bicycles to campus. Neither did any other significant exercise.

So… should have been about the same calories OUT. But she ate at least a third to half more calories IN than me. I couldn’t eat what she ate or I would gain weight - I was SO JEALOUS!!! :wink:

(Ellie) #169

It is really hard to let go of what we have always been taught, especially if it happens to work for you.

The way I think about it is that a calorie is a calorie in the truly physical/chemical sense of the word. Its definition is the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of 1gram of water by 1 degree C.
So there is thermodynamics for you. The issue is the fact that the variables (CICO) are not independent as they should be for the first law to apply properly.
Think if it this way: If I have a motorbike and I know that the tank holds 15 litres, and I know the amount of fuel I put in it, but one day the bike runs at 30mpg and the next day it runs at 99mpg, then I have no way of knowing how many miles I will get from my known input. If the more fuel was in the tank the further it went per gallon that would confound things, and if the bike were using fuel to carry out repairs, or leaking, then I really would be stuck.
That is why it is true that a calorie is a unit of energy and therefore it seems to make sense that it is a straight forward calculation, but the reality is the the body uses and loses calories in a way and at a rate that is not controllable. Hence why the CICO is not a functional way to actively lose weight.
That’s how I make sense of it anyway!

(shane ) #170

To what degree? How much can you naturally lose before letting what happens “naturally” stops working?

What BF percent/BMI is that?

No I am not asking how fat you are, but my point is, there becomes a point that dialing in your nutrition might be needed more than letting your body naturally adapt to homeostasis.

(Jennifer Kleiman) #171

Doesn’t work for everyone. I thought Jimmy Moore’s latest podcast interview with Dr Robert Cywes was brilliant on this topic, good listen.

(Jennifer Kleiman) #172

http://www.thelivinlowcarbshow.com/shownotes/17247/1402-dr-robert-cywes-on-treating-obesity-and-diabetes-from-a-substance-abuse-perspective/

(Adam Kirby) #173

Clearly this is different for everyone, since some people effortlessly lose 100+ lbs on keto down to a normal BMI and others lose 30 and stall hard with plenty of lbs to lose. It’s your own hormonal stew that will determine that, the same way your genetics determine how obese you’re going to get eating the SAD.

BTW I’m not necessarily a proponent of “keep calm and keto on”, if you’re down for experimenting with stall breakers.

(TJ Borden) #174

That is exactly why it’s flawed to pretend we know what our output is. There are too many variables, and many completely out of our control.

Online BMR calculators are okay for a super general ball park, but is it reasonable to assume that two people that are the same gender, age, height and weight…oh, and both check the box that they get moderate exercise 2-3 times a week, have identical metabolisms? Of course not, but that’s exactly what we do to try to apply to forced caloric restriction (CICO).

(TJ Borden) #175

Just because the scale has stopped moving doesn’t mean the process has stopped working. Weight doesn’t come off linearly, just like it didn’t go in linearly. It’s about changing the body weight set point, which is where fasting can be super helpful

(Jennifer Kleiman) #176

Having just come from dealing with some of my parents and aunts in various stages of decline, I am STRONGLY motivated to dial in my nutrition and fitness as much as possible. Got an up-close look at the pain, immobility, and dementia lying in wait in my future if I slip and let myself go that way. It is well worth the effort to maintain excellent physical AND mental health. I know 2-3 generations ago my ancestors lived into their 90s in good health, so its not like my genes have necessarily doomed me, but a lot of my family in their 60s-70s are gonna spend the rest of their lives crippled and in pain. And yeah it’s because they are/have been obese and diabetic, and refuse to go keto, and it’s too late.

(TJ Borden) #177

There’s nothing that works for everyone, but millions of years of evolution suggests strongly that it works for most of our species.

(Jennifer Kleiman) #178

Along with having to hunt and living outdoors in a natural environment with bugs & without all the modern conveniences & toxins. Primal living is not really an option for most of us.

Regardless, my point is that keto alone doesn’t get everyone to where they want to be, and then other other eating regulation issues (whether emotional or otherwise) need to be dealt with.

(Brian) #179

This!!! This is one of the biggest confounders of CICO. A dropping BMR can trump calorie restriction, and it has. (Biggest Loser)

Yes, calories matter but only as they relate to where the metabolism happens to be at this instant.

(TJ Borden) #180

Many share that opinion, and everyone needs to find what works for them. I would argue, however, that for many of those people, the statement above would more accurately stated:

“After 20-40 years of causing the damage,

in 6 months”

It’s not a diet. It’s a liefestyle, and weight loss is just a by-product of systems starting to function correctly and hormones rebalancing.