@ctviggen posted a good study here: Check out my comment I made at KetoCon2019
Science isn’t always easy, nor will a proper interpretation often ‘fit on a bumper sticker.’ But that study shows that if you isolate what you want to find (you’re controlling for the other factors), then we really can know a lot.
In looking through this thread…
Well, ‘CICO’ is a snappy little phrase. If you want something more in-depth, more all-encompassing, then that approach will necessarily be more complex, as with all those questions you asked @IdesOfMarch 15 or 16 posts above this one. It’s irrational to then turn around and criticize CICO for its simplicity. The energy balance is indeed important - we know valuable things from that, alone (and it relates to one of the most major reasons if not the primary reason that we’re all on this forum). It’s not enumerating all the biochemical “whys,” however, nor does it claim to.
I think it’s like Dr. Fung’s “Two Compartment Model/Problem,” which is actually three things. Energy (the 1st thing) doesn’t just go to ‘calories out’ (the 2nd thing). It can also go to fat storage (the 3rd thing).
With CICO, there are the data-driven people who pay attention to the whole thing, realize its constraints and also its benefits - we need not limit ourselves to ‘in & out’ because we can derive movement into or from fat storage by “in minus out” or vice-versa. (1st group.)
Then there are people who don’t approach CICO the right way. They forget about the ‘out’ part, act like merely “counting calories” (the 'in) will make for long term weight-loss for people, nothing more required, etc. (2nd group.)
Then there are people (3rd group) who criticize the 2nd group (and they are right in doing so), yet also the 1st group. It’s as if they personalize CICO and assign the human errors from the 2nd group to it. This is just as incorrect as the errors the 2nd group are making.
An example:
This is true, as stated. Yet this has no bearing on the validity of CICO. ‘CICO’ doesn’t specify anything beyond “calories” and where they’re heading. If it was ‘CBMT…’ (‘calories by macronutrient type, etc…’) then it would be different.
I have heard of her and I think she’s really good on sticking to the science. (Although I think Twitter’s character limit, even improved as it is, is more for brief thoughts than ‘complete truth’ - and this effect is noticeable in some of her replies.) Some quotes from that Twitter thing:
When we say “use up calories” we mean actually metabolise some material for the energy. So, a caloric deficit just means that we used more energy than could be accounted for by the amount available from what we ate.
(Okay, but there’s more to it than that…) (She needs to clarify that.)
Any time you have a caloric deficit you must have less material than what you started with, so you would weigh less.
(Stays true to the laws of conservation of matter and energy.)
Likewise, any time you have less material than you started with, as long as you didn’t remove it in some other way—amputation and urinating sugar don’t count!
(Okay, there’s some clarification - she touches on physical removal and waste. ‘Amputation’ and the like really don’t count. It’s understood that we’re not talking about that. I gotta disagree about urinating sugar, though - it’s not a healthy condition nor is it commonly found, but there a loss is a loss. Another person mentions this below, i.e. “waste is material.” I’ve got the luxury of being able to compose this prior to posting it - I’m aware that making sequential Twitter replies makes things harder in that respect. Since she’s talking about “less material” we know that fat stores are not increasing, thus we know that either material/calories etc. are being metabolized or going out as waste. Those are the only 2 avenues remaining.)
Aaaaaaand… I’ve got a long post.