Why are people so hell bent on defending CICO

(Doug) #111

Well, Michael, even if we extend it to “eat less, move more,” that works for most people, i.e. most people have enough balance that weight loss isn’t a real concern or big desire. If we want to generalize then even all the “as stated” things that don’t logically follow from ‘CICO’ are more true than they’re false.

‘The ideology of CICO’ - who can really argue with keeping the Out higher than the In, for weight loss?

“Justify its application” - hey, even with keto, CICO is at work, weight loss resulting from the ‘Out’ being larger.

In no way does CICO ignore “the physics that result in energy transformations.” CICO is the statement of that very thing. This is as true for ketogenic eating as for any other type of eating.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #112

Do you really think that eating 150 grams of carbs is no different from eating 150 grams of fat - taking into account the difference in energy content? Do you really think that the energy transformations are identical? If you do so, I am really surprised because I think you know they are not. This is what CICO ignores.

(Jane) #113

I didn’t say it was the “fault” of CICO. I know when my appetite dropped I was eating fewer calories than I needed and lost weight. By reducing my carbs I lowered my insulin response and I accessed my fat stores. Without the second case my metabolism would have dropped to match my input.

But CICO the way it is promoted by dietitians who dislike keto is CRAP and only gives short-term results then fail. And the dieter gets blamed “for not following the diet”.

For the multitudes of us who have been BLAMED for decades for failing the CICO diet advice, this subject rubs us raw. Keto would have been so simple and saved me decades of embarrassment for being overweight and believing it was my fault.

This is not about CICO not valid. It is. This is about the ignorance of dietitians and their misunderstanding of how the body stores and burns fat.

(bulkbiker) #114

The whole ethos behind CICO does indeed pronounce on the multiple influences I mention as the impact of 2000 cals of doughnuts should be exactly the same as 2000 cals of steak.

As both you and I know that isn’t the case then you must agree that CICO is untrue.
“Calories” are a measure of a unit of energy and have damn all to do with what we eat.

(Jane) #115

Exactly.

Not to mention you are starving your body of nutrients with the 2000 cal of doughnuts and it will ramp up your hunger to get you to come to your senses.

Whereas 2000 cal of steak nourishes your body completely and you won’t be hungry an hour later.

(Doug) #116

No, because you’re not taking the “Out” part into account, and because in no way does CICO attempt to predict anything about the effect of whatever the ‘In’ is, per se. CICO is a quantitative relationship between the In and the Out, not some prognostication based on the ‘In’ alone.

CICO is looking at the 'Out," whatever it is, and it reflects (rather than denies) any operative difference in the nature of the “In” calories, i.e. for example eating a standard “SAD” diet or similar while restricting intake and having the metabolism decline - that will show up in the ‘Out.’ After all, the reason that many insulin-resistant people have weight loss success with ketogenic eating is because the ‘In’ becomes partially fulfilled by one’s stored fat, and/or the ‘Out’ does not decline as might be possible with a more carb-heavy diet. CICO is right there for all of that.

(Doug) #117

Of course not, and CICO would obviously reflect that.

Again, of course not, but so what? Nobody is claiming they are, necessarily. CICO is the ‘In,’ whatever it is, and whatever transformations occur will show up in the ‘Out.’

I have to disagree, because that’s a strawman argument. CICO doesn’t say that. CICO says the same old ‘In < Out = weight loss; In = Out = stays the same; In > Out = weight gain’ that it always has, and that we all agree with.

If changing the ‘In’ makes for changes in the ‘Out,’ that’s all fine and good.

(Doug) #118

Perhaps, Jane - what I was referring to was this:

It does come off as critical of CICO, and incorrectly generalizing that it “does not work.” Heck, for the majority of people it does work. And even if we focus only on the insulin-resistant ones (like most of us here are or were) then CICO is still working. Being able to put some of our own fat into the ‘In,’ alone, is a huge factor. If metabolic slowdown is warded off by ketogenic eating, then CICO is all good with that too - the ‘Out’ increases or decreases less.

#119

Thing is it works til the day you wake up and it fails you point blank, which is again, why 90% or so failure rate on CICO. Not many can do it longer term or sustain for life on it. Well, I couldn’t.

you know what I ended up with, damn near a friggin’ eating disorder to starve my azz down the scale at all costs. In fact the standard CICO is what f’d me up and I still have ‘dieting issues’ in the brain because of just that, but yea, I lost weight and then regained darn near every lb of it and f’d up my metabolism even more and then I crushed my spirit at the same time. Then when I finally realized I can’t do it longer term, I then went off and ‘learned about insulin and HOW in the heck do people’ eat to lose lbs, get healthier and the whys of it all and I hit Atkins and extreme lc eating and never looked back.

I loved when losing my lbs that I could eat 4,000 kcals per day easily for a week and lose a few lbs in that week…geez, go figure right, before I had to starve and CICO myself and it was a definite form of torture of course, but it was relief to ‘eat all I wanted’ and actual good foods and be nourished and lose my lbs all over again. I choose the very low carb version of dieting vs. the CICO way of dieting for sure :sunny:

(Doug) #120

Well good. :slightly_smiling_face: So it sounds like the issue is whether one’s insulin level makes a difference or not. I think it indeed can make a difference, i.e. this forum, etc. :smile:

But that doesn’t make incorrect generalizations about CICO magically ‘right.’ When you’re talking about eating 4000 calories a day and losing weight, that’s CICO right there.

#121

oh oh ok I get what you are saying now…lol…I kinda wasn’t getting your gist on how you were plugging it but now I see more of your line of chat on it…cool…yea I see your line of how you are talking about CICO more.

(Jane) #122

I AM critical of the way dieticians blame the dieter when it DOES NOT WORK - as in + 90% can’t sustain the deficit IN THE WAY THEY TEACH IT and quit. And it hurts their metabolism, so they gain back even more.

My viewpoint is all about how CICO is APPLIED by prefessionals, not that it is not true.

(Doug) #123

So then perhaps the title of the thread should be, “Why do people keep blaming CICO when it works just as well for ketogenic eaters as otherwise?”

#124

I think a standard CICO comes with alot of baggage and misinformation tho. Like eat low fat. Limit those kcals severely. Skip food and take this supplement, or protein shake or eat this crappy packaged meal only…It usually is based off a SAD menu so ‘we can eat it all’, but just don’t eat over the kcal limit :slight_smile: but yea in the end, if one’s food intake is controlled very tightly, you can diet off lbs but not everyone. Many can tackle a CICO and not lose any lbs. I guess alot of what circles around CICO is also why it is not fairing well out there for most. Yes anyone can lose some lbs but can you keep it off? Keeping it off is always that worst part of it all :sunny:

(Polly) #125

Raising my head gingerly above the parapet. Surely the laws of thermodynamics do not apply to biological organisms for the simple reason that they are not closed systems.

Ducking now . . .

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #126

That is a very good point, and that argument has been used in the past, and yet you see that this topic comes up regularly for religitation. I think we just find it fun to rehash from time to time. :grin:

(Doug) #127

The laws of thermodynamics apply, Polly. :wink:

Open systems can exchange energy and matter with their surroundings, that’s all.

I think the real argument, here, is due to some people “out there” (not on this forum) denying the carbohydrate-insulin hypothesis - which is what, IMO, @Janie is looking at. Other than that, what really is there…?

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #128

Tautologies and Other Limitations of the EBM

Energy balance and body weight

The appealing simplicity of the EBM belies an inherent tautology. Weight gain (or more precisely, fat gain) can occur only with a positive energy balance, in the same way that a fever can occur only if the body generates more heat than it dissipates. However, these reiterations of the law of energy conservation ignore causality. During the pubertal growth spurt, energy intake exceeds expenditure as body energy stores increase. Does increased consumption drive growth or does growth drive increased consumption? Neither possibility violates laws of physics, but the 2 perspectives have fundamentally different physiological bases and implications. Because the relation between energy balance and weight change is inseverable, statements regarding the importance of a negative balance provide no meaningful information about etiology.

Palatability and food intake

Regarding dietary drivers of obesity, common versions of the EBM focus on the variety and availability of “hyper-palatable” [9], energy-dense, processed foods (Supplemental Table 1). Clearly, people tend to eat more of the foods that they find tasty, and palatability seems to influence short-term food selection and energy intake. However, surprisingly little evidence relates palatability directly to chronic overconsumption…

… In the absence of clear correlates to intrinsic food properties, hyper-palatable foods have been defined as those that drive food intake—another tautology of the EBM, which simultaneously attributes increased food intake to hyper-palatable foods.

Anomalies

By focusing on energy balance—characteristically through conscious control, as highlighted in Supplemental Table 1—the basic formulation of the EBM essentially disregards knowledge about the biological influences on fat storage [24], [25]. Moreover, a central conundrum is to understand why the so-called body weight “set point” [7] has increased rapidly among genetically stable populations. In the 1960s, the average man in the United States weighed ∼75 kg. Providing excess dietary energy to increase his weight to 90 kg would have elicited biological responses (e.g., decreased hunger, increased energy expenditure) to resist that gain. Today, the average man weighs ∼90 kg; restricting energy to reduce his weight to 75 kg would elicit opposite responses [26–30]. By excluding a metabolic effect of diet, common versions of the EBM offer no explanation for what changes in the environment have dysregulated the biological systems that counteract energy imbalance and resist weight change.

The CIM as a Physiological Explanation for the Obesity Pandemic

Like the EBM, the CIM posits that changes in food quality drive weight gain. However, according to the CIM, hormonal and metabolic responses to the source of dietary calories, not merely calorie content, lie upstream in the mechanistic pathway. In other words, the CIM proposes a reversal of causal direction: over the long term, a positive energy balance does not cause increasing adiposity; rather, a shift in substrate partitioning favoring fat storage drives a positive energy balance, as shown in Figure 1. Among modifiable factors, dietary glycemic load (GL) has central importance.

Graphic

(Robin) #129

Twitter reminds of the saying about swimming pools. All the noise is coming from the shallow end. That applies to so many things.

(Robin) #130

I do actually pay attention to calories… old habits die hard. But, if I stay true to keto basics, it’s hard to eat too many calories.