I'm glad to see there is more research getting publicity for things like this.
There are a lot of people out there that have never dealt with trying to lose a lot of weight who think it's all just as simple as "calories in and calories out", "it's the first law of thermodynamics, man!"
It's like saying that running a marathon is easy, just keep running and don't stop!
It is so much more complex and there are a lot of factors and more variation between people than many realize. Obesity is a true epidemic and over simplifying the problem is not helping us solve it.
CICO is good enough almost all of the time. The complications and exceptions don’t really disprove it. Most people should start there.
As someone who has lost a lot of weight and gotten very strong, and coached a significant number people in their efforts: calorie tracking works… you need to be truthful in your effort.
The micro- level issues or margins of error in CICO are irrelevant to the macro- margins required by someone who has to reduce body fat by 50 lbs, or 100 lbs, or more. If you always record something wrong, and aren’t losing the weight, you’ll still need to make an adjustment to what you’re eating to accomplish the weight loss. There’s nothing magical about 2500 calories eaten or recorded, but there is something definite about losing 5 lbs over a period of time. That’s the baseline metric. The CICO is just an adjustable control.
As an example: most people aren’t willing to cook 90% of their meals for a couple of years. Restaurants generally won’t feed you reasonable portions (or proper vegetables), which is fatal to the cause when you need to lose a significant amount of weight. Routing around those baseline truths isn’t an accurate response to the challenges. Most fit people in the gym… the ones who are there at 6am, aren’t eating out — or calorically freely —all the time either.
The problem isn’t really the science of fat loss, but the world of crappy food products and restaurant meals. Restaurants do not follow a sustenance model.
> Obesity is a true epidemic and over simplifying the problem is not helping us solve it.
A "Lapalissade". Saying an issue is more complex than its synthesis doesn't make the issue more understandable.
You won't deny we never seen any person in a labor camp or lost on a desert island coming back obese, no matter their genetics.
So yes, everyone is different and for some it is less easy than for others. But obese people should stop trying to make it sound like their body is going against the laws of thermodynamics...
Obese people just need to refrain their argument. Instead of saying “it’s a disease, genetics, etc that prevent me from losing weight even when I drastically reduce my validly count” (this is simply a losing argument) and instead argue “genetics makes it very very difficult to stop my mind from Cindy sky thinking about food and thereby reducing my caloric intake. I’m simply unable to stop eating. Genetics makes it impossible to stop.”
If they did that we could stop arguing about CICO and all this thermodynamics crap. Going against those is a losing battle. Just focus on your inability to stop eating and you’ll get way more supporters.
It might not be easy but it absolutely is as simple as calories in and calories out. All the other factors combined can still not override the first law of thermodynamics.
There is only calories in and calories out. Did you go a week without losing any weight? You consumed too many calories. Whether you chalk that up to "muh metabolism" or some kind of magical universe defying intervention, the end result is that you consumed to many calories to lose weight. Dial things back by 500 and see what the scale says next week.
No amount of mocking "the first law of thermodynamics, man" makes it not true. For everyone complaining about the complexity of losing weight, the gym bros just keep weighing out their chicken and broccoli to great result.
It's kindof ironic that despite it being quite simple, and there being around 100 years of freely available science explaining why it's not true, some people just can't stop saying "calories in - calories out"
I started reading and listening to Jason Fung’s explanation of body internal system [1].
What actually influences weight is hormonal cycles. I am experiencing positive results so far, working on this explanation.
Take steps to reduce not only amount of insulin presence in blood stream, but reduce its sustained presence. Reduce visceral fat.
The problem is solved by mix of correct nutrition, moderate physical lifestyle and intermittent fasting. Never by “dieting” or sustained calorific deficit.
Fasting should not be primarily thought of as reducing calories. Rather as creating longer gap inside body without insulin running though blood stream and toggling body to use fat as metabolism source.
Weight loss (from fat reduction, not muscle) is secondary benefit.
The only way those interventions work though is because their net result is less calories consumed versus expended. It's cool if that works for you, but if you've lost weight you very much have sustained a caloric deficit.
I think it has more to do with how fast you lose it than how few calories you eat. The Biggest Loser contestants ate 1200-1500 calorie diets and still had abnormally low BMR even 5-10 years out.
For weight loss, through a decade of research and trial and error, here's what I have found.
- eat more than your BMR (basal metabolic rate) but less than your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) in order to maintain your BMR as you lose weight
- the gap between BMR and TDEE can be increased with exercise
- cardio burns calories but weight/resistance training helps build/maintain muscle mass as one's body drops weight, hopefully more from fats
- every week or so, resetting one's system by eating a very high calorie or carb heavy meal helps jolt the system as well as one's mindset. I personally find it easy to stick to good eating habits if I eat like shit once a week (on purpose, rather than accident).
This was one of my hopes for the new "weight loss drugs" like smeglitude, etc. But in reading about them they don't seem to act on metabolic rate, but just really cut the desire to eat food. So they work by calorie restriction at the end of the day vs actually changing metabolism?
Am I wrong here?
After reading the reviews of the drug, I decided to just do calorie counting of everything entering my mouth. Down 20 pounds so far in a month or so...
Things that change your actual metabolic rate are scarier. Like DNP. Ultimately the increased calorie expenditure needs to be spent somewhere and if it isn't just heat then it would have be be a large increase in NEEE (i.e. you get jittery) or I dunno, maybe you just get the compulsion to go on runs or do chores or just perfuntory tasks (like meth heads)
Yes, but how much will it go down? Will it go down proportionally? What more and more studies are finding is that it goes down very significantly and can stay very low for many years, making it near impossible to keep weight off.
The "Biggest Loser" study found that many of the people who lost weight on the show had a BMR much lower than other people of similar characteristics, but who had always been that size.
In other words, many times, the smug skinny person saying it's as simple as "calories in / calories out" doesn't realize that the people they are preaching to have to eat fewer calories and/or workout more than the lifelong skinny person has ever had to just to maintain a similar weight. Simply because at some point in their life, even 5-10 years prior, they were once overweight.
[+] [-] jjeaff|3 years ago|reply
There are a lot of people out there that have never dealt with trying to lose a lot of weight who think it's all just as simple as "calories in and calories out", "it's the first law of thermodynamics, man!"
It's like saying that running a marathon is easy, just keep running and don't stop!
It is so much more complex and there are a lot of factors and more variation between people than many realize. Obesity is a true epidemic and over simplifying the problem is not helping us solve it.
[+] [-] browningstreet|3 years ago|reply
As someone who has lost a lot of weight and gotten very strong, and coached a significant number people in their efforts: calorie tracking works… you need to be truthful in your effort.
The micro- level issues or margins of error in CICO are irrelevant to the macro- margins required by someone who has to reduce body fat by 50 lbs, or 100 lbs, or more. If you always record something wrong, and aren’t losing the weight, you’ll still need to make an adjustment to what you’re eating to accomplish the weight loss. There’s nothing magical about 2500 calories eaten or recorded, but there is something definite about losing 5 lbs over a period of time. That’s the baseline metric. The CICO is just an adjustable control.
As an example: most people aren’t willing to cook 90% of their meals for a couple of years. Restaurants generally won’t feed you reasonable portions (or proper vegetables), which is fatal to the cause when you need to lose a significant amount of weight. Routing around those baseline truths isn’t an accurate response to the challenges. Most fit people in the gym… the ones who are there at 6am, aren’t eating out — or calorically freely —all the time either.
The problem isn’t really the science of fat loss, but the world of crappy food products and restaurant meals. Restaurants do not follow a sustenance model.
[+] [-] the_omegist|3 years ago|reply
A "Lapalissade". Saying an issue is more complex than its synthesis doesn't make the issue more understandable.
You won't deny we never seen any person in a labor camp or lost on a desert island coming back obese, no matter their genetics.
So yes, everyone is different and for some it is less easy than for others. But obese people should stop trying to make it sound like their body is going against the laws of thermodynamics...
[+] [-] matt-attack|3 years ago|reply
If they did that we could stop arguing about CICO and all this thermodynamics crap. Going against those is a losing battle. Just focus on your inability to stop eating and you’ll get way more supporters.
[+] [-] unmole|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] goostavos|3 years ago|reply
No amount of mocking "the first law of thermodynamics, man" makes it not true. For everyone complaining about the complexity of losing weight, the gym bros just keep weighing out their chicken and broccoli to great result.
[+] [-] jibbit|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zxienin|3 years ago|reply
Take steps to reduce not only amount of insulin presence in blood stream, but reduce its sustained presence. Reduce visceral fat.
The problem is solved by mix of correct nutrition, moderate physical lifestyle and intermittent fasting. Never by “dieting” or sustained calorific deficit.
Fasting should not be primarily thought of as reducing calories. Rather as creating longer gap inside body without insulin running though blood stream and toggling body to use fat as metabolism source. Weight loss (from fat reduction, not muscle) is secondary benefit.
[1] https://youtu.be/RL8x7FTSo-Y
[+] [-] kuhewa|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonahbenton|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jjeaff|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grwthckrmstr|3 years ago|reply
- eat more than your BMR (basal metabolic rate) but less than your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) in order to maintain your BMR as you lose weight
- the gap between BMR and TDEE can be increased with exercise
- cardio burns calories but weight/resistance training helps build/maintain muscle mass as one's body drops weight, hopefully more from fats
- every week or so, resetting one's system by eating a very high calorie or carb heavy meal helps jolt the system as well as one's mindset. I personally find it easy to stick to good eating habits if I eat like shit once a week (on purpose, rather than accident).
[+] [-] meetingthrower|3 years ago|reply
Am I wrong here?
After reading the reviews of the drug, I decided to just do calorie counting of everything entering my mouth. Down 20 pounds so far in a month or so...
[+] [-] kuhewa|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cosmin800|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zxienin|3 years ago|reply
Surrounding daily life with sugar, carbs is the root.
[1] https://youtu.be/dBnniua6-oM
[+] [-] steve1977|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jjeaff|3 years ago|reply
The "Biggest Loser" study found that many of the people who lost weight on the show had a BMR much lower than other people of similar characteristics, but who had always been that size.
In other words, many times, the smug skinny person saying it's as simple as "calories in / calories out" doesn't realize that the people they are preaching to have to eat fewer calories and/or workout more than the lifelong skinny person has ever had to just to maintain a similar weight. Simply because at some point in their life, even 5-10 years prior, they were once overweight.