[bkandel]

It's an oversimplification of how the body works to the point of not being useful. For example, if you eat 2500 kcal a day and maintain a steady weight of 150 lbs, it is not the case that if you change your diet to 2200 kcal you will consistently lose X pounds per week. You would more likely lose a bit, then plateau at some level that's hard to predict, because now your body adapted to an input of 2200 kcal a day. Add to this the complication that where those calories come from matters a lot, because when you increase your blood sugar, your body increases insulin which builds up body fat, but if you have eat a low-sugar/carb diet, that happens less. And if you eat sugary foods, you will tend to get hungry more quickly than eating protein-based foods. It's all so person-dependent and food-dependent that just saying "eat less calories and you'll lose weight" does not accurately describe most people's reality.

[jghn]

Your example is the oversimplification that causes people to disbelieve CICO. In your example the body adjusted and the CO wasn't stable. CICO still holds, the flaw is the person assuming their CO was stable.

People who staunchly support CICO as the end all be all talking point miss what you describe. At the same time people who decry CICO as being bogus are missing what I describe. Both are true and both are wrong. It's really just a semantic argument.

[simonbarker87]

If you dropped your calories you wouldn’t expect to loose weight forever, you would expect to loose a bit of weight while your body adapted and then stay at that new weight if you stay at the new lower calories. CICO works well for the vast majority of people, it’s just very hard to know what the balance is and the averaging window is weeks not days.