7 ms·

So what's the benefit of these? We understand that the key to weight loss is calories in, calories out. What's so hard to understand about that..? Maybe I am

So what's the benefit of these? We understand that the key to weight loss is calories in, calories out. What's so hard to understand about that..? Maybe I am missing the point. Is this just to gather more evidence to prove caloric deficits are the correct way?

Faaak 8y ago
CICO is not exactly true. Not all calories are equal. Fat calories, for example, are much less absorbed by the body than carbohydrates.
- garrettdc 8y ago
  It does a good enough job at modeling reality that we can make decent predictions with it. While the details of CICO may be more complicated, for someone who is obviously out of shape, the advice of "Eat some extra protein and make sure you are consuming below maintenance calories" works 9/10 times.
  - WorldMaker 8y ago
    Which is why Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig have never changed their formulas, always works for everyone, never have repeat customers, and are nearly broke charities, right?~
    - tacon 8y ago
      Those companies are a nicely disguised cover to maintain one's status quo. An online marketer once pointed out a Jenny Craig(?) advertisement: "Eat all the food you want!" Busted.
- Andre_Wanglin 8y ago
  It's still CICO. It's just that the way we currently measure the caloric content of a food does not represent what is actually bioavailable.
  - laretluval 8y ago
    So it’s CICO for some unobservable quantity of calories. Real useful.
    - adrianN 8y ago
      It's really useful if you don't change your diet, but eat less of the same stuff as before.
      - laretluval 8y ago
        Not necessarily. Bioavailable calories may not be a linear function of calories consumed. CICO is empirically vacuous.
- azemetre 8y ago
  You're talking about calorie differentials amounting to 40 or 80 per day. Hardly something worth considering for the average person, but I'm sure it gives you easy grant money to chug out reports. If you think obesity is due to the difference between 80 calories or so, you have other drastic immediate concerns (the terrible mental model being one). People aren't becoming obese because their body isn't "processing" fat calories compared to carb calories, they are obese because people eat obscene amounts of food daily. Countries like France and Italy eat massive amounts of carbs in their diets and they don't have obesity issues on the scale of the United States.
- rimliu 8y ago
  Calories that not abosorbed are calories-through, not calories -in.
supreme_sublime 8y ago
The point of these is body positivity basically. You are fat and it isn't your fault. Even if you do exercise it won't be enough. It is strange though, pretty much no one thinks that just exercising is enough. Any workout program will tell you that a 6 pack is made in the kitchen. Lifting weights and doing some cardio will certainly help the process and help you be healthier in general. The biggest factor is nutrition.
- garrettdc 8y ago
  > The biggest factor is nutrition Yes! > The point of these is body positivity basically. You are fat and it isn't your fault. I didn't see this at all in there. If anything, this is written to people who think they can outwork a bad diet, which is rarely the case for anyone over 16. Nothing in there was about body positivity or anything. It just showed that even when we run and "burn 300 calories" that you are possibly holding that back somewhere else to stay at caloric balance.
  - supreme_sublime 8y ago
    That's fair, I was definitely reading between the lines a bit. Just seems like the kind of article that some people who are deep in denial about their health will point to as "proof" that they are just this way and cannot change.
- tacon 8y ago
  There is some help in weight control from lean muscle mass. Fat needs about 2 kcals/day/pound to stay alive. Muscle needs something in the 20 kcals/day/pound range to stay alive. Also, having a good amount of lean muscle mass naturally leads to a more active lifestyle in general. But these are still minor compared to basic diet.
bgentry 8y ago
At the pure physical level, yes: calories remaining = calories in - calories out However, the "calories out" portion of that equation is actually quite complicated. In recent years many studies have indicated that the body does not process all calories in the same way. So "calories out" depends on a lot of things, including: - metabolism, which can be increased by exercise and muscle mass - what specific kind of "calories in" you're getting, and how your body processes these - calories burned directly by exercise To highlight one specific example of this, a calorie of fructose may be processed by the body very differently than a calorie of, say, vegetable fat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
- xutopia 8y ago
  The process for storing fat as fat is paradoxically very difficult for the body chemically. The easiest way for the body to add stores of fat reserves is through sugar and the more refined (HFCS comes to mind) it is the easiest it is for the body.
  - kmm 8y ago
    Can you source that? Because as far as I can tell, de novo lipogenesis is a relatively rare process, exactly because our body prefers to just store the fat in the blood as fat. Sugar is burned preferentially, and only when your carb intake exceeds your total daily energy expenditure, it will start converting it to fat: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10365981 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10365981 I'm not sure what chemically needs to happen, fat is transported from the bowel to the bloodstream in a relatively complex process, but once it's in the blood, it's in the same form as in storage, as triglycerides. In fact, the triglyceride content of a person's fat stores will reflect their diet, which is a strong indication it comes directly from the food without processing: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4072956 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4072956
  - tacon 8y ago
    Paleo Diet & Strength Training Biochemistry | Doug McGuff M.D. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7GB3h82tcQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7GB3h82tcQ
jmull 8y ago
> We understand that the key to weight loss is calories in, calories out. That's not at all true. CICO is a straightforward restatement of a law of thermodynamics, and I'm not disputing that at all. But from a weight-loss perspective, understanding CICO isn't necessarily that helpful, and certainly not "the key". The difficult question is how any particular individual can make CO > CI. (Well, actually, the goal is to balance CO with CI at a healthy weight, but of course that's step 2 for a lot of people.) There are many millions of people for whom the answer to that question is not known. I suspect it's because Human metabolism is complicated, with numerous overlapping and interacting mechanisms and system, where the parameters for how they interact vary by individual... hormones, habits, social network, culture, taste, access to food options, physical health, your job, etc., can all be significant factors, depending on the individual. Meanwhile, food producers of various sorts are often acting at cross-purposes, since their goal is to make as much money as possible, not necessarily help people lose weight.
- WorldMaker 8y ago
  > CICO is a straightforward restatement of a law of thermodynamics The Second Law of Thermodynamics applies to closed systems only. Show me the ecosystem where food consumed and a human body is a perfectly closed system with no other inputs/outputs and I'll show you how that does not resemble the real world and you are making underlying assumptions you cannot prove.
  - bitwize 8y ago
    In a closed system, CI=CO=0, by definition, so I think you've got the wrong thermodynamic law.
    - WorldMaker 8y ago
      Apologies, I did mean the First Law, but the criticism still applies. The First Law of Thermodynamics also includes a closed system assumption.
      - 8y ago
pubby 8y ago
I used to bash CICO as being an over-simplification until I actually looked at the numbers. The average american eats 3600 calories per day. Fat ones eat more; perhaps 4000 to 8000. This is far beyond amounts recommended to lose weight effectively: 1500 or less. There are lots of variables in human nutrition and metabolism, but the biggest by far is the fact that people are eating 3-5x the amount of food they should.

Faaak 8y ago

CICO is not exactly true. Not all calories are equal. Fat calories, for example, are much less absorbed by the body than carbohydrates.

garrettdc 8y ago
It does a good enough job at modeling reality that we can make decent predictions with it. While the details of CICO may be more complicated, for someone who is obviously out of shape, the advice of "Eat some extra protein and make sure you are consuming below maintenance calories" works 9/10 times.
- WorldMaker 8y ago
  Which is why Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig have never changed their formulas, always works for everyone, never have repeat customers, and are nearly broke charities, right?~
  - tacon 8y ago
    Those companies are a nicely disguised cover to maintain one's status quo. An online marketer once pointed out a Jenny Craig(?) advertisement: "Eat all the food you want!" Busted.
Andre_Wanglin 8y ago
It's still CICO. It's just that the way we currently measure the caloric content of a food does not represent what is actually bioavailable.
- laretluval 8y ago
  So it’s CICO for some unobservable quantity of calories. Real useful.
  - adrianN 8y ago
    It's really useful if you don't change your diet, but eat less of the same stuff as before.
    - laretluval 8y ago
      Not necessarily. Bioavailable calories may not be a linear function of calories consumed. CICO is empirically vacuous.
azemetre 8y ago
You're talking about calorie differentials amounting to 40 or 80 per day. Hardly something worth considering for the average person, but I'm sure it gives you easy grant money to chug out reports. If you think obesity is due to the difference between 80 calories or so, you have other drastic immediate concerns (the terrible mental model being one). People aren't becoming obese because their body isn't "processing" fat calories compared to carb calories, they are obese because people eat obscene amounts of food daily. Countries like France and Italy eat massive amounts of carbs in their diets and they don't have obesity issues on the scale of the United States.
rimliu 8y ago
Calories that not abosorbed are calories-through, not calories -in.

supreme_sublime 8y ago

The point of these is body positivity basically. You are fat and it isn't your fault. Even if you do exercise it won't be enough. It is strange though, pretty much no one thinks that just exercising is enough. Any workout program will tell you that a 6 pack is made in the kitchen. Lifting weights and doing some cardio will certainly help the process and help you be healthier in general. The biggest factor is nutrition.

garrettdc 8y ago
> The biggest factor is nutrition Yes! > The point of these is body positivity basically. You are fat and it isn't your fault. I didn't see this at all in there. If anything, this is written to people who think they can outwork a bad diet, which is rarely the case for anyone over 16. Nothing in there was about body positivity or anything. It just showed that even when we run and "burn 300 calories" that you are possibly holding that back somewhere else to stay at caloric balance.
- supreme_sublime 8y ago
  That's fair, I was definitely reading between the lines a bit. Just seems like the kind of article that some people who are deep in denial about their health will point to as "proof" that they are just this way and cannot change.
tacon 8y ago
There is some help in weight control from lean muscle mass. Fat needs about 2 kcals/day/pound to stay alive. Muscle needs something in the 20 kcals/day/pound range to stay alive. Also, having a good amount of lean muscle mass naturally leads to a more active lifestyle in general. But these are still minor compared to basic diet.

bgentry 8y ago

At the pure physical level, yes: calories remaining = calories in - calories out However, the "calories out" portion of that equation is actually quite complicated. In recent years many studies have indicated that the body does not process all calories in the same way. So "calories out" depends on a lot of things, including: - metabolism, which can be increased by exercise and muscle mass - what specific kind of "calories in" you're getting, and how your body processes these - calories burned directly by exercise To highlight one specific example of this, a calorie of fructose may be processed by the body very differently than a calorie of, say, vegetable fat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

xutopia 8y ago
The process for storing fat as fat is paradoxically very difficult for the body chemically. The easiest way for the body to add stores of fat reserves is through sugar and the more refined (HFCS comes to mind) it is the easiest it is for the body.
- kmm 8y ago
  Can you source that? Because as far as I can tell, de novo lipogenesis is a relatively rare process, exactly because our body prefers to just store the fat in the blood as fat. Sugar is burned preferentially, and only when your carb intake exceeds your total daily energy expenditure, it will start converting it to fat: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10365981 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10365981 I'm not sure what chemically needs to happen, fat is transported from the bowel to the bloodstream in a relatively complex process, but once it's in the blood, it's in the same form as in storage, as triglycerides. In fact, the triglyceride content of a person's fat stores will reflect their diet, which is a strong indication it comes directly from the food without processing: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4072956 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4072956
- tacon 8y ago
  Paleo Diet & Strength Training Biochemistry | Doug McGuff M.D. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7GB3h82tcQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7GB3h82tcQ

jmull 8y ago

> We understand that the key to weight loss is calories in, calories out. That's not at all true. CICO is a straightforward restatement of a law of thermodynamics, and I'm not disputing that at all. But from a weight-loss perspective, understanding CICO isn't necessarily that helpful, and certainly not "the key". The difficult question is how any particular individual can make CO > CI. (Well, actually, the goal is to balance CO with CI at a healthy weight, but of course that's step 2 for a lot of people.) There are many millions of people for whom the answer to that question is not known. I suspect it's because Human metabolism is complicated, with numerous overlapping and interacting mechanisms and system, where the parameters for how they interact vary by individual... hormones, habits, social network, culture, taste, access to food options, physical health, your job, etc., can all be significant factors, depending on the individual. Meanwhile, food producers of various sorts are often acting at cross-purposes, since their goal is to make as much money as possible, not necessarily help people lose weight.

WorldMaker 8y ago
> CICO is a straightforward restatement of a law of thermodynamics The Second Law of Thermodynamics applies to closed systems only. Show me the ecosystem where food consumed and a human body is a perfectly closed system with no other inputs/outputs and I'll show you how that does not resemble the real world and you are making underlying assumptions you cannot prove.
- bitwize 8y ago
  In a closed system, CI=CO=0, by definition, so I think you've got the wrong thermodynamic law.
  - WorldMaker 8y ago
    Apologies, I did mean the First Law, but the criticism still applies. The First Law of Thermodynamics also includes a closed system assumption.
    - 8y ago

pubby 8y ago

I used to bash CICO as being an over-simplification until I actually looked at the numbers. The average american eats 3600 calories per day. Fat ones eat more; perhaps 4000 to 8000. This is far beyond amounts recommended to lose weight effectively: 1500 or less. There are lots of variables in human nutrition and metabolism, but the biggest by far is the fact that people are eating 3-5x the amount of food they should.