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It’s still a perfectly reasonable approximation. What pains me is the popular myth that reducing calories in while maintaining calories out “doesn’t work”, whic

It’s still a perfectly reasonable approximation. What pains me is the popular myth that reducing calories in while maintaining calories out “doesn’t work”, which is essentially arguing for the existence of a perpetual motion machine.

amanaplanacanal 5y ago
But can you maintain calories out? You don’t know what they are, you have no way to measure them, and your body processes will change them in an attempt to maintain homeostasis. I realize that people can fight homeostasis short term, but very few successfully fight it long term. We need to figure out the real causes of obesity, because calories in/calories out doesn’t appear to actually help very many people.
makeitdouble 5y ago
Calorie in/ calorie out is reasonable if you start counting the calorie effectively absorbed by your gut (the “IN”), and find a way to measure the energy spent by your body in all directions (including temperature keeping, brain activity, etc., the “OUT”). The killing joke being that the “OUT” has been times and times shown to be regulated depending on the “IN”, so reduction in calorie intake generally cascades in reduced calorie spending in a variety of ways.
- cracell 5y ago
  So? It's not complicated. If someone is overweight and consuming 3,000 calories a day and then reduces to 2,000 they might not lose weight. But then they just need to reduce further. All humans will lose weight at 0 calories per day. You just gotta find the right calorie level. Yes exact absorption greatly varies and is impossible to measure. But that's why you just reduce until you are losing at the desired speed. You don't need to precisely measure anything. You just need to be able to tell if overall consumption is going up or down. Of course this is mentally very challenging so people try to find reasons for it to not work. But energy has to come from somewhere.
  - abstractbarista 5y ago
    I've read that "Your body adjusts to input, so it's not that easy!" many times now. I don't dispute it is true. But why not call the body's bluff? Cut input further! And then cut it again. Be more stubborn than your body. Not saying it would be easy. It would probably be really hard. Not sure if I could actually do it if I had to. But surely, it is possible?! What little physics I know seems to strongly support it.
    - makeitdouble 5y ago
      What people (me included) take issue with is not wether it’s easy or not, but if it makes any sense. People with health conditions that directly depend on them losing weight will need specific ways, adapted to them, to lose that weight. Telling them “just eat less dumbass” (which is an actual advice thrown at people, almost verbatim) is condescending, ignoring the complexity of dieting, and only looking at it short term when they are trying to change the rest of their life. We wouldn’t throw “money in/money out” mantras at random bankrupt people (or do we? I can’t tell anymore), we shouldn’t do that to overweight people either.
      - bronco21016 5y ago
        > We wouldn’t throw “money in/money out” mantras at random bankrupt people (or do we? I can’t tell anymore), we shouldn’t do that to overweight people either. The entire personal finance sphere is based around this advice. Make a budget, cut costs, get spending under income enough to pay off debt. So yes, we do distill it down to “money in/money out” for people who mismanage their money. Fortunately, when it comes to money it generally is that simple, provided the income is sufficient to maintain the basic necessities of life.
        makeitdouble 5y ago
        For finance, is it that simple ? I agree I would see that for families that have a decently balanced budget but need to build assets to get out of the borderline red zone. For people straight in the red, more often than not the advices I've seen applied IRL are akin to talking to one's bank to reevaluate the situation, checking with local institutions how they can help, reviewing tax declarations, giving up on too low paying jobs to completely change their status etc. To me these changes are often more structural or complicated than just deciding where the money goes or to how much extent.
- nextaccountic 5y ago
  It's stil perfectly appropriate to make estimates even if you don't know specifics about your gut and your metabolic rate and whatnot, as long as the estimates are conservative enough. You don't need all the data: you just need enough headroom on the caloric deficit to make up for any inaccuracies. Besides, if the estimates are wrong and you are not losing weight just eat less calories in the next week and see what happens. This is a form of feedback control; this kind of control can lessen the impact of modelling errors. If you stick to this plan, you're guaranteed to lose weight, 100% of time. Detractors of CICO usually say that people don't have the willpower to stick to this plan indefinitely. This might be generally true for most people (I don't know). But alas, some people have enough willpower, and some have enough support, such as having their portions be prepared by someone else. For them, this strategy will always work.
  - makeitdouble 5y ago
    I always wondered what would be the best analogies for this. I imagine you are chronically in-debt from your health bills, college loan, dead beat husband who lost his third job in a row and you still have to feed your two kids. You go read some books for advice on being in a better financial shape, and they tell you “Just spend less money. If in the next weeks you still aren’t getting rich, spend even less money, and so on. It’s just simple math, spend less than you earn ! It’s hard but stay strong !” I wonder how you’d feel about that advice.
    - nextaccountic 5y ago
      Actually, I don't think that CICO is the best approach for losing weight. First off, it ignores that nutrition is important too, not just calories. Eating healthy is important, and this goes beyond weight loss. Second, obesity has psychological causes that need to be addressed as well, it's important to have a better relationship with food. So it's not just about what you eat. Drinking enough water and having plenty of sleep is very important too. And so on. But I stand to my comment that CICO works for weight loss. It's not generally true, however, that people in financial disarray can get rich by just spending less. Our cost of living is a fundamental limit on how much we can save. But more than that, people can't get rich if they don't have a high income.

amanaplanacanal 5y ago

But can you maintain calories out? You don’t know what they are, you have no way to measure them, and your body processes will change them in an attempt to maintain homeostasis. I realize that people can fight homeostasis short term, but very few successfully fight it long term. We need to figure out the real causes of obesity, because calories in/calories out doesn’t appear to actually help very many people.

makeitdouble 5y ago

Calorie in/ calorie out is reasonable if you start counting the calorie effectively absorbed by your gut (the “IN”), and find a way to measure the energy spent by your body in all directions (including temperature keeping, brain activity, etc., the “OUT”). The killing joke being that the “OUT” has been times and times shown to be regulated depending on the “IN”, so reduction in calorie intake generally cascades in reduced calorie spending in a variety of ways.

cracell 5y ago
So? It's not complicated. If someone is overweight and consuming 3,000 calories a day and then reduces to 2,000 they might not lose weight. But then they just need to reduce further. All humans will lose weight at 0 calories per day. You just gotta find the right calorie level. Yes exact absorption greatly varies and is impossible to measure. But that's why you just reduce until you are losing at the desired speed. You don't need to precisely measure anything. You just need to be able to tell if overall consumption is going up or down. Of course this is mentally very challenging so people try to find reasons for it to not work. But energy has to come from somewhere.
- abstractbarista 5y ago
  I've read that "Your body adjusts to input, so it's not that easy!" many times now. I don't dispute it is true. But why not call the body's bluff? Cut input further! And then cut it again. Be more stubborn than your body. Not saying it would be easy. It would probably be really hard. Not sure if I could actually do it if I had to. But surely, it is possible?! What little physics I know seems to strongly support it.
  - makeitdouble 5y ago
    What people (me included) take issue with is not wether it’s easy or not, but if it makes any sense. People with health conditions that directly depend on them losing weight will need specific ways, adapted to them, to lose that weight. Telling them “just eat less dumbass” (which is an actual advice thrown at people, almost verbatim) is condescending, ignoring the complexity of dieting, and only looking at it short term when they are trying to change the rest of their life. We wouldn’t throw “money in/money out” mantras at random bankrupt people (or do we? I can’t tell anymore), we shouldn’t do that to overweight people either.
    - bronco21016 5y ago
      > We wouldn’t throw “money in/money out” mantras at random bankrupt people (or do we? I can’t tell anymore), we shouldn’t do that to overweight people either. The entire personal finance sphere is based around this advice. Make a budget, cut costs, get spending under income enough to pay off debt. So yes, we do distill it down to “money in/money out” for people who mismanage their money. Fortunately, when it comes to money it generally is that simple, provided the income is sufficient to maintain the basic necessities of life.
      - makeitdouble 5y ago
        For finance, is it that simple ? I agree I would see that for families that have a decently balanced budget but need to build assets to get out of the borderline red zone. For people straight in the red, more often than not the advices I've seen applied IRL are akin to talking to one's bank to reevaluate the situation, checking with local institutions how they can help, reviewing tax declarations, giving up on too low paying jobs to completely change their status etc. To me these changes are often more structural or complicated than just deciding where the money goes or to how much extent.
nextaccountic 5y ago
It's stil perfectly appropriate to make estimates even if you don't know specifics about your gut and your metabolic rate and whatnot, as long as the estimates are conservative enough. You don't need all the data: you just need enough headroom on the caloric deficit to make up for any inaccuracies. Besides, if the estimates are wrong and you are not losing weight just eat less calories in the next week and see what happens. This is a form of feedback control; this kind of control can lessen the impact of modelling errors. If you stick to this plan, you're guaranteed to lose weight, 100% of time. Detractors of CICO usually say that people don't have the willpower to stick to this plan indefinitely. This might be generally true for most people (I don't know). But alas, some people have enough willpower, and some have enough support, such as having their portions be prepared by someone else. For them, this strategy will always work.
- makeitdouble 5y ago
  I always wondered what would be the best analogies for this. I imagine you are chronically in-debt from your health bills, college loan, dead beat husband who lost his third job in a row and you still have to feed your two kids. You go read some books for advice on being in a better financial shape, and they tell you “Just spend less money. If in the next weeks you still aren’t getting rich, spend even less money, and so on. It’s just simple math, spend less than you earn ! It’s hard but stay strong !” I wonder how you’d feel about that advice.
  - nextaccountic 5y ago
    Actually, I don't think that CICO is the best approach for losing weight. First off, it ignores that nutrition is important too, not just calories. Eating healthy is important, and this goes beyond weight loss. Second, obesity has psychological causes that need to be addressed as well, it's important to have a better relationship with food. So it's not just about what you eat. Drinking enough water and having plenty of sleep is very important too. And so on. But I stand to my comment that CICO works for weight loss. It's not generally true, however, that people in financial disarray can get rich by just spending less. Our cost of living is a fundamental limit on how much we can save. But more than that, people can't get rich if they don't have a high income.