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I haven't done much reading on this subject in a while, but I recall from Gary Taubes' Good Calories, Bad Calories that the issue is not that CICO is somehow fl

I haven't done much reading on this subject in a while, but I recall from Gary Taubes' Good Calories, Bad Calories that the issue is not that CICO is somehow flawed, but rather that there are meta-metabolic effects (if that makes sense) from the food we eat that ends up changing the factors in the CICO equation. In other words, none of the variables are static, and they in fact depend upon the nature of calories eaten. The canonical example: because high levels of glucose in the blood can be fatally toxic, the body must spike insulin levels after a (simple) carbohydrate-rich meal in order to get rid of it quickly. One effect of insulin is an increase in fat synthesis and storage of triglycerides in fat cells. A diet rich in simple carbohydrates can result in chronically elevated insulin levels, which means that the body is constantly stashing calories away in fat cells. The point is that the "caloric equation" that you refer to is a grossly oversimplified model of human metabolism that has led to what might be called Goodhart's Law of dietary advice.

femiagbabiaka 5y ago
All of this is true, but of course Gary himself advises a low carb high fat diet which has its own problems. So a more complete version of the above without straying too far in the other direction would be something like CICO + a balanced diet that seeks to hit most macro and micronutrients as well. For anyone interested, Stan Efferding's Vertical Diet is by far the best guide I've seen personally to putting together a nutrition program that seeks to hit these goals. (I'm not getting any money for saying that, of course.)
andreskytt 5y ago
Differential equations are a bugger. You get four of them, one for each mechanism group trying to adjust your weight up or down by changing intake or expenditure. Some are physiological, some psychological. If they get out of whack, you get weight gains or losses. But this is non-trivial non-linear stuff that’s pretty much impossible to keep track of even if you have the right memtal models.
BizarroLand 5y ago
The consequence of that is that morbidly obese people are literally starving while eating thousands of carb-laden calories a day over their base needs, their fat stealing the blood sugar from their organs and muscles when their organs become insulin resistant. There's a bit of science coming out about that process and identifying methods to break this cycle is big business, with semaglutide injections, gastric bypass surgeries, and low-carb diets being just some of the first successful methods found to break the cycle.

femiagbabiaka 5y ago

All of this is true, but of course Gary himself advises a low carb high fat diet which has its own problems. So a more complete version of the above without straying too far in the other direction would be something like CICO + a balanced diet that seeks to hit most macro and micronutrients as well. For anyone interested, Stan Efferding's Vertical Diet is by far the best guide I've seen personally to putting together a nutrition program that seeks to hit these goals. (I'm not getting any money for saying that, of course.)

andreskytt 5y ago

Differential equations are a bugger. You get four of them, one for each mechanism group trying to adjust your weight up or down by changing intake or expenditure. Some are physiological, some psychological. If they get out of whack, you get weight gains or losses. But this is non-trivial non-linear stuff that’s pretty much impossible to keep track of even if you have the right memtal models.

BizarroLand 5y ago

The consequence of that is that morbidly obese people are literally starving while eating thousands of carb-laden calories a day over their base needs, their fat stealing the blood sugar from their organs and muscles when their organs become insulin resistant. There's a bit of science coming out about that process and identifying methods to break this cycle is big business, with semaglutide injections, gastric bypass surgeries, and low-carb diets being just some of the first successful methods found to break the cycle.