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> The whole ‘you just need to eat less calories to lose weight’ thing CICO, or "calories in, calories out", is obviously real. If you don't eat food, you will

> The whole ‘you just need to eat less calories to lose weight’ thing CICO, or "calories in, calories out", is obviously real. If you don't eat food, you will lose weight and eventually starve to death.

toomuchtodo 4y ago
There’s a difference between consumption tied to metabolic rate and satiation. Carbs make you consume more calories, proteins and fats are better at moderating your caloric consumption closer to your metabolic rate. A can of Coke doesn’t satiate your, but it’s almost 300 calories with almost no nutritional value, so you’re going to consume more calories than you otherwise would.
- throwaway821909 4y ago
  But we should start there and everything else should just say "this will help you feel less hungry with less calories". If you had the willpower to just drink 1500 calories of Coke for a day, you would lose weight, you'd also feel hungry all the time (and die eventually but that's beside the point). (p.s. they say it's 140)
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    I’m mistaken. As I review the 12 Fl oz Mountain Dew can in my fridge, it appears it’s 170 calories. I was remembering the same bottle closer to 23 oz I picked up at the gas station for someone earlier today.
- jclos 4y ago
  Anything that states that an entire macronutrient is more satiating than another macronutrient is crank science and you should dismiss it. High fibre "carbs" for example are incredibly satiating.
  - evol262 4y ago
    "What is glycemic index?" This isn't "crank science". This is just lack of knowledge. High fibre "carbs" have a lower glycemic index. Fats have essentially none, and protein is low. Food -> glucose -> insulin release -> glycogen update by liver/muscles -> leptin release for satiety Simultaneously: lower blood sugar -> ghrelin release -> hunger This is just the difference between burning gunpowder and charcoal.
  - galangalalgol 4y ago
    I'm pretty sure that is one of those things that varies by person, or perhaps bt gut flora. Which foods spike blood sugar can vary widely by person. One lady in study became an outlier because the way her gut processed a normal tomato made her bloodsugar react like she had been doing shots of HFCS. I eat a wholesome bowl of steelcut oats and immediately crave carbs and sugar, I'm assuming because my bloodsugar spikes and crashes. But if I have a fried egg on some broccoli I'll be full for hours. I don't do keto. But fiber alone doesn't make me feel satiated because the signal saying my insides are full is getting overridden by the one saying my blood sugar is low. I'm not diabetic or hypoglycemic either, or at least the doc says I'm not.
pravus 4y ago
> CICO, or "calories in, calories out", is obviously real. But it's a very bad proxy for anything related to weight. Water is 8.8lbs per gallon and yet has 0 calories so you ignore your entire water maintenance cycle in the accounting. It also assumes that every single molecule of calorie-bearing food is metabolized homogeneously in your body which isn't the case. Your digestive system will happily pass unwanted calories without absorption (especially fat) and tends to store extra water along with carbohydrates (4x by weight). It's a very simplistic idea that is only true in absolutes. It's a restatement of the 2nd law of thermodynamics which applies to literally everything and is so general and vague as to be useless.
- iends 4y ago
  So CICO, but make sure to eat "clean" and a variety?
  - jclos 4y ago
    More like CICO, but make sure to eat high satiety carbs, a variety of vegetables, a lot of protein, enough good fats, and have a way to estimate your overall activity level and keep it constant or even slightly higher than usual (e.g. a step counter) to account for NEAT decrease.
- jclos 4y ago
  The core issue of CICO as you pointed out is that it's a truism that ignores key aspects of a diet that usually come with a restriction in caloric intake - hunger can lead to poor food choices (decrease in TEF) and leads to lethargy (decrease in NEAT) which can account for up to 500 kcal/day (don't quote me on this, just trying to remember the papers I had read a long time ago) and completely negate the dieting effort. That's not even accounting the approximations of CI.
  - evol262 4y ago
    There are essentially zero papers which show anything even remotely resembling this. In basically every controlled environment, CICO more or less works, albeit not with perfect efficiency. It's not until prolonged starvation periods or massive overfeeding periods that any sort of genetic/epigenetic limiters come in (overfeeding tends to be prisoner studies, the MN starvation experiment is the most commonly cited/most data from long-term starvation). If dieting works in controlled environments, the obvious conclusion is that dieting does not work in uncontrolled environment precisely because of the poor food choices, and because we, as humans, tend to discount the amount of calories in small things through out the day, nor do we rigorously measure. All a "NEAT decrease" is saying is "people are more lethargic when dieting". It would be unsurprising if this were due to crash dieting, but this cannot "negate" a diet. Reduce calories further until the scale starts to move. Or be more active, despite lethargy.
majormajor 4y ago
I feel like the "CO" part of this gets overlooked a lot. E.g. "I'm eating fewer calories but in an unhealthy fashion and am now tired all the time and so I'm more sedentary" sorta things. Is there a really reliable way of estimating total calories burned in a day that's based on direct individual observation vs averages and such?
- evol262 4y ago
  Track how many calories you are eating. If your weight is stable, you are burning that many. It is literally that simple. If you reduce calories, you will lose weight. If you increase them, you will gain weight. Individual metabolism makes a difference here, as does body composition.

toomuchtodo 4y ago

There’s a difference between consumption tied to metabolic rate and satiation. Carbs make you consume more calories, proteins and fats are better at moderating your caloric consumption closer to your metabolic rate. A can of Coke doesn’t satiate your, but it’s almost 300 calories with almost no nutritional value, so you’re going to consume more calories than you otherwise would.

throwaway821909 4y ago
But we should start there and everything else should just say "this will help you feel less hungry with less calories". If you had the willpower to just drink 1500 calories of Coke for a day, you would lose weight, you'd also feel hungry all the time (and die eventually but that's beside the point). (p.s. they say it's 140)
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  I’m mistaken. As I review the 12 Fl oz Mountain Dew can in my fridge, it appears it’s 170 calories. I was remembering the same bottle closer to 23 oz I picked up at the gas station for someone earlier today.
jclos 4y ago
Anything that states that an entire macronutrient is more satiating than another macronutrient is crank science and you should dismiss it. High fibre "carbs" for example are incredibly satiating.
- evol262 4y ago
  "What is glycemic index?" This isn't "crank science". This is just lack of knowledge. High fibre "carbs" have a lower glycemic index. Fats have essentially none, and protein is low. Food -> glucose -> insulin release -> glycogen update by liver/muscles -> leptin release for satiety Simultaneously: lower blood sugar -> ghrelin release -> hunger This is just the difference between burning gunpowder and charcoal.
- galangalalgol 4y ago
  I'm pretty sure that is one of those things that varies by person, or perhaps bt gut flora. Which foods spike blood sugar can vary widely by person. One lady in study became an outlier because the way her gut processed a normal tomato made her bloodsugar react like she had been doing shots of HFCS. I eat a wholesome bowl of steelcut oats and immediately crave carbs and sugar, I'm assuming because my bloodsugar spikes and crashes. But if I have a fried egg on some broccoli I'll be full for hours. I don't do keto. But fiber alone doesn't make me feel satiated because the signal saying my insides are full is getting overridden by the one saying my blood sugar is low. I'm not diabetic or hypoglycemic either, or at least the doc says I'm not.

pravus 4y ago

> CICO, or "calories in, calories out", is obviously real. But it's a very bad proxy for anything related to weight. Water is 8.8lbs per gallon and yet has 0 calories so you ignore your entire water maintenance cycle in the accounting. It also assumes that every single molecule of calorie-bearing food is metabolized homogeneously in your body which isn't the case. Your digestive system will happily pass unwanted calories without absorption (especially fat) and tends to store extra water along with carbohydrates (4x by weight). It's a very simplistic idea that is only true in absolutes. It's a restatement of the 2nd law of thermodynamics which applies to literally everything and is so general and vague as to be useless.

iends 4y ago
So CICO, but make sure to eat "clean" and a variety?
- jclos 4y ago
  More like CICO, but make sure to eat high satiety carbs, a variety of vegetables, a lot of protein, enough good fats, and have a way to estimate your overall activity level and keep it constant or even slightly higher than usual (e.g. a step counter) to account for NEAT decrease.
jclos 4y ago
The core issue of CICO as you pointed out is that it's a truism that ignores key aspects of a diet that usually come with a restriction in caloric intake - hunger can lead to poor food choices (decrease in TEF) and leads to lethargy (decrease in NEAT) which can account for up to 500 kcal/day (don't quote me on this, just trying to remember the papers I had read a long time ago) and completely negate the dieting effort. That's not even accounting the approximations of CI.
- evol262 4y ago
  There are essentially zero papers which show anything even remotely resembling this. In basically every controlled environment, CICO more or less works, albeit not with perfect efficiency. It's not until prolonged starvation periods or massive overfeeding periods that any sort of genetic/epigenetic limiters come in (overfeeding tends to be prisoner studies, the MN starvation experiment is the most commonly cited/most data from long-term starvation). If dieting works in controlled environments, the obvious conclusion is that dieting does not work in uncontrolled environment precisely because of the poor food choices, and because we, as humans, tend to discount the amount of calories in small things through out the day, nor do we rigorously measure. All a "NEAT decrease" is saying is "people are more lethargic when dieting". It would be unsurprising if this were due to crash dieting, but this cannot "negate" a diet. Reduce calories further until the scale starts to move. Or be more active, despite lethargy.

majormajor 4y ago

I feel like the "CO" part of this gets overlooked a lot. E.g. "I'm eating fewer calories but in an unhealthy fashion and am now tired all the time and so I'm more sedentary" sorta things. Is there a really reliable way of estimating total calories burned in a day that's based on direct individual observation vs averages and such?

evol262 4y ago
Track how many calories you are eating. If your weight is stable, you are burning that many. It is literally that simple. If you reduce calories, you will lose weight. If you increase them, you will gain weight. Individual metabolism makes a difference here, as does body composition.