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Like a good engineer I used to follow CICO religiously. It’s so simple and ‘right’, you just budget your calories and that’s all that matters. This led to me e

Like a good engineer I used to follow CICO religiously. It’s so simple and ‘right’, you just budget your calories and that’s all that matters. This led to me eating treat bags of sweets for lunch. Cycles of months putting on weight and then the following months doing a 500 deficit per day to lose it. Radical hunger spikes l, nights awake in bed because I was so hungry and dreams of eating marshmallows. Lack of nutrients. By the end of it I’d lost a lot of hair (I put a lot of this down to the inflammation caused by insulin resistance), my sweat smelled sweet, my temperature was totally out of whack, and maintaining my weight was a constant struggle. However, since fasting and eliminating sugar from my diet I’ve maintained my weight with way less effort. By focusing on low GI food, nutrient dense food, Ive reduced my hunger pangs, my sweat smells normal, my hairs started to grow back, my sleep has improved, I recover faster from exercise, etc. So yeah, CICO works. But it’s not optimal. The worst thing about my new diet is just how expensive and time consuming it is compared to just reading the calories on a packet and buying the cheapest thing that fits my daily budget. But it’s worth it.

bumby 4y ago
CICO is simply saying caloric deficit with is the main mechanism of weight loss. It is not saying that a caloric deficit is all that is needed for optimal health or that all calories are created equal from a health perspective. Health and weight loss shouldn’t be conflated. I would venture to guess that your new diet of fasting and nutrient dense foods is still giving you a caloric deficit to lose weight. You’ve just swapped counting calories for alternatives that serve as a proxy for reducing caloric intake. Ex. - intermittent fasting makes it easier to create a deficit because you're reducing the amount of time you can shove calories into your intake port - carnivore diet works because you're cutting out all the carbohydrates in your diet and protein/fat tend to be more satiating, resulting in fewer calories overall - Low GI foods reduce the amount of caloric-dense food options and reduce ghrelin, making you less likely to binge They just use a different heuristic to ultimately reduce calories. IMO this is one of the causes of yo-yo dieting. A proxy works well for a while and people lose weight. But then it stops being a good proxy for creating a caloric deficit and they plateau. Leading them to drop it, gain the weight back, and then jump onto the next fad that will serve as a rough proxy for caloric deficit again.
- simmerup 4y ago
  You say that, but a few years ago CICO was heavily conflated with IIFYM dieting. The nutrient aspect was heavily overlooked in popular fitness
  - bumby 4y ago
    That’s the point. You can still lose weight on IIFYM. The issue is people conflated “weight loss” with fitness. I can lose weight on the tapeworm diet. It’s doesn’t mean it’s healthy. They’re two different (but sometimes related) goals, so they are easily conflated.
    - simmerup 4y ago
      It sounds like you're agreeing with me but with argumentative phrasing. Maybe it's just down to the way I'm reading it though.
      - bumby 4y ago
        I think we do agree. I'm not arguing, I'm just saying it seems like you're discussing a different point than the OP and it's digression from their topic.
- weightloser81 4y ago
  CICO is the mother of all motte-and-bailey fallacies. The motte is a restatement of thermodynamics and therefore completely unassailable, at least in this universe. From this the proponents sally forth to make claims like "counting calories is a good way to lose weight". Whenever someone refutes this or anything else CICOs pulled from the bailey they, the CICOs, retreat to the motte and say stuff like "see, you did have a calorie deficit from IF". Yes, thermodynamics is always correct but usually not the appropriate level of analysis at which to address human problems. A simple restatement of CICO arguments in terms of car fuel is enough to see how utterly trivial they are: "My uncle got stranded on the highway" "How so?" "Ran out of gas" "Well, he must have had less energy in the tank then he needed to get to his destination. Simple CICO" Notice how the response is completely correct yet utterly useless. We haven't learned anything about why the uncle ran out of fuel. Was it a leak? CICO is true. Did he forget to fill up? CICO is true. Was he out of money and desperately hoping for the best? CICO is true. Thermodynamics is always true! Notice how all of the different real reasons need a completely different solution. If you responded with "you just need to have enough fuel available to the engine to make it to the destination" as your "solution" people would think you are autistic. If, when presented with the real solution, you said "well, see because he gave his uncle money for gas, now the fuel balance is postive" people would ask if you had a stroke. Why is it that this level of "argumentation" is somehow okay for intelligent people when it comes to weight loss but would get you laughed out of the room on literally any other topic? Try it: poverty? money-in-money-out! Housing? Houses-built-Houses-used! Job problems? Literally just get fired once less then you get hired!

bumby 4y ago

CICO is simply saying caloric deficit with is the main mechanism of weight loss. It is not saying that a caloric deficit is all that is needed for optimal health or that all calories are created equal from a health perspective. Health and weight loss shouldn’t be conflated. I would venture to guess that your new diet of fasting and nutrient dense foods is still giving you a caloric deficit to lose weight. You’ve just swapped counting calories for alternatives that serve as a proxy for reducing caloric intake. Ex. - intermittent fasting makes it easier to create a deficit because you're reducing the amount of time you can shove calories into your intake port - carnivore diet works because you're cutting out all the carbohydrates in your diet and protein/fat tend to be more satiating, resulting in fewer calories overall - Low GI foods reduce the amount of caloric-dense food options and reduce ghrelin, making you less likely to binge They just use a different heuristic to ultimately reduce calories. IMO this is one of the causes of yo-yo dieting. A proxy works well for a while and people lose weight. But then it stops being a good proxy for creating a caloric deficit and they plateau. Leading them to drop it, gain the weight back, and then jump onto the next fad that will serve as a rough proxy for caloric deficit again.

simmerup 4y ago
You say that, but a few years ago CICO was heavily conflated with IIFYM dieting. The nutrient aspect was heavily overlooked in popular fitness
- bumby 4y ago
  That’s the point. You can still lose weight on IIFYM. The issue is people conflated “weight loss” with fitness. I can lose weight on the tapeworm diet. It’s doesn’t mean it’s healthy. They’re two different (but sometimes related) goals, so they are easily conflated.
  - simmerup 4y ago
    It sounds like you're agreeing with me but with argumentative phrasing. Maybe it's just down to the way I'm reading it though.
    - bumby 4y ago
      I think we do agree. I'm not arguing, I'm just saying it seems like you're discussing a different point than the OP and it's digression from their topic.
weightloser81 4y ago
CICO is the mother of all motte-and-bailey fallacies. The motte is a restatement of thermodynamics and therefore completely unassailable, at least in this universe. From this the proponents sally forth to make claims like "counting calories is a good way to lose weight". Whenever someone refutes this or anything else CICOs pulled from the bailey they, the CICOs, retreat to the motte and say stuff like "see, you did have a calorie deficit from IF". Yes, thermodynamics is always correct but usually not the appropriate level of analysis at which to address human problems. A simple restatement of CICO arguments in terms of car fuel is enough to see how utterly trivial they are: "My uncle got stranded on the highway" "How so?" "Ran out of gas" "Well, he must have had less energy in the tank then he needed to get to his destination. Simple CICO" Notice how the response is completely correct yet utterly useless. We haven't learned anything about why the uncle ran out of fuel. Was it a leak? CICO is true. Did he forget to fill up? CICO is true. Was he out of money and desperately hoping for the best? CICO is true. Thermodynamics is always true! Notice how all of the different real reasons need a completely different solution. If you responded with "you just need to have enough fuel available to the engine to make it to the destination" as your "solution" people would think you are autistic. If, when presented with the real solution, you said "well, see because he gave his uncle money for gas, now the fuel balance is postive" people would ask if you had a stroke. Why is it that this level of "argumentation" is somehow okay for intelligent people when it comes to weight loss but would get you laughed out of the room on literally any other topic? Try it: poverty? money-in-money-out! Housing? Houses-built-Houses-used! Job problems? Literally just get fired once less then you get hired!