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CICO is a determination about the fact that humans obey the laws of the thermodynamics and cannot create mass from nothing. The fact that different people meta

by tekla 4y ago

CICO is a determination about the fact that humans obey the laws of the thermodynamics and cannot create mass from nothing. The fact that different people metabolize differently doesn't refute that. If you stop eating/eat very small amounts of food, you WILL lose weight. It is literally impossible for you not to do so. It doesn't matter if you drink pure corn syrup, eat twinkies, or Big Macs. If you limit to some arbitrary number of lets say 500 calories a day you WILL lose weight. The military has done extensive research on this because of logistical concerns, and have very well documented studies on calories required to keep soldiers active on the field. Any argument to the contrary is literally arguing that humans break physics and can get fat from nothing.

hombre_fatal 4y ago
I think the real point is that CICO ends up just boiling away into a trivial statement yet people fling it around as some actionable mantra. For example you can’t actually calculate CI and especially not CO. You can just try to approximate them which is just “eat less to lose weight” yet people throw around CICO as if it illuminates anything interesting, especially when it seems to be brought up as a counter to eating healthier. Turns out can’t actually eat all that much of something like broccoli, so “eat healthy” remains good advice.
- tekla 4y ago
  It doesnt illuminate anything interesting because weight loss is inherently uninteresting. There are TV shows that show people who claim they have trouble losing weight even though they diet and eat healthy, and when you see what you eat, its some ungodly amount of calorie dense food. There are athletes who plan their diets and workouts based around trying to make weight for competitions which involve planned amounts of weight drop for a target date. People who dont lose weight simply are LYING to themselves. They claim they track calories, but usually its eyed and not measured calories, they simply "forget" about the snack they had, or they "treat themselves" frequently for "good diet behavior" As a former extremely obese person, seeing people continually lie to themselves about a literal physical law about matter creation pisses me off. Losing 150 pounds was EASY the moment I realized I had to stop LYING to myself.
  - DougN7 4y ago
    CICO is true, and it’s the same as saying being an excellent driver is merely controlling friction and inertia. Factually true, but almost meaningless in and of itself.
bitL 4y ago
I've read that there is a huge difference between not eating anything at all and eating just a little. The former leading to rapid loss of weight while functioning somewhat normally, the latter to body shutting down and entering starvation mode. In other words, the stored body fat is not utilized unless there are no other options and if there are, body prefers to shut down instead of taping into reserves. The exception would be HIIT and similar training regimes that seem to lead to weight loss based on fat but those are typically out of reach of a regular obese person (but would work for athletes that bulked up).
- tekla 4y ago
  Sure, there probably is an element of that. I'm sure that people who have survived sieges and famines would have loved it if their body could magically get body fat to use to survive, but they don't. Starvation mode is not some magical state. Your metabolism drops. You will still lose weight if you eat less than maintenance.
  - bitL 4y ago
    Yes, though not eating at all seems to be much more pleasurable when trying to lose weight than just eating ~500kcal and feeling absolutely miserable due to one's body shutting down. Though I would skip water fasting and replace it with vitamin/electrolyte water fasting instead as one has only about a week of B1/B3 reserves and when those are gone, people might get into states resembling multiple sclerosis or schizophrenia, which doesn't sound like fun.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
colordrops 4y ago
Wait, with your appeal to thermodynamics, are you claiming that all energy that enters the body through food is perfectly extracted and fecal matter is completely energy-free?
- tekla 4y ago
  This line of questioning is so weird. How does any answer in the affirmative or negative matter against the point in the post?
  - colordrops 4y ago
    My question is mostly rhetorical. It's addressing the strawman you erected. No one is claiming that the laws of thermodynamics are being broken. What they are claiming is that more or less energy is extracted from the food they eat.
markwkw 4y ago
If I was to attack the CICO argument I would say: - you control CI, but there could be feedback loops where the type of CI influences CO: eg consume 1000 kcal of steak vs 1000kcal of fructose and attempt 30 minutes of zone 2 cardio - will energy burn, muscle growth, etc, be the same? Will baseline metabolic rate be the same afterwards? - different type of CI may result in different adherence to CI (how much you eat in reality vs intention) and CO (how much activity you can even perform given limited willpower and how CI type affects your well being)

by tekla 4y ago

hombre_fatal 4y ago

I think the real point is that CICO ends up just boiling away into a trivial statement yet people fling it around as some actionable mantra. For example you can’t actually calculate CI and especially not CO. You can just try to approximate them which is just “eat less to lose weight” yet people throw around CICO as if it illuminates anything interesting, especially when it seems to be brought up as a counter to eating healthier. Turns out can’t actually eat all that much of something like broccoli, so “eat healthy” remains good advice.

tekla 4y ago
It doesnt illuminate anything interesting because weight loss is inherently uninteresting. There are TV shows that show people who claim they have trouble losing weight even though they diet and eat healthy, and when you see what you eat, its some ungodly amount of calorie dense food. There are athletes who plan their diets and workouts based around trying to make weight for competitions which involve planned amounts of weight drop for a target date. People who dont lose weight simply are LYING to themselves. They claim they track calories, but usually its eyed and not measured calories, they simply "forget" about the snack they had, or they "treat themselves" frequently for "good diet behavior" As a former extremely obese person, seeing people continually lie to themselves about a literal physical law about matter creation pisses me off. Losing 150 pounds was EASY the moment I realized I had to stop LYING to myself.
- DougN7 4y ago
  CICO is true, and it’s the same as saying being an excellent driver is merely controlling friction and inertia. Factually true, but almost meaningless in and of itself.

bitL 4y ago

I've read that there is a huge difference between not eating anything at all and eating just a little. The former leading to rapid loss of weight while functioning somewhat normally, the latter to body shutting down and entering starvation mode. In other words, the stored body fat is not utilized unless there are no other options and if there are, body prefers to shut down instead of taping into reserves. The exception would be HIIT and similar training regimes that seem to lead to weight loss based on fat but those are typically out of reach of a regular obese person (but would work for athletes that bulked up).

tekla 4y ago
Sure, there probably is an element of that. I'm sure that people who have survived sieges and famines would have loved it if their body could magically get body fat to use to survive, but they don't. Starvation mode is not some magical state. Your metabolism drops. You will still lose weight if you eat less than maintenance.
- bitL 4y ago
  Yes, though not eating at all seems to be much more pleasurable when trying to lose weight than just eating ~500kcal and feeling absolutely miserable due to one's body shutting down. Though I would skip water fasting and replace it with vitamin/electrolyte water fasting instead as one has only about a week of B1/B3 reserves and when those are gone, people might get into states resembling multiple sclerosis or schizophrenia, which doesn't sound like fun.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

colordrops 4y ago

Wait, with your appeal to thermodynamics, are you claiming that all energy that enters the body through food is perfectly extracted and fecal matter is completely energy-free?

tekla 4y ago
This line of questioning is so weird. How does any answer in the affirmative or negative matter against the point in the post?
- colordrops 4y ago
  My question is mostly rhetorical. It's addressing the strawman you erected. No one is claiming that the laws of thermodynamics are being broken. What they are claiming is that more or less energy is extracted from the food they eat.

markwkw 4y ago

If I was to attack the CICO argument I would say: - you control CI, but there could be feedback loops where the type of CI influences CO: eg consume 1000 kcal of steak vs 1000kcal of fructose and attempt 30 minutes of zone 2 cardio - will energy burn, muscle growth, etc, be the same? Will baseline metabolic rate be the same afterwards? - different type of CI may result in different adherence to CI (how much you eat in reality vs intention) and CO (how much activity you can even perform given limited willpower and how CI type affects your well being)