7 ms·

This is not a meme but basic physics. This is how you do your cut and bulk cycles to lose and gain exactly a planned amount of weight. My base energy expenditur

This is not a meme but basic physics. This is how you do your cut and bulk cycles to lose and gain exactly a planned amount of weight. My base energy expenditure is relatively low at around 1800 kcal. If I eat 2000 kcal I will gain around 1 kg in 35 days (1 kg of fat is a 7000 kcal surplus), and similarly I could lose 1 by eating 1600 kcal. For finding sources look up "TDEE". Weight loss is complicated because of the added dimension of satiety. If I eat proteins, vegetables and fats without counting I'll be around my baseline. But with sugar and carbs it's impossible to not overshoot without being terribly hungry. Also with less insulin sensitivity found in obese/pre-diabetics people, ingested food can not be efficiently used and end up stored, leading to the vicious cycle of being tired and still hungry.

mister_mister 4y ago
The body is not closed system if it would be perfect close system then eating once a day or once per week would have the same effect spreading that over the day. The cells do not use calories. They use ATP, converted different pathways such as glucose, fatty acids, ketones and oxygen. Calories are measured by burning them, so that means we are using two different measurements that may overlap but are not compatible. In the Calories model would it be possible to explain why people with diabetics type 1, that don't use insulin stay thin even though they would eat massive amounts? https://www.everydayhealth.com/eating-disorders/diabulimia/ https://www.everydayhealth.com/eating-disorders/diabulimia/
- tarsinge 4y ago
  Eating once a day indeed has nearly the same effect. Once a week is not possible due to physical limits of processing that volume of food. It's easy to explain your example with diabetics: very simply insulin is what allow muscle to use glucose, but also what stop the body from using its fat reserves. From your link: > Desperate to stop its cells from starving, her body had released hormones that, in turn, released byproducts called ketones that turned her blood acidic. If she had not been rushed to the emergency room, she would have died. This is similar to the effect of a ketogenic diet, when you avoid eating carbs to avoid insulin secretion, forcing the body to convert the fat reserves to provide glucose for the cells. Diabetics type 1 don't produce insulin, so they just skip insulin shoots to stay in that "mode" but it has obviously other serious health side-effects for them as discussed in that article. Also individuals are not the same, there is a lot of variation in TDEE (genetics, health, weight, insulin sensitivity, metabolism, ...). But once you have figured the TDEE for an individual, calorie counting becomes very accurate. Just from the fitness community there is an overwhelming body of research and evidence: https://sci-fit.net/bulking-deficit-gaining/ https://sci-fit.net/bulking-deficit-gaining/. If you are in calorie deficit, you lose weight. If you are in a surplus, you gain.
  - watwut 4y ago
    Eating once a day does not have the same effect on your body as spreading the food into multiple portions. And that has different effect then eating the same amount constantly. If you will eat once a week, you will dispose of calories you did not absorbed. And you will be starwing by the end of the week, making you passive, weak and tired.
    - mister_mister 4y ago
      yup, Someone might even die because of refeeding syndrome.[0] Continuing on your point the body is there not a closed system as defined as: > In a closed system, no mass may be transferred in or out of the system boundaries. The system always contains the same amount of matter, but (sensible) heat and (boundary) work can be exchanged across the boundary of the system. Whether a system can exchange heat, work, or both is dependent on the property of its boundary. [1] [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refeeding_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refeeding_syndrome [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_system
  - mister_mister 4y ago
    The question how do we explain why people without insulin are able to stay thin, while eating massive amounts of calories with the CICO model. Because that case is breaking the model. Since your stating that eating once a day is the same as eating once a day. Would you have any sources for that claim? Did you know there is allot of research going into the effects of intermittent fasting[0]? If you would search for OMAD (one meal a day) on google or reddit you would see that that statement does not hold. There are many changes because blood sugar will stay stable during the day. Nor will there be insulin spikes. There are health startups starting just for stable glucose levels and the health benefits by using continuous glucose monitors[1]. They already attracted many from the health and longevity communities. It's also possible not to use their product by just eating once a day. [0]https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/intermittent-fasting-what-is-it-and-how-does-it-work https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-preventi... [1]https://www.levelshealth.com/ https://www.levelshealth.com/
subharmonicon 4y ago
It’s not that simple, although it may seem that way for some people. Twice I have been on very extreme calorie counting regimens for months at a time combined with substantial weight lifting and cardio. Both times I have observed that if I reduce calories the first thing that happens is I start to feel colder in the same environments. My body adjusts to my new caloric intake by reducing my metabolic rate it seems. I learned about the idea of a “set point” fifteen years ago and I believe it’s related to what I’ve observed. I have friends who can do something as simple as cutting out a morning cappuccino and they lose weight as a result. If I do that, there is no measurable difference unless I cut much deeper and substantially increase activity at the same time. Then the weight comes off for a bit and then plateaus again, sometimes for weeks or until I make another adjustment. One of the times I went through this weight loss regimen I had an air displacement plethysmograph near the end of the weight loss that concluded I had 178lbs lean body mass. I had likely bulked up a little through all the weightlifting I was doing but have always had a fair bit of muscle so you might expect my resting calorie burn to be very stable and for small adjustments in calories to not impact resting metabolic rate, but that’s not what I observed in practice.
- syzarian 4y ago
  If metabolic rate changes due to caloric restriction then this doesn’t negate the view that basic physics dictates that calories in minus calories out determines weight loss. It just means that a corresponding change to calories out can occur with caloric restriction. It is a physical reality that calories in minus calories out determines weight loss. It is also a reality that adhering to this might be very difficult for reasons you suggested.
  - aantix 4y ago
    If you want to increase muscle mass, why don’t you just keep lifting increasingly heavier weights? If you want to lose weight, just keep eating increasingly less calories. Because that trivializes the problem. There’s physiological pushback on many dimensions.
    - 4y ago
jononomo 4y ago
I can't stand this "it's just physics" talking point when it comes to calories and weight loss. Why don't you try consuming exactly as many calories of gasoline as your body burns each day and then tell me whether you lose or gain any weight?
- scotty79 4y ago
  Basic physics 100% tells you you won't gain weight in that case.
  - jononomo 4y ago
    Are you certain that humans can properly digest gasoline and make use of its calories?
    - scotty79 4y ago
      I'm sure that they can't. That's why they won't gain any weight with such diet.
      - jononomo 4y ago
        So you're saying that the type of calories you consume makes a difference, not just the amount???
        scotty79 4y ago
        I'm just saying that whatever calories you consume you won't have more net gain of weight than contained calories you consume minus calories you burn. Regardless of whether calories are completely indigestible or totally digestible the above still holds. Also you don't have to resort to gasoline. If you want to loose weight you may use cellulose. And if you don't eat more calories in it than you need to keep your weight then you won't gain weight regardless of how much cellulaze (cellulose digesting enzyme) you eat with your cellulose.
- 4y ago
acuozzo 4y ago
> This is not a meme but basic physics. The issue is: How are we defining calories IN? Consider the extreme example of having a parasitic worm living in your digestive system. Is IN == [food passing mouth] or is IN == [food not being ingested by worm(s)]? Now consider "normal" digestive flora. How are we defining IN here?
- gassiss 4y ago
  you're technically right, but just nitpicking. Of course you could count the calories in fibers and that wouldn't make you fat, as your body can't process that. But most people do not eat fiber for 90% of their meals
  - acuozzo 4y ago
    > you're technically right, but just nitpicking I was hinting at something bigger than just a nitpick. I'm hypothesizing that gut flora interfere with macronutrient ingestion in a statistically significant way. Microorganisms exist which produce glucose from materials that, if ingested by a human, would be emitted as waste. What if colonies of these microorganisms were present in the human gut and unevenly distributed in the population?
  - lukeschlather 4y ago
    People often switch from more processed grains to whole grains specifically to increase their fiber intake and reduce the processable calories they're ingesting. I don't think it's nitpicking at all, this is the most basic stuff you need to think about when doing dieting - CICO is naive at best.
    - gassiss 4y ago
      yeah, foods with more fiber will also make you less hungry, which in turn makes you eat less calories... CICO is a great approach for the general population, and works great even amongst professionals that have weight management as their career (bodybuilders).
- 4y ago
FatActor 4y ago
Who generated the heat that you measured in the calorimeter? Gut biome bacteria consumed an amount of those calories. How many? It varies from person to person. So calories in = calories out, but we don't know how many were used by the person, how many by the gut flora, and how many were excreted do to inability to metabolize. Ergo, hardly basic physics. Reductionism is only useful if you know how to apply it.
- asdff 4y ago
  You don't need to know all of these things if you are measuring input (calories in) and your output (weight on the scale every week). It hardly matters then how efficient your gut is. These are all relative values. Of course 2000 calories will look different for different people. What matters is if you have an understanding of how much calories you are putting into your system, you can now make changes and measure a response, like cutting down some calories and seeing how that affects your weight over a few weeks or months. You don't need to know all of these rates to do that.
  - FatActor 4y ago
    I agree with that, as do most people. What I object to is that calories-in-calories-out is the ONLY thing at play, and people claiming "simple physics" are working against any deeper understanding of the issues. I think this side of the argument is "Just eat less and you won't be fat. Duh." What they don't understand is that if a body has a hormonal anomaly, it might need to 5000 kcal/day just meet the 1500kc/day basic metabolic rate because the other 2500 kcal is being metabolized into fat by a broken endocrine system. If they drop down to 1500 kcal/day, only 300kc of that is going towards keeping the body running. It is completely out of their control how the calories are used due to their bodies, so CIn=COut is meaningless. The obesity epidemic is not completely about eating too much (which is part of it), but is about the environmental factors impacting how bodies actually work. If it was just Cin/Cout, gastric bypass would solve the problem, but that is not available to people that are suffering such hormonal disruptions because they would just die or be eating nonstop.
    - 4y ago
elenaferrantes 4y ago
How do one manage to eat exactly the amount of calories one consumes ? Based on the calories in/out weight gain theory a little error of 50 calories/day would lead to 50*365=18250 extra calories/year ie 18250/9000=~2kg of fat. 20kg in 10 years ! Eat an apple a day and you’ll be massively obese in few years.
- asdff 4y ago
  Just use a sensible buffer or add in some extra cardio.
- sn9 4y ago
  It just has to average out in the long term. No one eats the exact same thing everyday. And you can eat less or more throughout the year. You've never had a holiday feast?
  - elenaferrantes 4y ago
    That’s my point. Regarding people that maintain the same weight, I highly doubt they eat on average the _exact_ amount needed. There must be physiological adjustments that are broken in some people.
    - sn9 4y ago
      That's not necessary at all. People who maintain the same weight simply eat their maintenance calories on average over the long term. That's just how averages work. I feel like you have some kinda fundamental misunderstanding of something to not understand this, but I don't know what it could be.

mister_mister 4y ago

The body is not closed system if it would be perfect close system then eating once a day or once per week would have the same effect spreading that over the day. The cells do not use calories. They use ATP, converted different pathways such as glucose, fatty acids, ketones and oxygen. Calories are measured by burning them, so that means we are using two different measurements that may overlap but are not compatible. In the Calories model would it be possible to explain why people with diabetics type 1, that don't use insulin stay thin even though they would eat massive amounts? https://www.everydayhealth.com/eating-disorders/diabulimia/ https://www.everydayhealth.com/eating-disorders/diabulimia/

tarsinge 4y ago
Eating once a day indeed has nearly the same effect. Once a week is not possible due to physical limits of processing that volume of food. It's easy to explain your example with diabetics: very simply insulin is what allow muscle to use glucose, but also what stop the body from using its fat reserves. From your link: > Desperate to stop its cells from starving, her body had released hormones that, in turn, released byproducts called ketones that turned her blood acidic. If she had not been rushed to the emergency room, she would have died. This is similar to the effect of a ketogenic diet, when you avoid eating carbs to avoid insulin secretion, forcing the body to convert the fat reserves to provide glucose for the cells. Diabetics type 1 don't produce insulin, so they just skip insulin shoots to stay in that "mode" but it has obviously other serious health side-effects for them as discussed in that article. Also individuals are not the same, there is a lot of variation in TDEE (genetics, health, weight, insulin sensitivity, metabolism, ...). But once you have figured the TDEE for an individual, calorie counting becomes very accurate. Just from the fitness community there is an overwhelming body of research and evidence: https://sci-fit.net/bulking-deficit-gaining/ https://sci-fit.net/bulking-deficit-gaining/. If you are in calorie deficit, you lose weight. If you are in a surplus, you gain.
- watwut 4y ago
  Eating once a day does not have the same effect on your body as spreading the food into multiple portions. And that has different effect then eating the same amount constantly. If you will eat once a week, you will dispose of calories you did not absorbed. And you will be starwing by the end of the week, making you passive, weak and tired.
  - mister_mister 4y ago
    yup, Someone might even die because of refeeding syndrome.[0] Continuing on your point the body is there not a closed system as defined as: > In a closed system, no mass may be transferred in or out of the system boundaries. The system always contains the same amount of matter, but (sensible) heat and (boundary) work can be exchanged across the boundary of the system. Whether a system can exchange heat, work, or both is dependent on the property of its boundary. [1] [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refeeding_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refeeding_syndrome [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_system
- mister_mister 4y ago
  The question how do we explain why people without insulin are able to stay thin, while eating massive amounts of calories with the CICO model. Because that case is breaking the model. Since your stating that eating once a day is the same as eating once a day. Would you have any sources for that claim? Did you know there is allot of research going into the effects of intermittent fasting[0]? If you would search for OMAD (one meal a day) on google or reddit you would see that that statement does not hold. There are many changes because blood sugar will stay stable during the day. Nor will there be insulin spikes. There are health startups starting just for stable glucose levels and the health benefits by using continuous glucose monitors[1]. They already attracted many from the health and longevity communities. It's also possible not to use their product by just eating once a day. [0]https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/intermittent-fasting-what-is-it-and-how-does-it-work https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-preventi... [1]https://www.levelshealth.com/ https://www.levelshealth.com/

subharmonicon 4y ago

It’s not that simple, although it may seem that way for some people. Twice I have been on very extreme calorie counting regimens for months at a time combined with substantial weight lifting and cardio. Both times I have observed that if I reduce calories the first thing that happens is I start to feel colder in the same environments. My body adjusts to my new caloric intake by reducing my metabolic rate it seems. I learned about the idea of a “set point” fifteen years ago and I believe it’s related to what I’ve observed. I have friends who can do something as simple as cutting out a morning cappuccino and they lose weight as a result. If I do that, there is no measurable difference unless I cut much deeper and substantially increase activity at the same time. Then the weight comes off for a bit and then plateaus again, sometimes for weeks or until I make another adjustment. One of the times I went through this weight loss regimen I had an air displacement plethysmograph near the end of the weight loss that concluded I had 178lbs lean body mass. I had likely bulked up a little through all the weightlifting I was doing but have always had a fair bit of muscle so you might expect my resting calorie burn to be very stable and for small adjustments in calories to not impact resting metabolic rate, but that’s not what I observed in practice.

syzarian 4y ago
If metabolic rate changes due to caloric restriction then this doesn’t negate the view that basic physics dictates that calories in minus calories out determines weight loss. It just means that a corresponding change to calories out can occur with caloric restriction. It is a physical reality that calories in minus calories out determines weight loss. It is also a reality that adhering to this might be very difficult for reasons you suggested.
- aantix 4y ago
  If you want to increase muscle mass, why don’t you just keep lifting increasingly heavier weights? If you want to lose weight, just keep eating increasingly less calories. Because that trivializes the problem. There’s physiological pushback on many dimensions.
  - 4y ago

jononomo 4y ago

I can't stand this "it's just physics" talking point when it comes to calories and weight loss. Why don't you try consuming exactly as many calories of gasoline as your body burns each day and then tell me whether you lose or gain any weight?

scotty79 4y ago
Basic physics 100% tells you you won't gain weight in that case.
- jononomo 4y ago
  Are you certain that humans can properly digest gasoline and make use of its calories?
  - scotty79 4y ago
    I'm sure that they can't. That's why they won't gain any weight with such diet.
    - jononomo 4y ago
      So you're saying that the type of calories you consume makes a difference, not just the amount???
      - scotty79 4y ago
        I'm just saying that whatever calories you consume you won't have more net gain of weight than contained calories you consume minus calories you burn. Regardless of whether calories are completely indigestible or totally digestible the above still holds. Also you don't have to resort to gasoline. If you want to loose weight you may use cellulose. And if you don't eat more calories in it than you need to keep your weight then you won't gain weight regardless of how much cellulaze (cellulose digesting enzyme) you eat with your cellulose.
4y ago

acuozzo 4y ago

> This is not a meme but basic physics. The issue is: How are we defining calories IN? Consider the extreme example of having a parasitic worm living in your digestive system. Is IN == [food passing mouth] or is IN == [food not being ingested by worm(s)]? Now consider "normal" digestive flora. How are we defining IN here?

gassiss 4y ago
you're technically right, but just nitpicking. Of course you could count the calories in fibers and that wouldn't make you fat, as your body can't process that. But most people do not eat fiber for 90% of their meals
- acuozzo 4y ago
  > you're technically right, but just nitpicking I was hinting at something bigger than just a nitpick. I'm hypothesizing that gut flora interfere with macronutrient ingestion in a statistically significant way. Microorganisms exist which produce glucose from materials that, if ingested by a human, would be emitted as waste. What if colonies of these microorganisms were present in the human gut and unevenly distributed in the population?
- lukeschlather 4y ago
  People often switch from more processed grains to whole grains specifically to increase their fiber intake and reduce the processable calories they're ingesting. I don't think it's nitpicking at all, this is the most basic stuff you need to think about when doing dieting - CICO is naive at best.
  - gassiss 4y ago
    yeah, foods with more fiber will also make you less hungry, which in turn makes you eat less calories... CICO is a great approach for the general population, and works great even amongst professionals that have weight management as their career (bodybuilders).
4y ago

FatActor 4y ago

Who generated the heat that you measured in the calorimeter? Gut biome bacteria consumed an amount of those calories. How many? It varies from person to person. So calories in = calories out, but we don't know how many were used by the person, how many by the gut flora, and how many were excreted do to inability to metabolize. Ergo, hardly basic physics. Reductionism is only useful if you know how to apply it.

asdff 4y ago
You don't need to know all of these things if you are measuring input (calories in) and your output (weight on the scale every week). It hardly matters then how efficient your gut is. These are all relative values. Of course 2000 calories will look different for different people. What matters is if you have an understanding of how much calories you are putting into your system, you can now make changes and measure a response, like cutting down some calories and seeing how that affects your weight over a few weeks or months. You don't need to know all of these rates to do that.
- FatActor 4y ago
  I agree with that, as do most people. What I object to is that calories-in-calories-out is the ONLY thing at play, and people claiming "simple physics" are working against any deeper understanding of the issues. I think this side of the argument is "Just eat less and you won't be fat. Duh." What they don't understand is that if a body has a hormonal anomaly, it might need to 5000 kcal/day just meet the 1500kc/day basic metabolic rate because the other 2500 kcal is being metabolized into fat by a broken endocrine system. If they drop down to 1500 kcal/day, only 300kc of that is going towards keeping the body running. It is completely out of their control how the calories are used due to their bodies, so CIn=COut is meaningless. The obesity epidemic is not completely about eating too much (which is part of it), but is about the environmental factors impacting how bodies actually work. If it was just Cin/Cout, gastric bypass would solve the problem, but that is not available to people that are suffering such hormonal disruptions because they would just die or be eating nonstop.
  - 4y ago

elenaferrantes 4y ago

How do one manage to eat exactly the amount of calories one consumes ? Based on the calories in/out weight gain theory a little error of 50 calories/day would lead to 50*365=18250 extra calories/year ie 18250/9000=~2kg of fat. 20kg in 10 years ! Eat an apple a day and you’ll be massively obese in few years.

asdff 4y ago
Just use a sensible buffer or add in some extra cardio.
sn9 4y ago
It just has to average out in the long term. No one eats the exact same thing everyday. And you can eat less or more throughout the year. You've never had a holiday feast?
- elenaferrantes 4y ago
  That’s my point. Regarding people that maintain the same weight, I highly doubt they eat on average the _exact_ amount needed. There must be physiological adjustments that are broken in some people.
  - sn9 4y ago
    That's not necessary at all. People who maintain the same weight simply eat their maintenance calories on average over the long term. That's just how averages work. I feel like you have some kinda fundamental misunderstanding of something to not understand this, but I don't know what it could be.