Calories in, calories out? It's not quite so simple

[Anonymous]

While I agree that bodies are different, and different eating strategies work better for some than others, I fundamentally agree with CICO.

I also track on My Fitness Pal, and when I log accurately and stop eating at a certain level of calories, i lose weight.

As I've aged, my metabolism has slowed, and it is more difficult to lose. But I can achieve slow and steady weight loss by tracking calories. Am I hungry if I don't eat filling, nutritious food and instead eat junk? yes, I am. So the strategy I use when attempting to diet is to make the calories count and work for me.

Some people might do better maximizing their calories by protein loading, or going low fat, or low carb, or DASH, or whatever. But it's all the same thing - eating less, exercising more.

Some people have a great difficulty in doing this, but for the vast majority, it's the way to live.

[Anonymous]

200-300 calories per day is a huge variance! I have PCOS and gain weight if I go over 1500 calories/day, and I am overweight now. I have tracked meticulously with myfitnesspal to figure this out. 300 more calories/day would be a large percentage of my total allowed calories.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bodies are different and metabolize differently, but fundamentally, it's still calories in and calories out (even if those calories have a different impact on different bodies).

Now, where it's NOT so simple is satiety and blood sugar. There is plenty of evidence indicated that the types of food can impact satiety and help people feel full, and hence eat fewer calories.

But CICO is still fundamentally correct.

No, it's not and that's the point.

You types are so determined, clinging to what you want to be true even when confronted with facts saying no.

Specifically what facts are you referring to?

You realize that you're arguing against basic physics and chemistry, right? If a person eats fewer calories than they burn, their body is forced to consume fat and a small amount of muscle in order to maintain life. That's really simple and should be obvious. If that weren't true, then there would be people who could live for months or years eating nothing at all. Furthermore, lots of clinical studies have demonstrated this extremely obvious truth, the most famous being the Minnesota Starvation Experiment (which was pretty horrible and I can't believe that people volunteered for it).

Are you really arguing that if you don't eat your body WON'T consume fat and muscle and you will continue to live? If so, you should contact medical researchers immediately because your body is doing something that no other mammal on the planet can do. Do you get your energy from photosynthesis?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bodies are different and metabolize differently, but fundamentally, it's still calories in and calories out (even if those calories have a different impact on different bodies).

Now, where it's NOT so simple is satiety and blood sugar. There is plenty of evidence indicated that the types of food can impact satiety and help people feel full, and hence eat fewer calories.

But CICO is still fundamentally correct.

No, it's not and that's the point.

You types are so determined, clinging to what you want to be true even when confronted with facts saying no.

There are no real facts to support this though. Just snake oil treatments from people trying to sell books.

The point of the article above is that CICO is dangerous because the people ON REDDIT are taking it to mean, I could eat 1200 calories of Doritos or chocolate or 1200 calories of salad and it doesn't matter because I will lose weight.

While that may be true, they're also setting themselves up for diabetes, heart disease, endocrine disorders and other health issues.

Nutritionists are concerned because a bad diet is bad for your health. So weight loss isn't always the only goal of eating. Nutrition and Longevity are also important

But fundamentally, calories in calories out is still the key for weight loss

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bodies are different and metabolize differently, but fundamentally, it's still calories in and calories out (even if those calories have a different impact on different bodies).

Now, where it's NOT so simple is satiety and blood sugar. There is plenty of evidence indicated that the types of food can impact satiety and help people feel full, and hence eat fewer calories.

But CICO is still fundamentally correct.

No, it's not and that's the point.

You types are so determined, clinging to what you want to be true even when confronted with facts saying no.

NP here. CICO is still fundamentally correct because of the laws of thermodynamics.