To think that 'eat less move more', everything in moderation and CICO is total bollox?

[Honestopinion23]

CICO stands for calories in vs calories out by the way.
I often read the weight loss section on here. Every day there are people embarking on any number of diets and body overhauls and I reckon about 95% of them are unsuccessful. Calorie counting, shake diets, you name it, people always gain the weight back before long. Even celebrities who seem to have done well with weight loss eventually gain it back, e.g. Pauline Quirke. I am watching that new amazon show with Melissa McCarthy and she is also back to being around the same size she was before starting her weight loss. Lisa Riley is another one who lost a lot of weight and most of it is back now. Clearly it's not working and people are making money out of telling fat people that they can be thin if only they want it bad enough or try hard enough. The scientific research shows that once you are morbidly obese, you have an absolutely miniscule chance of getting to and maintaining a normal BMI without surgery. Yes, there will no doubt be people popping up here saying they did just that but you are the exception.

The idea that if you just eat less than you burn is also flawed when a) your body adapts to lower amounts. For instance, those who have gastric bypass and eat v low calories forever still tend to be overweight/mildly obese because their bodies just can't get to a low BMI and b) you're fighting against intense hunger urges that someone who has always been normal weight just can't imagine dealing with.

If I was morbidly obese, I would ditch all the dieting crap, admit that I couldn't fix it and have surgery. I see so many dieting plans just blame the dieter for 'failure' when they're trying to do something impossible. If I was stage 1 obese or overweight, I'd go low carb no-processed for life because I think that is the only thing that switches off the hunger signals in the brain.

It's to do with your microbiome. Scientists have found that the gut bacteria of overweight/obese people is not the same as that of a slim person. You would need to do a lot of work to change it and that work is the sum of all your choices over a longer period such as months and years. Probiotics, daily exercise (as that actually increases good bacteria), prebiotics, fibre, plenty of fruit and veg, less caffeine, sugar and alcohol, and more oily fish for omega 3's. These all contribute towards a healthy gut which in turn makes it easier to lose weight.

I read the book The Microbiome Diet which explains it better than I just did. It isn't a fad diet; it's backed by science.

@Honestopinion23 I completely agree with you. There is a good chapter on this in the book Spoonfed by Tim Spector (have not read the thread so it may have been mentioned already). Sure, it’s good to do some portion control and eat well but we all have different metabolism and energy needs. I think it’s a damaging proposition long term

@Honestopinion23

Yep. Another bit I've never gotten is that if the set point theory is real, surely we should've been seeing larger people coming out of concentration camps or in places like Biafra, Ethiopia, Sudan etc during their respective famines. But I've yet to hear of any stories like that.

According to the CICO theory, nobody would be able to survive a lengthy period of famine because they would lose 1 pound of fat for every 3500 calorie deficit, meaning that there would rapidly be nothing left of them.

‘famine’ conditions means you are eating at least 1,000 calories per day. It isn’t the same as ‘starvation conditions’ which does kill people because they do whittle down to nothing.

I still think there is something to cico. I do 20 to 30 mike bike rides 4 times a week and I come back after a ride and demolish an entire large pizza and do not put on weight. However during lockdown I did gain weight cos I didnt cut back on my food enough as I wasn't exercising as much.

And definitely for me it's the carbs that are problematic and the more carbs I eat the more exercise I have to do to maintain

@SionnachRua

eatingdisorders.dukehealth.org/education/resources/starvation-experiment

The Minessota Starvation Experiment.

There's nothing here or, as far as I remember, anywhere else, about the subjects gaining excess weight to their start weight after the experiment ended. Just that they were a bit of a mess psychologically.

I lost 5st using CICO and honestly it was easy - it's maintaining that's incredibly hard for a number of reasons. Emotional / social etc. I'm pregnant now but will be doing it again when baby is born. The maintenance was the hardest part and probably why so many fail. I've been on so many diets in my life and 16:8 fasting and CICO was the only thing that finally worked and I felt amazing. I ate what I wanted as long as it was within calorie allowance.

@Taiyo same with I'm a Celeb - everyone loses weight when they fail the trials day after day.

@CounsellorTroi

The problem is that people don’t keep doing it once they have lost weight. The type of people for whom CICO works (like me) have to continue to count calories for the rest of their lives (like I do) to maintain.

How does one live like that? How does one manage socialising/holidays/working lunches that sort of thing?

Holidays are more difficult, but socialising and working lunches you just average things out. If you overeat one day, you eat a bit less the next, if you have a big lunch, you have a small dinner, etc. I went on holiday to Italy recently. Had a starter and pudding instead of a mail meal as did my travel companion. I walked much more than in normal life so didn't put on any weight (or lose any).

@Chocaholic9

It's to do with your microbiome. Scientists have found that the gut bacteria of overweight/obese people is not the same as that of a slim person. You would need to do a lot of work to change it and that work is the sum of all your choices over a longer period such as months and years. Probiotics, daily exercise (as that actually increases good bacteria), prebiotics, fibre, plenty of fruit and veg, less caffeine, sugar and alcohol, and more oily fish for omega 3's. These all contribute towards a healthy gut which in turn makes it easier to lose weight.

I read the book The Microbiome Diet which explains it better than I just did. It isn't a fad diet; it's backed by science.

There's science to back all the theories. CICO, low carb, fasting, keto... we could all within minutes post a bunch of article to 'prove' that that they all work, scientifically. Many things have been backed by science and later disproven. Being backed by science doesn't make something a fact; it makes it 'what we know so far'.

The diet you recommend would make me very poorly. There is no 'one size fits all'. All of the diet plans will work for some people. There is no 'right' or 'wrong'. There is what is right for you, and what is right for me, and they may well not be the same.

The problem is that people think they can just “lose” the weight and then just go back to the lifestyle they had before! A calorie deficit needs to be followed up by a calorie maintanence rather than a surplus. It really is that simple

@Chocaholic9

It's to do with your microbiome. Scientists have found that the gut bacteria of overweight/obese people is not the same as that of a slim person. You would need to do a lot of work to change it and that work is the sum of all your choices over a longer period such as months and years. Probiotics, daily exercise (as that actually increases good bacteria), prebiotics, fibre, plenty of fruit and veg, less caffeine, sugar and alcohol, and more oily fish for omega 3's. These all contribute towards a healthy gut which in turn makes it easier to lose weight.

I read the book The Microbiome Diet which explains it better than I just did. It isn't a fad diet; it's backed by science.

Yes, I definitely agree with that.

I read a very small bit on microbiome and weight, it's very interesting. It makes total sense to me though that because I've eaten loads of sugar the sugar living gut bacteria have thrived and therefore I crave more sugar, and I can see how I'd take more calories from sugar than other stuff because those bacteria are more plentiful.

For those talking about 'set points' of weight, can you explain this theory? Surely for most people, since the 'obesity epidemic' began, they've gained weight gradually over the years, so how has their body decided on a set point during that trajectory?

I'm no expert but it's the idea that you will naturally tend to maintain at around a certain weight (which may change over time).

There were many years when I wasn't thinking about how much I was eating and had several changes in diet and lifestyle, but my weight only varied a few pounds during that time. I'm not sure of the scientific bases, but it has certainly been my experience that there is often a kind of natural equilibrium. It doesn't mean that you will stay the same no matter what, as various things (including dieting, illness, etc.) can cause you to gain or lose outside that range, and the set point itself can change.

I think this thread is fascinating but it's striking that no one has mentioned the incredibly strong link between obesity and poverty - people rarely do, unless they're going to sneer at the lack of self control in the working class. But this surely shows the huge role of environment - it clearly isn't the case that poor people just have less self control, but nor can it be that they happen coincidentally to be more likely to have a genetic propensity to be overweight.

The nutrition advice on Secret Eaters is very outdated and inaccurate, but so many people who 'calorie count' don't calorie count at all. They guesstimate or ignore the splash(es) of oil or handful of cheese or 'tasting' constantly as they cook.

Yep, this was me. I honestly didn't feel I was eating a lot, and in terms of quantity I wasn't. And I hardly ate any overtly unhealthy foods like cake or crisps. But I was overeating nonetheless. I admit it was a shock when I looked it all up, but it explained everything.

I did have to measure and be hyper aware at first, for a while. But it's just how I do it now, and after so many years I've worked out how to include the treats into my lifestyle.

I don't think everyone who doesn't lose or maintain loss is lazy or morally suspect. I do know how difficult it is, even if it isn't complicated. Resetting the way you approach food and healthy living is a big challenge. The biggest change is in your head. It's very hard. Money and time make it much easier. And it does suck to realise how much the small stuff adds up.

The one thing that makes me think my weight is hormonal is that I absolutely shed fat when pregnant. And I don't have HG or much morning sickness at all, I'm considerably less hungry but my weight loss is more than if I lived on those calories, suggesting a hormonal element. It happened in both pregnancies.

I just lost a lot of weight by restricting calorries to 1200 per day. I bet if i started eating more calories id out it bk on again.

If anyone is interested in reading more about the biological processes that make it hard to maintain weight after weight loss - and the role of genetics - this relatively recent open access review is good. I am not a dietician or biologist myself but I am a research academic who has been involved in two large randomised controlled trials of methods to maintain weight.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5556591/

The other thing that no one wants to point out because it's just too uncomfortable is the effect of reduced smoking rates on obesity rates; a lot of people were pretty reliant on nicotine as a calming drug which also suppressed their appetite and food took its place.

I think the fact that people generally don't understand the role of insulin, and haven't heard of ghrelin and leptin, is hugely at play in the enormous lack of understanding of the subject, as demonstrated on the thread. We feel as if we are at the mercy of our appetites, but once you know how to manipulate these hormones, appetite is at the mercy of your will.

This isn't publicised widely because if we all got the hang of it, big food corporations would make a lot less money, and the funding for the scientific backing comes from the big food corporations, so 'the science' that's put out is very biased.

CI CO does work but only if you gain control of your appetite.

I've been fat child, skinny teen, slim in my 20s, ballooned in my 30s and have brought my weight down again, just as slowly as it went up. The hunger trigger for me is cakes and biscuits. I drink wine, snack on crisps and nuts and do not calorie count any more, but I don't touch biscuits and rarely have a piece of cake or pud of any sort.

Many of the newer diet plans, along with WLS, address some of the triggers for appetite, but they are not infallible. If I fall for the mince pies in the run up to Christmas, I probably will have to start calorie counting again, for a month or so, so I can regain control.

"when many people's weight over the course of a day fluctuates by 1-2kg."

You mean 1-2 pounds, yes? Even that is quite a lot I think, but 2kg is 4 pounds.

@TheFoundations

I think the fact that people generally don't understand the role of insulin, and haven't heard of ghrelin and leptin, is hugely at play in the enormous lack of understanding of the subject, as demonstrated on the thread. We feel as if we are at the mercy of our appetites, but once you know how to manipulate these hormones, appetite is at the mercy of your will.

This isn't publicised widely because if we all got the hang of it, big food corporations would make a lot less money, and the funding for the scientific backing comes from the big food corporations, so 'the science' that's put out is very biased.

So how do we do it?

Well I do wonder with the price of energy turning it down/off will mean we burn calories keeping warm

@TheFoundations

For those talking about 'set points' of weight, can you explain this theory? Surely for most people, since the 'obesity epidemic' began, they've gained weight gradually over the years, so how has their body decided on a set point during that trajectory?

I know that that trajectory is changing for many because more kids are overweight now, so more people are already overweight when they reach adulthood, but it's still not the case for the majority.

My weight has changed according to what's going on in my life and as for most people it changes with age. I don't think Mother Nature or God or whoever looked at me when I was in the womb and decided my set point weight would be 9stone or whatever for my whole life. (I know this is not exactly what set point theory people believe, but it's an idea I see around me). Similarly, I don't believe people are 'naturally slim' or 'naturally fat'. I was born 9lbs and that's the only weight I've ever had that isn't a consequence of what I eat and how much I move (and of course some genetic influence).

YANBU if it was as simple as CICO then everyone would be slim.

There are people who are genetically predisposed to gain weight.
There is also a big focus on gut biome and that slim people have a different gut biome to larger people - this may have to do with overly processed foods which is why our grandparents or other countries eat lots of heavy carb and high fat meals but remain slim. Our portion sizes have also gone up.
There is also the ‘starvation mode’ when you eat less your mitochondria do not work efficiently meaning that you put on weight more easily. Which doesn’t happen as much if you have surgery.
We also now have more sedentary jobs/lifestyles.

It wouldn’t work if you are anything you wanted though as you’d just keep putting on weight.

I think the best solution is to eat as much food as you can within a certain calorie limit. And to eat proper whole foods which haven’t been overly processed. I also think exercise has a bigger impact than what is recommended and having a more active lifestyle wouldn’t damage your mitochondria, gut biome etc.