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.

In my experience all diets work (& I've tried loads over the years ) but as others have a said, it's the maintenance that is so hard. I only need about 1500 calories to maintain my weight, but that is a pretty miserable way of eating if you love food. And I don't eat because I am 'hungry' .. I eat because I just love food ... and I am not unhappy or stressed, it's just that nice food is .... so nice.

I am currently having success with low carb because I can indulge in high fat food which is really tasty - cheese, fatty meat, avocado etc but I've lost weight on it before but just find it hard to maintain - and I am the first to admit I am greedy .

CICO is 100% correct even in people like me with metabolic disorders that have a reduced metabolism. 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. Because there is no easy way to lose and maintain huge amounts of weight loss once you become fat - this is why doctors are trying to prevent people from becoming fat in the first place.

I wish that people would stop saying things like 'CICO is bollocks' or 'Low carb is bollocks' or 'SW is bollocks'.

The reason that all of these things work for some people is that they all have an element of rightness, but whether or not they will work for your specific body is a matter of luck, unless you know and understand your specific body's responses and reactions to things. There's elements of weight loss (specifically hormone balance) that are significantly different for each of us, and the weight loss plan that works for you will be the one that manipulates your hormones in the specific way you need.

Joel Greene in his book Immunity Code talks about the body perceiving fat loss as an injury and clamours after fat loss to refill the fat cells.He has techniques to ease the body into fat loss and to help afterwards.

He starts off with gut biome work and breeding helpful bacteria to turn your gut into the gut of a lean person.

Calories in calories out is massively outdated and it just causes people to yo-yo.

Agree with @deadleaves. Eating well and staying active is something you should want to do to stay healthy, whatever your body shape. I never notice whether my friends have put on or lost weight, because I don’t care, but I do notice that they look well when they’ve been looking after themselves. Surely that’s the main goal. My mum’s generation was obsessed with diets and I really hope that my DDs’ generation will be different and diets a thing of the past!

I’m not sure it’s as simple as surgery = weight loss either… my mum had two lots of weight loss surgery, she gained the weight back both times, often making herself really ill as she did it.

I can believe that low calorie doesn’t work for everyone - likely because people just don’t realise how much they’re actually eating, and the hunger pains etc make it almost impossible for them to eat less - but surgery doesn’t make that go away. And my mum had both surgeries on the NHS, in the late 90s/early 2000s, and got a nutritionist and psychological support too. Far more than you get now, with the state of the NHS.

@Ozanj

CICO is 100% correct even in people like me with metabolic disorders that have a reduced metabolism. 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. Because there is no easy way to lose and maintain huge amounts of weight loss once you become fat - this is why doctors are trying to prevent people from becoming fat in the first place.

It's not wrong, but it's not the full story. It's like saying 'If you put petrol in your car, it'll go. If you don't, it won't.' So simple. Just like magic.

The problem is when you don't mention that you've stuck a tennis ball in the pipe that gets the petrol to the engine, and you've lost the key. And the wheels have been taken off.

There's more to it than CICO.

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?

I believe we all have our intended, natural weight, ie, you are naturally slim, medium or larger. And I think its hard to fight against this. I don't see why life should revolve around food. By that I mean calorie counting, obsessing over food and also food being a huge feature of every day. We eat to stay alive, we don't live to eat!

You don't spend your whole life doing holidays/socialising/working, just eat what you like then and maybe less in all the other times

@Schulte

Agree with *@deadleaves*. Eating well and staying active is something you should want to do to stay healthy, whatever your body shape. I never notice whether my friends have put on or lost weight, because I don’t care, but I do notice that they look well when they’ve been looking after themselves. Surely that’s the main goal. My mum’s generation was obsessed with diets and I really hope that my DDs’ generation will be different and diets a thing of the past!

The issue there is that in terms of evolution, humans have survived because they have this fabulous energy storage system called body fat. Bodies want the opposite of what minds want. Bodies want lots of stored energy. As much as possible. So we have not evolved to burn energy just for the sake of it. We haven't evolved to go to the gym. We've evolved to sit in front of Netflix with a family sized bag of Doritos!

We haven't had access to excess fattening food for anything like long enough to evolve a 'Holy moly, I'm too fat to be healthy!' cut-off switch.

It's not about making excuses but about understanding the reasons. 18 months ago I was morbidly obese. I'd tried calorie counting diets so so many times but each time yo-yoed back up. The science on why this happens for most who undertake these diets has been explained (biggest loser etc). By trying to understand beyond cico and make changes to the way I eat (note I didn't say amount) I'm six stone down and out of the obese, into the overweight BMI range. I'm pretty confident I'll succeed in getting to my healthy weight and staying there because I've learned what causes my body to hold onto weight and what allows me to tap into fat reserves. When I was morbidly obese all fat shaming did was further damage my already fragile mental health and make it harder to make the changes I needed to.

CICO works.

The reason why I yoyo is that I'm an emotional eater, and all it takes it one major crisis like a bereavement to get me to abandon CICO and eat everything in sight for a long period of time and thus undo all the hard work.

I think for many people, there's a mental ill health aspect to weight issues.

In times of crisis, I know I use food as a coping mechanism.

Weightloss is in your mind. Diets are a way to avoid dealing with what goes on in your mind, hence when you stop doing them you put the weight back on. Dealing with your mind will help you lose weight but not everyone can do it. It's very difficult when it's ingrained.

HNRTT but if your starting point is a population of obese adults for whom diet and exercise have failed and who eat ultra processed food and exercise insufficiently for their true, not imagined, calorie intake then the health benefits of gastric surgery can outweigh the risks compared with staying obese and arguably delaying or reducing the availability of gastric surgery has an adverse effect at a population level.

That said, I've seen many obese adults succeed with non-surgical interventions including diet modification to whole food/plant based, exercise prescription and/or medication. Some have managed to keep a healthy weight with significant effort in the long term based on a healthy diet and exercise.

It is IMO essential not to lose sight of why children and adults become obese where quality of calories and exercise are critical. An obesogenic environment, lack of exercise and poor quality calorifically dense ultra processed food will generally lead to an obese population who then struggle to lose weight.

The utter bollocks about weight loss in this thread (from people firmly stating that their CICO/Low Carb/whatever diet works) is right up there with anti-vax sentiment in terms of pig-ignorant anti-science nonsense.

Diets don't work 95% of the time. The weight you are at now is, within 5%, the weight you will always be. The 5% who do lose weight permanently were either temporarily fat due to medication or will spend the rest of their lives obsessively maintaining a difficult and restrictive diet. If you say you are the exception to this, I don't believe you.

‘Bodies want lots of stored energy. As much as possible. So we have not evolved to burn energy just for the sake of it. We haven't evolved to go to the gym. We've evolved to sit in front of Netflix with a family sized bag of Doritos!’

I’m not sure that’s true. I crave fruit and veg and I feel the need to move several times a week, and I can’t sit in front of Netflix with a bag of Doritos because that would make me feel rubbish. Perhaps I’ve trained myself to behave like that but I do think our bodies are wonderful in that they tell us what we need, and we have to learn to listen to our bodies.

I've gained 3st in the last few years due to not having anxiety any more (who knew it kept me slim). I fucking hope this isn't how I'm staying.

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?

I can't quite believe that this is a serious question.

You monitor your calories and activity. And if you realise you're taking in more than you're expending, you adjust it.

The food industry has run rampant in this country for decades and has successfully changed the culture to one of constant eating, that in many cases you are morally at fault if eg your children aren't constantly snacking.
Indeed. I've seen the hysteria on here if you suggest that children don't need a snack immediately upon leaving school or any activity.

My mother has always been stick thin despite a propensity to be large. Her maintenance plan is hideous, I couldn't do it ecause I have no discipline at all.
One glass of wine a week. One chocolate a day despite the entire box being in the fridge (I would eat the lot on the whole day), miniscule amounts of food and weighs herself every single morning, if she's put on a pound it's a strict diet until it comes off.
i can't live life like that.

Set exercise goals and ditch the diet, best thing I ever did.

Yep. Read the obesity code. Jason fung

There is a psychological component to over eating just as there is with restrictive eating. It's a complex system of thoughts and behaviour that are linked.
Just changing the behaviour on the outside often doesn't last because the thinking stays the same.
There is all or nothing thinking like 'I can never have a treat EVER again if I go on a diet'. Or 'I'll wait and start next Monday because..... I just bought a 12 pack of Kit Kats/my sister's hen night/it's the X Factor final on Saturday...whatever!'
Those decisions are thought patterns whether they are the warm fuzzy 'future ideal me' or the in-the-moment hand reaching for Biscuit no 2. Not saying it's easy to manage those feelings but the first step is breaking down that process into smaller chunks to notice what is going on. Food can be the soother rescuer from bad feelings, food can be the punisher, food can make you a victim.

I'd say the loudest MN voices constantly put out messages like below. I guess I notice them more because I can't agree in them being accurate:

"calories are always unimportant to body mass"
"there are magic foods you can eat that make you very sick or very healthy"
"BMI is never useful indicator of relatively healthy body size"
"2 women of same height can vary by +15kg in mass yet both wear same clothes size, the heavier one may wear much smaller clothes"
"high carb diets can never be healthy"
"high fat diets are never unhealthy"
"you gain weight if you eat too few calories"

and other things.