Do you still think it's all about calories in vs calories out and fat people are not disciplined enough ?

[deebate]

I've been doing a lot of online research over the years around diet/ exercise and what's the answer. How can I keep fit and be healthy.

I've tried various things and I am generally a believer in calories in vs calories out. Which seems to be the favoured method on here.

If anyone complains they're struggling with losing weight, it must be because they're not counting everything etc.

In any case, I've now stumbled across a number of podcasts of different doctors and nutritionists in the field talking about gut microbes and sugar spikes etc and how actually it's really not just about calories at all.

What's the consensus on here about all this ?

I'm actually really surprised with people's answer. I didn't realise anyone still believed in CICO.

To loose weight

Eat less and move more and accept it's very hard

Your body is telling you to eat because your body still thinks it is an animal in the wild. All animals will eat as much as they possibly can when there is a glut (on a fruit tree for instance, or a wildebeest carcass), to see them through the inevitable lean times.

when they do studies on people who don't struggle with their weight, they find that they moderate themselves without even thinking about it.

They do not count calories in and calories out (CICO). They eat intuitively. This is more evidence that CICO does not work to maintain weight because the method is horribly inaccurate at measuring energy consumed vs energy expended.

And even people that do believe in it surely you must know there are many things that cause people to gain weight.

I am on a medication that makes my body release lots of the hormone grehlin which makes my brain tell me I am starving hungry (eat sugar, quick!). This is literally designed to make us eat so I'd love to see how those who think overweight people are undisciplined deal with it!

I think you need to be in a calorie deficit to lose weight. Having said that I find that rather challenging!

I am eating more now and losing weight with advice from my dietician. It's about what you eat rather than strictly how much.

@soupfiend I don't know. There are some theories around that.
We do seem to have more upfs though which do appear to trigger certain chemical reactions.

It certainly seems to be CICO for me. Every time I’ve lost weight it’s because I’ve made a concerted effort to eat less. Smaller portions, less of the more calorie dense stuff (butter, cheese, bread), more veg. Reduced snacking. It works fine.

But I really really like eating food. I love food. It’s so tasty. I eat mostly stuff I cook from scratch myself, plus crappy snacks, plus “good” snacks. I eat too much of all of it. And I don’t care enough about losing weight to motivate myself to go to the effort of eating less. I do sometimes, but I slip back.

So it’s really simple, but it’s not so easy for me to do something about it. If I really really wanted to I could. But it takes a lot of effort (I have tried to just think sensibly and eat less but I always slip back unless I hold myself to reasonably good calorie counting) and reasonably good calorie counting is well boring.

From personal experience I would say what you eat is certainly more important than the "calories out" part at least. I've never found exercise to make a huge amount of difference. I seem to lose weight on low a low calorie diet at pretty much the same rate with or without exercise (though there are obviously lots of other benefits to exercising)

Also I so believe upf is a huge factor. I think its more complicated than CICO basically.

I think for most people exercise doesn't make a lot of difference in losing weight but as you say it has lots of other benefits!

Sorry if it’s already been referred to, but this article (and the book Burn on which I this based) is well worth a read. It explains why it’s not quite simple as CICO.

https://www.science.org/content/article/scientist-busts-myths-about-how-humans-burn-calories-and-why

My main thought is bigger people who do want to lose weight and say they can’t are in complete denial about how big their portions are and/or the amount of snacks they ate having.
So yes I do think it’s a calorie thing and you can tweak this by eating more protein or upping your exercise.

I’ve never counted calories, but when I want to lose weight I eat less and I lose weight. If I start eating more again, I gain weight.

Its the only thing that’s ever worked for me. Cut out snacks. Maybe drop one meal. That’s it.

At a basic level, but I think there are huge mitigating factors.

The specialist medical profession know that diet and exercise won't cure obesity and it's known that a body will try to protect its previously highest weight - meaning dieting isn't a long term solution. I don't understand why GPs seem to be so late to the party though. I guess it's cheaper to tell someone to eat less and move more...

Unfortunately it is that simple. If you stop eating you will lose weight and eventually die.

A person who eats a mars bar at day will lose more weight than someone who eats 2000 calories of vegetables and protein.

Well it is true that if day in day out you consume more calories than your body burns you will gain weight and if day in day out you burn more calories than you consume you will lose weight.

Apart from a couple of very very rare conditions (eg MLFS) that quite simply is exactly what it boils down to. Too many calories for your body = gain. Too few calories = loss.

The fact there are other factors that make individuals lose weight faster or slower or easier or harder doesn't mean that the basics are not in v out.

It just means that while one person could lose weight on 2000 calories a day, someone else may have to struggle along at a thousand.

Interesting article. Infuriating to read about a bloke being lauded for discovering something for an entire article and then in one paragraph they admit “one person who wasn’t surprised was” this female researcher who had already discovered it and had already published her research on it, but it was ignored by the scientific community until fab bloke who is taking all the credit’s research was published.

This is all explained away as ‘blokes is just better at communicating than babes’

now they ‘collaborate’

Gah misogyny in the sciences is alive and well.

This is very interesting to me because I stay (relatively) slim but eat pretty much only UPF.

As a teenager all I ate was cheap white bread and was very underweight - I weighed about six stone. I've never really "cared" about or enjoyed food though. I don't know if that makes a difference.

When pregnant I gained huge amounts, about three stone, and lost it at 18 months postpartum. No conscious diet change during pregnancy, no diet change after. It just happened.

Honestly I have no idea what governs weight but I stay around eight and a half stone now without any diet and eat UPF a lot, so it can't just be UPF making people overweight.

I’m fat. Bmi of about 31.

I recently came off all my mental health medication and without even trying I’ve lost about 8kg in the last two months. So no I don’t think it’s all calories in versus calories out.

I gained all the weight whilst on the medication as well so hoping to be back at a healthy weight this year.

I do believe that largely calories in calories out (few exceptions due to medical reasons). The problem is that many people underestimate what/ how much they eat and overestimate how much they move. I tracked every morsel I ate for a period of time and the reality wasn’t pretty 🤣

What, even people like me who can say from personal experience that our weight fluctuates in exactly the way we'd expect dependent on CICO? I've no idea how other women's bodies may work, I'm not qualified to say, but I can tell you with certainty how mine works, and I lose or gain weight directly due to the calories I eat versus those I burn, so why would I start to disbelieve it? What did surprise me, was discovering how few calories a woman my age, height and lifestyle actually needs to maintain a healthy weight, which is around 1600/1800 a day, a challenging amount to stick to, day in day out, forever, while getting all the nutrients I need and not being hungry, and allowing very little wriggle room for treat foods, larger portions, alcohol or missing my daily walk.
Its not an easy thing to do if you like food and don't love excercise, and I'd love to think there was another thing that was responsible for what I weigh. But for me, sadly, there isn't. So I will remain, with regret, a CICO believer.

Energy balance to a point.
But I believe other factors are
Set point
Gut microbiome diversity (or lack of)
Protein intake vs Carb intake
Medical conditions
Medications
Genetics
Refined foods
Toxic oils (seed oils not initially intended for human consumption)
leading to systemic inflammation

find a “method” you can stick to and is a way of life rather than a diet. Doesn’t really matter how you do it.

Absolutely agree. I'd add to that the fact that what worked for you at 25 to drop a few kilos for a special event might not work the same way at 45 or 55.

Personally, what works for me is intermittent fasting, although I prefer to call it "skipping breakfast". Every single diet going harps on about three solid meals a day, how breakfast is the most important meal of the day. kick start your metabolism etc etc. Doesn't work for me. What works for me is not eating anything until about midday, just coffee. Then a sort of brunch which is usually overnight oats with banana, or something like egg or avocado on toast. Then dinner between 6 and 7, no eating after that. I have shed 10kg eating this way in the last 6 months and it has been easy compared with other diets.

I was the same gained 3 stone in both of my pregnancies. One I had cravings for bread, cheese and chocolate cake, the other apples and pickles. I had a lot less calories in the 2nd pregnancy but gained exactly the same. In both pregnancies I lost all the weight after 9 months without any dieting and then lost a further half a stone over the next 3 months.