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Comment by arcticbull

Ah, gotcha.

For what it's worth CICO sucks because (1) nobody can stick to it, ever (2) humans are awful at estimating their calories in, studies show only 1/5 of people can properly estimate the calorie content of their food [1] and (3) your metabolism slows down in response to, specifically, caloric restriction diets and your hunger rises which makes it difficult to estimate your calories out without indirect calorimetry.

Yes, CICO works in a lab, and for some weird people. It's a matter of thermodynamics. However you are a far more complex system than a coal powered furnace. And yes certain types of food will be more or less satiating and may influence the amount of total calories you consume. It's really really hard to overeat if you just eat lean protein, for instance.

CICO is, in practice, a tool that is roughly impossible for most people to leverage to lose a meaningful amount of weight and keep it off.

Which brings us back to the difference between maintaining a persistent caloric deficit -- and instructing people to do so.

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3719184/

parent arcticbull 1 year ago

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