Given the observational evidence that it doesn't work, what are you really asking?
Imagine a computer with a primary source of power, and a backup supply. You're measuring CICO of the primary supply. And you're tightly regulating the power available on primary to keep a power deficit. Unfortunately, during periods of high load, this computer is able to switch to the backup supply which you aren't able to exert tight control over.
There's a huge number of things that could cause a human to ignore their best interests. Ignorance to consequences, the long-term implications of any decision, degraded mental health, external social pressures, the list goes on and on.
Humans have impulses just like every animal, and proper training can convince a dog not to immediately lunge and eat every morsel of food they can smell. but it takes a lot of work and external pressure to train that into a dog, and even then given the right circumstances a dog will still eat food above their caloric needs. Humans behave the exact same way.
> it's easy for me to regulate my weight using cico, so obviously it should be easy for everybody
I know that's not the claim you're making, but it seems like it is and it is the one many other people in this thread are making. just like it's easy to train some dogs than it is train others. it's easier for some humans to control their caloric intake than it is for others.
CICO doesn't work for most humans. Claiming otherwise is on par with the saying just run this IOS app on Android it's easy it works for me! Perhaps a sufficiently capable engineer could make it work, but most humans aren't sufficiently capable.
> Given the observational evidence that it doesn't work
I think you need to be very careful about your language choice here.
Physics says it has to work. Every athlete on earth knows it works. Everyone that has ever been in a prison camp, concentration camp or had their calories restricted outside of their control knows it works.
It absolutely, factually, 100% works. Our entire understand of mammals and energy depends on it working.
What you are saying, is that people are unable to exercise enough self-control to actually consume less calories. If they did, it would work. But they don't.
That's like saying "pointers in C don't work" because when many people try they get seg faults.
I really don't think it's constructive to say "CICO doesn't work" when what you mean is "many people find CICO difficult to implement, because having the self-control/will power/determination/control to do that is hard."
I became heavily involved in weight watchers (which is essentially just CICO - their "points formula" is basically calories/50). Over many years I watched hundreds of people lose hundreds of pounds by being careful about what they ate. It was hard. There were a lot of tears, there were a lot of false starts and plateaus and hard times.
The people that stuck with it had incredible transformations and live different lives now. My room mate at the time lost almost 200lbs and became head of the WW in that city and when I saw her after 10 years I did not recognize her at all, and actually refused to believe it was her for 5 minutes.
CICO absolutely works. Like most things worth doing in life, it's hard. And it's worth it.
> What you are saying, is that people are unable to exercise enough self-control to actually consume less calories. If they did, it would work. But they don't.
That is not what I'm saying. It seems like you stopped reading at "doesn't work" when what I said was "doesn't work for most humans".
For many people, it feels impossible, so they give up. Why are you advocating for doing something hard, instead of doing something easy, there are definitely other reasons you might want to argue for that. But you didn't argue any of them. You parroted the exact same thing again, trying to get your point across, while ignoring mine.
> CICO absolutely works. Like most things worth doing in life, it's hard. And it's worth it.
Why stubbornly refuse to entertain the idea it's too hard for many people? Because it's does work, so everyone who's life or health isn't in the state where they can do the thing you admit is hard can just get fucked?
Nah, fuck that! If there's anything you can do, that will improve your quality of life, you should do that. If you can get into a more healthy physical shape in 1 year instead of 5. You should!
I'm an advocate of doing things the hard way. I'm even the same type that mocks people who claim cpointers are impossible. But I'm also the type who will take as long as it takes to teach someone how to understand and use them. And if all you want is to make a fun jumping game. I'll suggest trying python. and won't demand you write everything in c including your own input lib, even though that's what I would do just for fun.
You should do things the hard way. Because it will make you stronger. But for so many people who have been beaten down, they believe it's impossible; so demanding they're only allowed to achieved success exclusively by doing it the hardest way, is fucked up.
The options aren't the hard way, or nothing. But by repeating CICO over and over without nuance, that's the message you're sending. Do it the hard way, or give up.
Nah, fuck that. Try the hard way, then try something else, then try something else. Then keep trying until you improve your life. Then do it all over again with something else you want to improve.
Please don't cross into flamewar like this and please don't get into tit-for-tat spats. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
When people start arguing over who said what, who did what to the discussion, and get increasingly personal about it, it was time to stop quite a while ago.
I feel this is an unfair characterization. Which part of my response crossed into flamewar territory? Or is this preemptive because the discussion is trending in that direction?
bah! :( I don't understand how I'm supposed to call attention to the parts of my previous comments that were important to being understood, but disregarded in the reply if that is what was wholly inappropriate. Other than to not reply at all when previous comments are misunderstood or ignored.
Not replying is usually the strongest rhetorical move, for what it's worth. Long threads implicitly elevate the other side of the argument. If you're trying to dispositively conclude a debate, make your case once, dispassionately, and then don't restate anything you've already said.
What you're trying to say is "it works, it's just very hard for less than half of all people." (43% of all humans were overweight in 2022) [1]
> For many people, it feels impossible, so they give up.
Yes, I agree completely. If they stuck with it, CICO would work, but they don't because it's hard for them.
> Why are you advocating for doing something hard, instead of doing something easy
Now you're derailing the discussion into something entirely else. This thread is about if CICO works or not. I understand there are a lot of emotions wrapped up here, but you know that it works, it's just hard for some people.
At NO point did I say people should do something hard instead of something easy. I was making it clear that CICO does it fact work (and is hard).
Please don't cross into flamewar like this and please don't get into tit-for-tat spats. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
When people start arguing over who said what, who did what to the discussion, and get increasingly personal about it, it was time to stop quite a while ago.
I mean, it works in the sense that if you keep your calories out higher than your calories in you will lose weight.
Studies show that it's basically impossible to know your calories out without indirect calorimetry (and updating it regularly, no less, since your BMR + NEAT can vary significantly over time and in direct response to contemporary efforts to lose weight) -- and studies show that humans are dreadful at estimating their calories in.
So yes it works in a lab setting where your CI is pre-portioned in the form of milkshakes and your CO is measured via calorimetry. In reality though it makes people hella hungry and your hunger tends to increase in excess of changes to body weight.
Which is why the average weight regain after loss is 80% over 5 years.
So naturally it would seem we would look to develop ways to reduce our CI subconsciously. Enter GLP-1s. This is literally all they do. They reduce your hunger so your CI remains below your CO which studies show almost nobody can do without help.
Yes some people are genetically going to lose 200lbs and become the head of Weight Watchers in the same way that some people are going to win the olympic gold medal in swimming. That doesn't mean that you are going to win an olympic gold medal in swimming and it certainly doesn't mean that if the average person follows Phelps' training plan that they'll get an olympic gold medal in swimming.
Ultimately a treatment that works but nobody can actually maintain is a treatment that does not work. Hence GLP-1s. The question is why they are unable to keep their CI below CO. Not whether that’s how they lose weight.
So how can CICO not work?