Even if your metabolism slows down in response to caloric restriction, it does not move the needle to any appreciable degree.
Because it takes energy to do. It just does, you cannot fool physics.
However, measuring calories is incredibly difficult. Both in and out. Also, if you put 5000 calories worth of food inside of you, but then immediately vomit out 4500 of those calories, you've only really consumed 500 calories. You can overwhelm the system.
If you can restrict yourself to consuming at a caloric deficit, you will lose weight.
That's difficult however. Because if you pick a target calorie amount, you will see less progress as you lose weight. Because of math. 1500 is half of 3000, but only a quarter of 2000. People get fixated on 2000, as if we operate based on 2000 calories a day. But if you were previously consuming 3000 calories a day, your weight requires 3000 calories a day. So when you drop to 1500, you are going to lose about a pound every two days for a while. When you get to about 2500 maintenance calories/day, you're going to slow down to a about pound every three days. This is not your metabolism "adjusting". You weigh less, it takes fewer calories to maintain that weight.
And you will be hungry. It will suck. And you have to be meticulous in your record keeping. There are no "free" calories.
And we're not even getting into the mental component of all of this. What's been termed as "food noise". And it's one of the things that people on Ozempic and the like notice the most, they stop thinking about food. And food addiction is one of the absolute worst addictions to have. Hands down. With just about every other addiction, abstinence is an option. Alcohol, gambling, heroin, cocaine, meth, etc, none of that is necessary to live. We need food. We need to eat. You cannot avoid food. You have to actually develop discipline. Teetotalers do not have discipline. They avoid the issue altogether.
So CICO works, but it's incredibly difficult to do for lots of reasons that are not related to the biology or physics of it.
Yup, and where this stall vs. weight occurs is mediated by genes to a large extent. Someone who stalls out at 1.8-2.2 kcal/day while still being obese will need extra help, when cutting more calories is too unpleasant (many such cases). This drug makes that easier. And there is no evidence to suggest it gets easier with time or the body at some point stops trying to put the weight back on. Dieting is 24-7 war on food.
It is easier if you couple this with exercise. Many people successfully lose weight with exercise and managed diet. You have to want to do it to a certain extent. I think the solution for people who lack willpower for this isn’t ozempic, its therapy for the underlying depression that probably bleeds into all other aspects of life.
Full stop.
Even if your metabolism slows down in response to caloric restriction, it does not move the needle to any appreciable degree.
Because it takes energy to do. It just does, you cannot fool physics.
However, measuring calories is incredibly difficult. Both in and out. Also, if you put 5000 calories worth of food inside of you, but then immediately vomit out 4500 of those calories, you've only really consumed 500 calories. You can overwhelm the system.
If you can restrict yourself to consuming at a caloric deficit, you will lose weight.
That's difficult however. Because if you pick a target calorie amount, you will see less progress as you lose weight. Because of math. 1500 is half of 3000, but only a quarter of 2000. People get fixated on 2000, as if we operate based on 2000 calories a day. But if you were previously consuming 3000 calories a day, your weight requires 3000 calories a day. So when you drop to 1500, you are going to lose about a pound every two days for a while. When you get to about 2500 maintenance calories/day, you're going to slow down to a about pound every three days. This is not your metabolism "adjusting". You weigh less, it takes fewer calories to maintain that weight.
And you will be hungry. It will suck. And you have to be meticulous in your record keeping. There are no "free" calories.
And we're not even getting into the mental component of all of this. What's been termed as "food noise". And it's one of the things that people on Ozempic and the like notice the most, they stop thinking about food. And food addiction is one of the absolute worst addictions to have. Hands down. With just about every other addiction, abstinence is an option. Alcohol, gambling, heroin, cocaine, meth, etc, none of that is necessary to live. We need food. We need to eat. You cannot avoid food. You have to actually develop discipline. Teetotalers do not have discipline. They avoid the issue altogether.
So CICO works, but it's incredibly difficult to do for lots of reasons that are not related to the biology or physics of it.