The motte of “calories in, calories out” is a purely descriptive post-facto theory. If you lost weight, it means that your organism somehow spent more calories than it gained, and if you gained weight, it means that your organism somehow spent less calories than it gained, but the details about the calorie flows are completely unspecified.
The bailey of “calories in, calories out” is: “You complain about not losing weight? Just eat less and exercise more, dummy! You say you already tried that, but it didn’t work for you? Congratulations, you have successfully violated the laws of physics, go collect your Nobel Prize!”
What people who complain about this actually want: a strategy that fat people could use to lose weight without negative side-effects… or admitting that for some people such strategy doesn’t exist for metabolic reasons. The motte version of “calories in, calories out” is definitely not such strategy, but the bailey consists of pretending that it is.
In reality I think it’s likely that different people are overweight for different reasons.
Adenovirus 36 infections for example do correlate with overweight.
Partly because “The infection with Adv36 accelerates differentiation and proliferation of the 3T3-L1 human preadipocytes into adipocytes [27,43,44] and increases the concentration of lipid content in fat cells.”
Saying it’s “calories in, calories out” suggests that the fact that the virus results in more adipocytes (fat cells) in lab cells is irrelevant.
Lab animals with their controlled diets also got more overweight.
Investing money into finding out how to cure Adenovirus 36 seems important to me from a public health perspective but a group of researches of obesity who believe in the calorie in, calorie out maxim won’t direct their research that way.
It seems like we have the technology to produce vaccines against some types of Adenovirus.
The motte of “calories in, calories out” is a purely descriptive post-facto theory.
It is a also a predictive ex ante theory. It successfully predicts the change in your weight on the basis of your persistent net energy balance.
The bailey of “calories in, calories out” is: “You complain about not losing weight? Just eat less and exercise more, dummy! You say you already tried that, but it didn’t work for you?
… then continue. Eat LESS and exercise MORE. Still doesn’t work? Eat LESS and exercise MORE. I guarantee that at some point you will start losing weight
What people who complain about this actually want: a strategy that fat people could use to lose weight without negative side-effects...
Sure. People want a lot of things. I want the ability to fly, it’s just that pesky gravity that gets in the way. Wouldn’t it be great to jump off a cliff and soar without the negative side-effects of going splat! shortly thereafter?
Just a few comments ago you accused me of strawmanning, and now here you come with a comment that I wouldn’t have ascribed to the “calories in, calories out” fans, because I would think this would be too strawmanish. Yet, such opinions apparently do exist in the wild.
From another point of view, thank you for showing me that it was meaningful to start debating this topic.
Okay, so...
Let’s assume that “still doesn’t work” for some people means “when I try eating even less, I am so weak that I can barely move my body; yet my weight doesn’t decrease”. How specifically—excluding the possibility of magic—are such people supposed to apply the “eat less and exercise more” advice to become thin.
This is like telling people that levitation is easy: you just have to believe hard and raise yourself high in the air. Doesn’t work? Believe harder, and raise yourself higher! I guarantee that if you follow both parts of this advice, at some point you will start levitating (but I suspect you will probably ignore the second part, in which case, that’s your fault not mine).
Let’s assume that “still doesn’t work” for some people means “when I try eating even less, I am so weak that I can barely move my body; yet my weight doesn’t decrease”.
Let’s not. This is equivalent to discussing exercise by starting “let’s assume some people collapse from utter exhaustion on their way from the parking lot to the gym, what about them?” You are not saying yours is a central example, are you?
In any case, CICO is not a normative theory. It’s primarily a descriptive theory. It says that A (net energy balance) and B (body weight) always go together, A is necessary and sufficient for B and B is conclusive evidence for A.
CICO certainly has implications for attempts to lose weight (e.g.: if you’re not in calorie deficit, you are not going to lose weight), but it makes no claims about optimal (in various meanings) ways to lose weight. It says that there is a simple, specific way that always works: eat less. It does NOT say that it will be easy or pleasant or that your average Fatty McFatface will be able to stick with it for more than a day.
Issues with losing weight are usually psychological and often biochemical. These issues can be overpowered by eating less though, again, it’s not necessarily the optimal way to go about it. And, by the way, I assume general health—if you are or should be under medical care (e.g. you are a diabetic), such generic advice no longer applies.
Basically, the advantages of eating less as a way to lose weight are that it’s simple and, provided you can execute, it is guaranteed to work. The disadvantage is that it’s hard to execute because it’s unpleasant and few people can stick with doing unpleasant things for a long while. “Eat less” is good advice for some people and useless advice for others: YMMV as usual.
So… I guess we both agree that eating less and exercising more is a good strategy to lose weight unless there is a health-related reason why this strategy will not work.
(And that for different people, or even for the same person at a different age, the proportions of the food consumed and exercise necessary to lose weight may be quite different?)
And we disagree… about how frequent are these health-related reasons in population, and how often the people with the health-related reasons are given this advice anyway...?
I guess we both agree that eating less and exercising more is a good strategy to lose weight
It can be—for some people. It’s probably not a good strategy for other people. The simplest way to find out is to try.
the proportions of the food consumed and exercise necessary to lose weight may be quite different?
Yes, very much so. That’s why it says “eat less” and not “eat 1000 calories/day”.
And we disagree… about how frequent are these health-related reasons in population, and how often the people with the health-related reasons are given this advice anyway...?
I don’t know—neither of us made explicit claims about that :-) Generally speaking, humans are well-adapted to periods of starvation and fasting can help with some health problems. Diabetes is probably the most widespread disease which will present problems with “eat less” approach.
Yeah, I feel about this similarly.
The motte of “calories in, calories out” is a purely descriptive post-facto theory. If you lost weight, it means that your organism somehow spent more calories than it gained, and if you gained weight, it means that your organism somehow spent less calories than it gained, but the details about the calorie flows are completely unspecified.
The bailey of “calories in, calories out” is: “You complain about not losing weight? Just eat less and exercise more, dummy! You say you already tried that, but it didn’t work for you? Congratulations, you have successfully violated the laws of physics, go collect your Nobel Prize!”
What people who complain about this actually want: a strategy that fat people could use to lose weight without negative side-effects… or admitting that for some people such strategy doesn’t exist for metabolic reasons. The motte version of “calories in, calories out” is definitely not such strategy, but the bailey consists of pretending that it is.
In reality I think it’s likely that different people are overweight for different reasons. Adenovirus 36 infections for example do correlate with overweight.
Partly because “The infection with Adv36 accelerates differentiation and proliferation of the 3T3-L1 human preadipocytes into adipocytes [27,43,44] and increases the concentration of lipid content in fat cells.”
Saying it’s “calories in, calories out” suggests that the fact that the virus results in more adipocytes (fat cells) in lab cells is irrelevant.
Lab animals with their controlled diets also got more overweight.
Investing money into finding out how to cure Adenovirus 36 seems important to me from a public health perspective but a group of researches of obesity who believe in the calorie in, calorie out maxim won’t direct their research that way.
It seems like we have the technology to produce vaccines against some types of Adenovirus.
It is a also a predictive ex ante theory. It successfully predicts the change in your weight on the basis of your persistent net energy balance.
… then continue. Eat LESS and exercise MORE. Still doesn’t work? Eat LESS and exercise MORE. I guarantee that at some point you will start losing weight
Sure. People want a lot of things. I want the ability to fly, it’s just that pesky gravity that gets in the way. Wouldn’t it be great to jump off a cliff and soar without the negative side-effects of going splat! shortly thereafter?
Just a few comments ago you accused me of strawmanning, and now here you come with a comment that I wouldn’t have ascribed to the “calories in, calories out” fans, because I would think this would be too strawmanish. Yet, such opinions apparently do exist in the wild.
From another point of view, thank you for showing me that it was meaningful to start debating this topic.
Okay, so...
Let’s assume that “still doesn’t work” for some people means “when I try eating even less, I am so weak that I can barely move my body; yet my weight doesn’t decrease”. How specifically—excluding the possibility of magic—are such people supposed to apply the “eat less and exercise more” advice to become thin.
This is like telling people that levitation is easy: you just have to believe hard and raise yourself high in the air. Doesn’t work? Believe harder, and raise yourself higher! I guarantee that if you follow both parts of this advice, at some point you will start levitating (but I suspect you will probably ignore the second part, in which case, that’s your fault not mine).
Let’s not. This is equivalent to discussing exercise by starting “let’s assume some people collapse from utter exhaustion on their way from the parking lot to the gym, what about them?” You are not saying yours is a central example, are you?
In any case, CICO is not a normative theory. It’s primarily a descriptive theory. It says that A (net energy balance) and B (body weight) always go together, A is necessary and sufficient for B and B is conclusive evidence for A.
CICO certainly has implications for attempts to lose weight (e.g.: if you’re not in calorie deficit, you are not going to lose weight), but it makes no claims about optimal (in various meanings) ways to lose weight. It says that there is a simple, specific way that always works: eat less. It does NOT say that it will be easy or pleasant or that your average Fatty McFatface will be able to stick with it for more than a day.
Issues with losing weight are usually psychological and often biochemical. These issues can be overpowered by eating less though, again, it’s not necessarily the optimal way to go about it. And, by the way, I assume general health—if you are or should be under medical care (e.g. you are a diabetic), such generic advice no longer applies.
Basically, the advantages of eating less as a way to lose weight are that it’s simple and, provided you can execute, it is guaranteed to work. The disadvantage is that it’s hard to execute because it’s unpleasant and few people can stick with doing unpleasant things for a long while. “Eat less” is good advice for some people and useless advice for others: YMMV as usual.
So… I guess we both agree that eating less and exercising more is a good strategy to lose weight unless there is a health-related reason why this strategy will not work.
(And that for different people, or even for the same person at a different age, the proportions of the food consumed and exercise necessary to lose weight may be quite different?)
And we disagree… about how frequent are these health-related reasons in population, and how often the people with the health-related reasons are given this advice anyway...?
It can be—for some people. It’s probably not a good strategy for other people. The simplest way to find out is to try.
Yes, very much so. That’s why it says “eat less” and not “eat 1000 calories/day”.
I don’t know—neither of us made explicit claims about that :-) Generally speaking, humans are well-adapted to periods of starvation and fasting can help with some health problems. Diabetes is probably the most widespread disease which will present problems with “eat less” approach.