#Weight Loss with CICO Diet

[ninarossfunctionalmedicine]

The Ultimate Guide to Successful Weight Loss with CICO Diet

Weight loss– the eternal quest for a slimmer silhouette is a never-ending one. Fads and potions abound, promising quick fixes. But what if there were a simpler, more knightly approach? Enter the CICO diet, the brave champion against excess weight!

CICO Diet: Champion of Calorie Control

CICO, or "Calories In, Calories Out," is a fundamental principle, not a specific diet. Imagine your body as a mighty castle. Food is your incoming supply – the delicious feasts you consume. Calories are the units used to measure this supply. Your body also burns calories throughout the day – your basal metabolic rate (BMR), the energy used for basic functions, and additional calories burned through activity. This outgoing flow is akin to the castle's defenders, constantly repelling invaders (calories).

The Quest for Calorie Control

Here's where the CICO diet shines. To conquer unwanted weight, you need to create a calorie deficit. This means ensuring your "Calories In" are less than your "Calories Out." It's like having fewer attackers than defenders – your castle becomes leaner and stronger!

CICO Diet: Your Tools for Success

● Track Your Calories:

Knowledge is power! Use apps or journals to record your food intake and estimate calorie expenditure. This awareness is your trusty sword and shield.

● Embrace Delicious Variety:

CICO doesn't restrict food groups. You can savor pizza and still lose weight, as long as it fits your calorie budget. Think of it as a diverse army, with healthy options as your loyal knights.

● Move Your Body:

Exercise burns calories, further boosting your "Calories Out." It's like calling in reinforcements – cardio becomes your cavalry, strength training your archers.

Benefits of the CICO Diet

The CICO diet approach to weight management offers several advantages for those looking to lose weight:

Flexibility:

CICO doesn't restrict specific foods or food groups. As long as you maintain a calorie deficit (burning more calories than you consume), you can enjoy the foods you love in moderation. This can make CICO an easier diet to stick with compared to restrictive plans.

Weight Loss Potential:

The core principle of CICO aligns with the basic science of weight loss: creating a calorie deficit. By tracking your calorie intake and ensuring it's lower than what your body burns, you will lose weight.

Awareness and Education:

The CICO diet can be an eye-opening experience. Tracking calories helps you understand the varying calorie content of different foods. This newfound awareness empowers you to make informed choices about your diet.

Cost-Effective:

Following the CICO diet doesn't require purchasing expensive diet products or meals. You can implement it using free calorie-tracking apps or websites.

Sustainable Weight Management:

CICO isn't a quick fix, but it can promote sustainable weight loss. By learning healthy portion control and mindful eating habits, you can develop long-term strategies for maintaining a healthy weight.

Freedom of Choice:

You control what you eat, not a rigid meal plan. It's like having a customizable suit of armor, tailored to your preferences.

Nutrition perfectionism can be counterproductive. It might lead to constant worry about food or weight, guilt trips over what you eat, or a cycle of restrictive diets. These signs could indicate an unhealthy relationship with food or an eating disorder. Remember, disordered eating and eating disorders don't discriminate.

Weight loss in some cases, is not just about overeating, it happens due to suppressed trauma inside. There is more to your weight loss journey. Only a holistic doctor can help you achieve the desired results.

Start Your CICO Diet Journey with Nina Ross Functional Medicine

Conquering weight loss with the CICO diet method is a revolutionary change to your lifestyle, but sometimes some need a helping hand. That's where Nina Ross Functional Medicine comes in! We offer the support and guidance you need to navigate your CICO journey toward a healthier, slimmer you.

Why Choose Nina Ross Functional Medicine for Your CICO Success?

Expert Support:

Our team of licensed dietitians and certified health coaches are well-versed in CICO principles. They will help you create a personalized calorie plan that considers your lifestyle, preferences, and goals. We conduct in-depth consultations to understand your health history, goals, and challenges.

Beyond the Numbers:

We go beyond just counting calories. We take a functional medicine approach, addressing underlying factors that might hinder weight loss, such as hormonal imbalances, gut health issues, and nutrient deficiencies. We also emphasize nutritional counseling to ensure you are getting the vitamins and minerals your body needs.

Motivation & Accountability:

Sticking to the CICO diet can be challenging. Our coaches will be your cheerleaders, offering ongoing motivation and accountability. They will help you navigate roadblocks and celebrate your victories. Lifestyle coaching is introduced to help you integrate CICO principles seamlessly into your daily routine.

Sustainable Strategies:

We don't believe in quick fixes. We will equip you with the knowledge and tools to develop sustainable eating habits that support your CICO goals for the long term.

Ready to embark on your CICO journey with confidence? Schedule your consultation with Nina Ross Functional Medicine today!

[itsmeroepey]

Diner

Rice with bimi and marinated prawns

[rainyfestivalsweets]

6/4/24

Stuff I did yesterday

5k on treadmill with a Flo Rida playlist. This dude, so motivating!

Some dogs walks

Worked late & watched Mom's TV with her afterwards. Talked on the phone to my friend at work.

Slept shitty. But I am up and tackling the day.... am considering some different things to do today.... treadmill mileage challenge? Might be a good day for that. Rainy here so maybe I could have treadmill breaks. Idk we will see.

[healthier-new-me]

Hi! I'm Ewa, in early 30s, living in Poland. I have been overweight my whole life, and tried to loose that weight many many many times. But never had the right motivation. But this time, it's gonna happen!!

A LITTLE STATS:

SW: 148.5 kg / 327,4 lbs CW: 146.5 kg / 323 lbs #1 GW: 140 kg / 308,6 lbs #2 GW: 120 kg / 264.6 lbs #3 GW: 95kg / 209.4 lbs UGW: 70-80 kg / 154,3-176,4 lbs

HOW?

calorie counting (around 2300-2500), eating the same but with portion control, trying to eat healthier, but everythin very one step at a time

working on my water intake: minimum 2l per day

steps: minimum 7k, with the target being minimum 10k

steps tie in with the exercise plan: exercise 3-4x a week but starting with walking as an exercise, then adding some simple beginner exercises; also want to get into yoga

also, while not related to weightloss per se: just general selfcare

This tumblr will be used as a bit of an inspiration place, and also place where I can share my journey :D

[sewergirls]

I weighed myself today and I supposedly gained 10 more lbs

[easynlean]

Navigating the Landscape: Slow Carb Diet vs. CICO Diet

Embarking on a journey toward a healthier lifestyle often involves choosing the right dietary approach. Two popular methods, the Slow Carb Diet and the Calories In, Calories Out (CICO) Diet, have gained attention. In this exploration, we’ll delve into the fundamental distinctions between these two approaches, shedding light on their principles, effectiveness, and potential impact on your health…

[nerdy-teddy-diet]

6/22/2023

[ninarossfunctionalmedicine]

The Ultimate Guide to Successful Weight Loss with CICO Diet

Weight loss– the eternal quest for a slimmer silhouette is a never-ending one. Fads and potions abound, promising quick fixes. But what if there were a simpler, more knightly approach? Enter the CICO diet, the brave champion against excess weight!

[afitterbrittany]

Headed out! Feeling extra lean today and I like it. Making sure to stay hydrated.

Lunch is gonna be qdoba and I’m being very brave by getting a bowl instead of a burrito.

[rainyfestivalsweets]

Not to brag but.... I was going to add some dessert balls to my treat yesterday... after having a whole protein candy bar.

I laid out a serving (some popped into my mouth, those would have been serving plus +).

I walked the dogs.

And thought about it. I just had a 200 cal candy bar. Do I need an extra 200 cals?

And the answer was NO!!

Progress!!!

Obviously I haven't been in a calorie deficit. I have been plateaued for quite awhile.

Extra snacks is a big part of it, I think.

If this extra snacks was 150 cal for 9 balls, Each tiny little ball is 17 cals or so.

Are they really that good?? The definitely are not filling.

So I made the decision to save them for a different day. There is no need to have them directly after a candy bar. Oy.

[transfaguette]

sorry i don't use reddit so im not sure if im misinterpreting but isn't weight loss genuinely simplifiable down to cico ? if u have a deficit you'll lose weight but lots of people underestimate calories in food studies show /gen

so CICO is a very base level understanding of weight loss. It is factual that fat is supposed to be burned when you expend more energy than you intake. But both in theory and in practice it is more complicated than that. The fact that it's hard to get an accurate judgement on how much you really burn vs how much you intake is part of it. It's complex for biological reasons and for mental health and behavioral reasons too.

My problems with CICO and the way reddit wields it is it's just diet culture at the end of the day, being treated as science. I think it can create or exacerbate disordered relationships to food and exercise. It's successes self-select the people who already have an easy time losing weight and so the people who struggle are made to feel like *they're* a failure. And again, the assumption being that, even if you feel like you are starving yourself because that's the only way you see the scale move, that's better than being fat. I think that part is the most egregious problem. It's deeply fatphobic, and reddit just really, really, really, hates fat people.

[brambleandbrush]

2023.10.25

I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but I can safely say that work is not the only thing that’s affecting my mental health. I feel like I’m spiraling a bit today. I keep thinking of frustrations with my husband and my self-induced weight loss plateau.

I want weight loss to be instantaneous but it’s not. Second best, I want it to be quick, but even when I’ve tried starving myself, when my mental health was at its worst, it didn’t work. I lived on less than 500 kcals a day for nearly a month and saw my weight loss completely stall. The internet CICO prophets made the spiral worse. What the hell was wrong with me that couldn’t even loose weight while barely eating and working out an hour a day?

That was this past March/April. Between this, marital issues, and work being really hard, I ended up suicidal. I didn’t, thankfully. Not from lack of trying. I couldn’t get my husband to leave the house without me. His insistence on staying is the only reason I’m here. I couldn’t make it fit into the narrative I had created in my head that no one cared anymore. It was enough to snap me back to reality. Instead I saw a doctor, started meds for depression, and stopped dieting. Things have improved but still haven’t been great. Work is still hard. Marriage is an up hill climb. My weight hasn’t budged because I haven’t put in the work.

This is not the post I was planning when I started typing, but it seems to be the post I needed. Thanks for staying on the ride with me. All of this is to say that weight loss is complicated and hard. It’s not just eating less and exercising. There are complicated chemical reactions happening, hormones, and mental health to consider. I’m trying to find a way to get back to making progress without triggering another spiral. It’s hard to get data - measurement and weight without feeling things. Counting calories is dangerous for me.

So how do I do this? In the past I’ve noticed that I have had the most success when I’ve used images and storytelling to track progress rather than numbers. When I’ve focused on tracking the healthy things that I’ve been eating and my exercise by sharing pics on Tumblr (pretty sure I’ve deleted at least 5 accounts in here), I’ve been able to stick with it longer and I’ve seen more success. So, I took measurements today. Maybe I will do again in a month, maybe I won’t. In the meantime I’m going to focus on building a habit of sharing pics from my walks and hikes and the food I’m eating daily. Hopefully this will be enough to get me on track in a healthy way.

[ms-demeanor]

Alright let's get into it. TW for weight loss, diet talk, calorie discussion, etc. (Note: I am somebody who is studying nutrition and who has studied nutrition, but I am not an RD, I do not have a degree in this subject, and I have not done research in the field; I have *read and discussed* a lot of research in the field in the context of nutrition classes, and I am also someone who has lost a significant amount of weight and participated in the NWCR long-term study as a subject and I am someone who was forced to go to weight watchers as a kid AND I am somebody who is fat AND I am somebody who is a fat acceptance advocate and a supporter of HAES informed care)

In some ways, everybody in this thread is correct.

People who work in and do research in nutrition do not generally say "CICO is a myth." (Even in the links cited from the maintenance phase episode, Kevin Hall's research points to a model that needs to be adapted but is still based on the general premise that an energy gap will lead to weight loss but how that gap is maintained is changed throughout the process.)

To an extent, @max1461 is right; if you put fewer calories into your body than it consumes, your body will burn calories from your fat reserves (AND your muscle) and you will lose weight.

HOWEVER, there is a big "but" that comes with that, because it is exceptionally hard to figure out how many calories you're putting into your body, and how many calories your body is burning, and these numbers are tremendously variable from person to person and sometimes from day to day, and from food to food.

If you buy two Baby Ruth bars and test them for calories you may find that they vary by a significant amount from what is listed on the package. If you weigh 100g of carrots into two bowls, one in the summer and one in the winter, it's very likely that you're going to get one bowl that has fewer calories than the other based on the sugar content of the carrots. If you get a hamburger with the calories listed on the menu, it could be leaner and lower calorie than what is on the menu or you could have gotten the patty where there happened to be a bit more fat out of all the rest and your hamburger has a lot more calories than what's on the menu. *EVEN IF* you are weighing and measuring everything you eat, you are going to get a pretty significant amount of variation in the calories in the food.

Your body is also going to absorb different amounts of food; Max noted that TDEE calculators give an average of what people can expect to be burning a day but that "average" is wildly variable based on your body, how much exercise you're doing, how hydrated you are, and a million things from your menstrual cycle to your mood that can impact how efficient your digestion is.

CICO is not a myth, but CICO is Much, Much, Much harder to accurately calculate than most people (including most doctors) think it is.

@tanadrin is correct that there's good evidence that your body has a "set point" that it wants to stick to and will correct for AND that set-point theory often gets reduced to "CICO is a myth," which is unfortunate because that's a massive oversimplification, AND that "CICO is a myth" is a reaction to things like weight loss trainers saying things like "Weight loss is easy. It's as simple as calories in, calories out." It's not that simple, and it's not just a matter of "willpower." If you cut your calories, your body starts fucking with the hormones that make you feel hunger and satiety. Your body makes you feel hungrier when you are regularly cutting calories than you would feel otherwise, and that feeling of being hungrier (and a reduced metabolic rate) may stick around for a long time after a weight loss and making it physically difficult to continue eating the reduced calories your body needs to maintain a weight loss. The calorie reduction you used to have a 1-lb a week weight loss at month one of a diet will likely need to reduce SIGNIFICANTLY to maintain that weight loss at month 54 of a diet. If you go with pure CICO you'd think that a 500 calorie a day deficit would mean a pound of loss a week and maybe when you get to your goal weight you can calculate your new TDEE at your lower weight to maintain, but actually you might need to run at a deficit of 200 calories below what "should" be the new TDEE to maintain; that metabolic adaptation may reduce over an extended period of time but it's a big part of why you see weight regain after dieting (again, see Kevin Hall's research). You literally feel hungrier and your body is burning fewer calories after a diet than it was at the start of a diet. That's why it's difficult to maintain weight loss over time, that's why it's not as simple as CICO.

However all of that is ALSO variable; some people don't have as significant a metabolic adaptation, some people end up with a reduced RMR but it doesn't impact their ability to maintain a loss, some people have VERY long term changes to their appetite and their ghrelin and leptin response. (Here is a *tiny* study of 14 people from the Biggest Loser and the long-term outcomes of their time on the show; it answers some interesting questions but it isn't definitive proof that reduced RMR after weight loss means it's impossible to maintain a loss, but it does have some compelling data about how CICO isn't as simple as putting in 100 calories and burning 100 calories when you may not be burning 100 calories)

@queeranarchism is correct in that there is no proven intervention with the exception of bariatric surgery (which people should not be pressured into and which has really significant side effects) that will make a fat person thin long-term. "Be skinny" is not something that doctors should be prescribing but many of them *do* and it's fucked up.

And this is where I think a lot of these conversations get really messy.

@max1461, if you want to diet to get the body you want, how successful you are is going to depend a lot on the body you started with and the body you want.

Some of the best research we have on long-term maintenance of weight loss comes from the Look AHEAD study and shows an 8.5% weight loss in the first year with a regain for a total of 4.7% weight loss at eight years to be a successful loss and maintenance for the high-intervention cohort of the weight loss study. High-intervention in this case means 6 months of weekly support meetings or individual counseling, a medically supervised VLCD, and the recommendation to replace two meals a day with shakes or snack bars provided by the study.

I'm going to use myself for math on this. I'm 240 pounds and five foot six. If I matched the model in this study, an 8.5% loss for me would mean a loss of 20.4 pounds. I would have a BMI of 35.4 - now, granted, everyone in this thread knows that BMI is bullshit, but an 8.5% weight loss would still leave me "obese." After 8 years, I'd be up to about 229, putting me at a BMI of 37.

When 100 doctors were surveyed about what kind of weight loss they'd recommend for obese patients, they said that 21% would be "acceptable" and 10% would be disappointing. When 60 obese patients were asked about what their goal weight from a weight loss regimen would be, the averaged answer was 32% weight loss.

Six months of a recommended diet of under 1800 calories a day netted an 8.5% loss for the Look AHEAD patients.

A different long-term study that looked at patients who were given 12 weeks of access to weight watchers found an average 2kg loss at five years.

So. What's my takeaway from this?

It is possible for many people in to lose *MODEST* amounts of weight (in the 2-5% range) with relatively minimal intervention and lifestyle change, and to lose more significant amounts of weight (~10%) with significant intervention.

It is possible for many people to maintain modest losses (regaining about half of the initial loss over about 5 years) over time

Doctors are not prescribing modest losses, and patients are not aiming for modest losses when they diet. (For instance, participation in the National Weight Control Registry study requires a loss of 30lbs and maintaining that loss for over a year)

I think that we're kind of talking about different things here. My doctor isn't going to be happy with me *only* losing ten pounds - he wants me to lose "fifty pounds, minimum," (a bit over 20%, so just about what that survey of doctors showed) but a 5% weight loss confers tremendous benefits in terms of heart disease and diabetes risk and outcomes. One of the major problems with weight loss as an industry and a medical goal (and the one that is central to Maintenance Phase) is that doctors and diets don't focus on health improvements, they focus on turning fat people into skinny people via dieting, which is *not* the kind of intervention there's good evidence for.

AND, ON TOP OF ALL OF THAT, I do think that it's possible for many people to significantly change their weight and body composition but doing so is not a minor intervention or even a major intervention, it is the kind of thing that becomes totally central to your life. Going from being fat to being thin (when it is even possible) requires an effort on par with becoming a competitive bodybuilder. You *can* become a competitive bodybuilder, but until you've tried to become a competitive bodybuilder you probably don't realize how much work it is and how disruptive to your life it is.

One of the complaints that Aubrey makes on Maintenance Phase that I agree with very strongly is that a lot of "just put your mind to it and lose the weight" sentiment comes from people who are relatively small and whose goals are relatively small and who, if they have been fat, have not spent a long time being fat. There are the occasional examples of people who lose hundreds of pounds and maintain that loss, and those people are extremely unusual and are showing an unusual amount of interest and focus on weight loss. Often those people walk for four hours a day, or eat under 1500 calories a day for years. They may give up other hobbies or end relationships in order to maintain that kind of weight loss. That is the kind of loss that *may* be possible for a great number of people but it is also the kind of weight loss that you have to be really realistic about if you want to attempt it. You're going to live at the gym. You're going to feel hungry, possibly all, of the time for years. You may be able to do it, but expect it to take a minimum of 2 hours a day of effort (and quite likely more, not including cooking time), and think about what you would have to cut out of your life in order to get two hours a day to put toward this.

And hearing "oh, it took me years to get the baby weight off, but I did it" from someone who took two years to lose twenty pounds and went back to a low pre-pregnancy weight by cutting out desserts is *maddening* when it's aimed at someone who has been fat since childhood and has been prescribed weight loss medications and been on diets and is told over and over again to lose 100 pounds.

Max, I'm not saying that's your situation or the bodyrecomp you went through, but there's an enormous difference between a normal-weight person trying to lose ten pounds and a fat person trying to lose a third of their body weight, and the regain on both of those is going to look really different.

This is further complicated by the fact that fat people are often told to lose weight FAST and are put on diets that are far below their BMR, let alone their TDEE, which is in a totally different universe than attempting to lose a couple of pounds in a year.

AND ASIDE FROM ALL OF THAT are the considerations for *why* someone's "ideal weight" might be their "ideal weight" - do they want to lose weight because the will feel better, because they want to look a certain way, or because they think they'll be subject to less stigma if they're thin? Do they want to look a certain way because they want to look a certain way, or because they believe that's the only way they'll be attractive to potential partners? Unpacking weight stigma while discussing that it is *often possible* to lose significant amounts of weight but it is *always unreasonable* to demand that people lose weight is complicated.

Also nutritional science is not pure bullshit it is a relatively young science that is complicated to study and research into nutrition is often funded by groups that have highly suspect motivations. I hate the "nutrition science is bullshit" take because let's be real people who say that almost never say "sociology is bullshit" in spite of sociological research having a lot of the same problems in terms of replication and questionable foundations. They don't just take the pure number of joules recorded by a bomb calorimeter and treat the human digestive system like it's a fucking woodburning stove the conversion factors for total energy and net energy for human food consumption started being developed in the 1890s and have been a source of concern for nutrition scientists since here's a UN Food and Agriculture report from 2004 that the discusses the limitations of different factor calculations like nutrition scientists obviously don't think that you're going to burn calories in the same way as a fucking bomb calorimeter I fucking hate that argument

It's like complaining that physics is invalid because all that math takes place in a vacuum *as though there aren't a whole shitload of ways to account for the friction of an environment when discussing physics*

Just found out that the dietary calorie is still measured by burning food in a "bomb calorimeter" and then measuring the heat produced. There's no solid evidence that this method is at all equivalent to how our bodies process food (an entirely different chemical process from combustion), the accuracy of this system has been disputed for as long as it's existed, and there are no available alternatives

There are 4800 calories in a kilogram of dry sawdust even though wood is completely indigestible to humans, because calories don't measure nutritional value, just how well something burns

Nutritional "science" is pure bullshit

[nerdy-teddy-diet]

How often is too often for weighing in? should i keep it to once a week, only once a month? or do it daily?

[nonjo]

ChatGPT, Minding CICO, and Cocktail Garnish

One of my key weight loss strategies was cutting calories. I didn’t ban anything from my diet, but took a hard look at portions. Cocktails were the very first target. To this day, I only make a tiny cocktail for myself, and it has worked for me long before I started tracking calories. I knew I cut down the size, and because I measure when I make cocktails, I knew how much rye and vermouth went…

[afitterbrittany]

Being so brave. My department ordered Chinese food and I chose to still eat my packed lunch. They made fun of me a little lol just wait until I’m eating my lunch on the job site while ordered food for our software and engineering teams lmao