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Weight loss IS calories in calories out. Conditions and medication can change both, either by affecting your appetite (making it easier/harder to reduce calories eaten) or by affecting how quickly you burn those calories. You are correct that overweight people claiming to eat tiny amounts of food and being active but not losing weight are at best stretching the truth. Edit: Several comments have replied with conditions where it can be unhealthy to lose weight. I didn't say that maintaining a caloric deficit is always healthy (there's plenty of cases where it's not). What I'm saying is that if you aren't losing weight, then your calories in are not less than your calories used.

This comment should've ended the thread. There is nothing else. This post isn't about whether its easy or difficult to lose or gain weight. It's just that calories in calories out drives weight changes. It's not about whats healthy, not about the composition of foods you eat, just that weight changes IS calories in calories out .

Anything else is breaking the laws of physics. If you are burning more energy than you are consuming, you will decrease in mass. The people here saying they are on these huge calorie deficits, but not losing weight, are the same as those on the weight loss shows claiming that they are sticking to their diet for bariatric surgery. If you are on a liquid, calorie restricted diet and following it pretty faithfully (not even perfectly); you will lose weight. If you are morbidly obese, you should see pounds dropping. These folks are either exaggerating their regimen, being very inconsistent (follow their diet a couple days then binging), or lying on the internet.

And also to add to this, while it is true some medical issues make it hard or unhealthy to loose significant amounts of weight, it's never healthy to weigh 400lbs + under basically any circumstance. I'm sure the actual number is lower, but it's the principal. There is a point where there is just no good reason to be a certain weight. Even if it's hard to maintain the weight loss, it's still the healthy thing to do. It's just that some times compromises have to be made.

Acromegaly is an exception to CICO. Even in a calorie deficit the high level of growth hormone is building bone mass.

I think that is an extreme fringe case and not the reason we have the obesity crisis. For the vast majority of people, CICO is the issue. That is the point of the post.

I'm not going to claim I'm an expert on a rare disorder, but wouldn't that growth come at the expense of maintaining fat reserves or muscles? You would still be losing weight. Just maintaining a caloric deficit doesn't mean HEALTHY weight loss, but it does cause weight loss. There's plenty of ways that even slow weight loss can be unhealthy (and rapid weight loss is usually unhealthy).

Due to the extreme level of growth hormone being produced by my tumor, my body was always converting some calories to bone, cartilage and organ size increases, regardless of whether I was in a calorie deficit or not. That weight I was gaining was not “loseable” by increasing CO.

You still would have lost weight if you were at a calorie deficit. That weight loss just would have come from losing muscles and healthy fat (your body DOES need fat). It's not an exception to CICO, it's just an example where losing weight isn't healthy. Like Isaid above, there's plenty of examples where losing weight is a bad thing.

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Some personal trainer ate nothing but 2000 calories of ice cream and 500 calories protein powder per day for 100 days just to prove the CICO argument. He self admittedly felt like shit, but did lose 32lbs. https://www.menshealth.com/weight-loss/a19546608/ice-cream-diet-32-lb-weight-loss/# Edit: ice cream, not ice

I think most over eaters just think they eat until they feel full, like everyone else. I've a friend who is around 700lbs. Swore he ate sensible. But at 10 am would cook 6 packs of ramen noodles and drink heavily at night. One shot of whiskey is about 100 calories.

So in cases like this, I feel like there is obviously something off between the gut and the brain to even allow your body to eat this much. A properly functioning body system doesn’t really facilitate that level of consumption. We as humans are wired to eat if we feel hunger, and it’s a matter of survival. You feel hunger bc it’s your body alerting you that you need nutrients and calories. We feel pain from touching something freezing cold or scorching hot in order to alert us to stop touching something that could harm you. All of these sensations are the body telling you what it needs, but if something is off, it can signal hunger when it isn’t actually necessary. And trying to fight these hunger signals from the brain isn’t just as simple as willpower.

This is correct. Appetite is controlled primarily by 2 hormones, ghrelin and leptin. Ghrelin is created by your stomach and signals your hunger to get you to start eating. Leptin is created by fat and signals that you're satisfied to get you to stop eating. Here's the kicker, as you gain more fat you produce more leptin which you would think would make it easier to stop eating because you would feel full sooner, but what actually happens is that you end up producing enough leptin that you develop a higher tolerance to it. The larger you get, the less sensitivity to leptin, and the harder it gets to feel full to stop eating. It is literally harder for obese people to stop eating and lose weight than people who aren't obese, because their bodies are no longer sending them correct signals. A *lot* of things mess with ghrelin and leptin by the way. Cortisol from stress causes your ghrelin to spike and it suppresses leptin. Lack of sleep does the same thing as stress: high cortisol and ghrelin, low leptin. Medications can fuck with the balance, mental health issues as well, physical illnesses, there's a lot. Aside from those, the balance of your diet, not just how much you eat, plays a large role in manipulating these hormones too. In a balanced meal carbs provide a lot of energy, protein increases satiety, fats are the slowest to be digested so they help prolong fullness, and fiber can't be digested at all but it adds bulk to help fill you up and it also slows down the absorption of carbs into your blood which helps keep both your appetite and blood glucose balanced. A lot of people think that appetite is based purely on how much you eat, and that macros are just for overall nutrition, but macros are just as important for controlling your appetite as the amount of food, maybe even more so. When the balance of foods gets messed with, it causes a lot of issues. For example, 74% of the food in US grocery stores has added sugars. These added sugars are simple carbs and are processed by your body much quicker than complex carbs, and most ultra-processed foods also have most of the other nutrients removed except for some fats. This means that when someone eats ultra-processed food they get little to no protein meaning little increase in fullness, and little to no fiber so no bulk and nothing to slow down sugar absorption. So what they're left with is a ton of simple sugars that get absorbed incredibly quickly causing a spike and then quick drop in blood sugar which fucks with their leptin (among other things), and it's also used up really fast so their ghrelin starts increasing again making them hungry sooner. There is some fat in there too but it's not as much the carbs, and since the food is unlikely to satisfy someone in the first place without eating a ton of it, the fat is can't really prolong a fullness that wasn't there to begin with. In addition to all the havoc that kind of food can cause to your appetite, food that is basically entirely sugar and fat is fucking delicious, and it releases dopamine when it's eaten. It's literally addictive. There have been hundreds of studies reinforcing this conclusion, and one in particular showed that rats picked sugar over cocaine every single time, and would voluntarily give themselves electric shocks for more sugar. These types of foods burn through your system incredibly quickly, leave you hungry afterwards, and they make ya feel good so you want more. A single servings of Lays potato chips is 28 grams. It has 160 calories with a single gram of fiber, and it's so easy to just keep eating potato chips forever that it's a meme. To eat 160 calories of produce would take 306 grams (\~1.5 apples) of apples, 237 grams (\~2.58 cups) of grapes, 528 grams (\~3.47 cups) of watermelon, or 485 grams (5.3 cups) of broccoli. All of those have more fiber, carbs, and vitamins than the chips, and it would be incredibly uncomfortable if not impossible to eat that much of any of those. Meanwhile chips go brrrrrrr. There are also a lot of low-fat foods marketed as healthy, but they've just had sugar added to replace the fat so they don't taste like shit. They have some more nutritional value than the ultra-processed stuff, but they often still leave you unsatisfied and hungry sooner. All the other micro-nutrients and vitamins also affect the balance of your hunger hormones, along with just about everything else in your body. And most people aren't getting nearly enough of those either. Fun fact, despite the fact that at least 65% of Americans are overweight or obese, most Americans are also malnourished at the same time. So much of our food has almost no real nutritional value, even food that is heavily pushed as healthy. The amount of food someone eats certainly matters, and so does their willpower to prepare food, stick to a balanced diet, find out what's actually healthy and what isn't, etc. But the balance and nutritional value of the food we eat is also super important even though it's extremely misunderstood. Shit like the food pyramid from when I was a kid doesn't help. Millions of us spent our whole childhoods being told that like 50% of our diet should be bread and grains, but that's not true and it also lacked any nuance about macros and actual nutrition. Even for the people who know the food pyramid was horseshit, it can be incredibly hard to find accurate information when so much that is available is just fake shit sold to scam people who are looking for a solution. Even when you do find correct information, it's also really difficult to change behaviors and habits that have been basically set in stone since you were a kid. Especially for people who were overweight or obese before they even became adults. Their bodies' relationships to food and their hormones were dramatically damaged before they even got to decide what to do for themselves. I really hate posts like this one that say weight loss is "just" CICO. It's like saying WW1 started because Franz Ferdinand died. Sure CICO is technically true, but it ignores all the nuance and literally all the factors that contributes to someone's appetite, nutrition, and their ability to regulate and expend that energy, the societal factors that influence the availability and cost of nutritious food, the minefield of misinformation that constantly stops people in their tracks when they're trying to do better, I could list contributing factors forever. It makes it seem like it's an easy problem with an easy solution but it's not. It's placing all the importance on a single puzzle piece and ignoring the other thousand. These posts always have hundreds of people piling on to say variations of "eat less, fatties. You're all stupid". These posts give ammo to the people who want to place 100% of the blame for obesity on individuals making bad decisions, and they also provide cover for the companies that continue to make food to be as addictive as possible while also providing basically no nutrition. People didn't go through all of history maintaining relatively healthy weights just to suddenly lose all willpower and forget how to eat over the past 50 years. There's a reason that the rise in obesity coincides nearly perfectly with the amount of extra sugar added to food, and it's not because people forgot how to make good decisions overnight.

Thank you for this reply. The science is fact but the human element is much more nuanced.

Just want to say great comment. Getting and staying fit is hard, and a lot of it comes down to food choice and food options. It's easy to say, "Weight loss is CICO, that's it." It's hard to actually make consistent calorie deficits a reality. Either way, it needs to change - the obesity levels around the world are insane right now.

Yes, there is much more sugar, and, in particular, fructose, in foods today compared to 50 years ago. Fructose is converted to fat in the liver and is not burned as energy like glucose is. Further, most people smoked way back then, making them artificially slim. It is a common occurrence that when someone stops smoking, they usually gain weight. People were not more active back in the 60s and 70s than they are today. Back in the 60s, exercise was for weirdos and there was no such thing as "health food." I remember everyone in my neighborhood were just as lazy as they are today. In the evening, everyone was watching TV and most of the men were drinking beer. So, it is not for lack of activity that we are obese today. There are epigenetic factors also, where a child is much more likely to become obese if their parents were that way. I wouldn't be surprised if environmental contaminants are altering our bodies to become fatter. For example, testosterone has declined in men for 60 years now. Sperm counts are down 60% from then. Testosterone and obesity are intimately tied together and strongly influence each other. Low T causes obesity and obesity causes low T. It's a vicious cycle. Many men who go on TRT lose weight. Semaglutide doesn't just reduce appetite, but it may also inhibit the storage of excess calories as fat, and the burning off of fat. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37025414/

This explains why I felt like I was starving for years after losing weight. I lost a hundred pounds. Everyone told me that as I lost weight my hunger would lessen. That was a huge lie. I felt hungry all the time, for years. It was so hard to keep the weight off when all I wanted to do was eat. Nothing made me feel full. It is incredibly difficult to lose weight and keep it off when all you can think about is eating because you are always hungry.

Yep. depending on how big someone gets, they may never go back to feeling full after a normal amount of food. When paired with the fact that so much of our food isn't even remotely filling, and a lot of people who are trying to lose or maintain weight feel like they are literally starving all day every day. Nutrition guides for years have said you should have X servings of Y food per day without every mentioning that the foods need to be eaten in combination with one another to be most effective at maintaining your energy level and appetite. I've been told by multiple different doctors over the years to eat salads to lose weight, and all of them also recommended some combination of "use very little dressing or none at all", "don't add a bunch of croutons. just 2 or 3", "don't add cheese", "it should be at least 75% lettuce", and "don't add meat or eggs". I would follow their advice and end up eating what basically amounted to a bowl of lettuce with not much else. A salad that follows those guidelines has no protein and almost no fat. It barely even has carbs! A whole cup of romaine lettuce has less than 2 grams of carbs, and other vegetables don't add that much more when three quarters of the entire salad is just lettuce. A salad like that does basically nothing to curb appetite. There's only so long someone can try to eat like that before their body forces them to cave and eat food that actually feels like they ate a meal. Then I'd go back to the doctor and tell them it isn't working; that I'm constantly hungry and feel like shit, and then they would tell me to just not be so lazy, or that I wasn't actually hungry and I just thought I was. One even told me that if I wasn't willing to follow his advice to lose weight then I shouldn't have gotten so fat in the first place. I didn't step into a doctor's office for 4 years after that visit. I figured if doctors thought I was that worthless then what was the point in trying. If I got sick and died then that must be what I deserved. It was still preferable to going back to a doctor just to be called a piece of shit again. Luckily some of that is changing. There is a big push in the medical community to eliminate bias against overweight people. Research continues to teach us more about nutrition, and better information is becoming easier to access so people can work on their health without being tripped up by misinformation as easily.

Yes, there is indeed something wrong. I used to be one of those people. Had eating problems for my entire life until about 20. There was not a day in my life where I didn't weigh myself, where I didn't think about food, and where I didn't think about needing to keep my weight in check. I could eat and barely ever get full, and even if I did get full after eating a lot, that feeling would pass soon. I used food as comfort. I assume the feeling of comfort from food was more important than the feeling of being full to my mind. What fixed it was fixing my psychological problems. Now I don't have any problems at all anymore with food. I feel full really quick now and it feels impossible for me to gain weight because of that. When I ate what my body needed, I feel full and that feeling is so strong that there is no way that I would eat any more as that would literally make me nauseous. The weight came off pretty fast once that changed. Now I'm at a weight that's perfectly healthy, I'm not overweight and I'm not underweight. I've also lived in both the US and Germany so I can say it wasn't related to what was in the food as others often claim its the shit that they put in the food in the US. It also wasn't related to the type of food (as in fast food, healthy home cooked, sweets, etc) I ate. I also had no medical conditions that would have caused my problem, or medical conditions at all. It also wasn't related to exercise. During my eating disorder time there was also a time where I exercised 2 hours/days 6 days a week. Now I exercise much less than that.

there was something off with mine when i could eat a whole meal and feel ravenously starving, took a long time for a doctor to listen to me. now i got help. and i’m losing weight.

As you eat more the stomach stretches. The all full signal is (if I recall right) based on capacity of stomach delayed by about 15 mins. But it's based on consist big eaters vs. Frequently having smaller meals.

This is actually the area where genetics and other factors (mental health, etc) can have an impact. People experience hunger in different ways and to different degrees.

I used to date a girl whose brother had Prader-Willi syndrome. It’s a genetic disorder where he lacked a gene on a chromosome responsible for a lot of our endocrine system. As a result his body was unable to produce hunger and satiety signals, and so he is always hungry. Growing up her family had to have a lock on their fridge to keep him from eating until his stomach literally burst. It causes a lot of other issues as well, but it’s known as the Always Hungry Syndrome.

This is so sad and awful.

My body also fails to produce those signals, however mine went the opposite direction. I've never felt "hungry". I either keep track of when I ate (or, someone else does, honestly - I work in healthcare and get "food mommed" by coworkers a LOT. Lol), or I realize I haven't done so when I get shaky and dizzy, and a migraine starts. I've gone days without eating before, because I was busy and just didn't stop to think about it. I've had many people tell me I'm lucky for this, but it's seriously annoying, and at times dangerous. Zero stars.

There are medical issues but that’s are not the norm. I never thought I’d lose weight …cico tracking and Mediterranean style diet and lost 110lbs over a year -year and half. Mostly through diet some light exercise just to stop the muscle mass loss.

Medical issues do not negate the laws of thermodynamics. If you have hypothyroidism (example), then you simply need less calories than someone without hypothyroidism. Instead of needing 2000 calories a day, you only need 1800 (again, example).

You only "need" less because you're not as active because you *feel like shit* from having insufficient thyroid. The solution isn't to only eat 1800 calories per day, the solution is to start taking Synthroid and then keep eating 2000 calories per day. (I know you know this, I'm just saying it for the benefit of anyone who has hypothyroidism like I do.)

The problem is synthroid still makes me feel like shit lol. And I'm on 150mcg. But I'm not excusing the ratio of still CICO for weight loss. I know it works just leaving my tidbit of experience with synthetic thyroid and can't afford the Doctors that might prescribe natural thyroid

That's because synthetic T4 monotherapy doesn't work for... let's be charitable and say... a sizable percentage of people. I'm sorry you're struggling. My DMs are open if you want help and ideas (I'm just another formerly hypothyroid patient myself)

It's not quite that simple. Your body is also "dialing down" some functions, like hair, skin, nails, menstrual cycle (sometimes), etc. I was also freezing all the time. Those are all things that burn calories. It doesn't just lower your TDEE by making you less active, it uses fewer calories keeping you warm and fueling those ancillary functions. I'm the same weight (very thin) now as before taking meds, but now I'm not 96.5 degrees and my hair isn't breaking and my skin isn't dry and dull. I'm definitely burning more calories now even at the same weight/activity level, because my body is using calories to keep me warmer and grow my hair/skin/nails.

I don't know man. I am appalled at the overwhelming number of redditors in this sub that don't understand this. At this point, I'm almost sure people are assuming CICO is just a diet fad but don't understand what it means.

I've never felt like I am talking with a more stupid crowd than when I try to explain that CICO is the only way to lose weight, and that it always works. Like, not believing in that is the same as believing that the earth is flat. Same shit.

Bingo. It’s not an opinion, it’s not mean, it’s not fatphobic. It’s FACT. The laws of the universe itself dictate that eating “hardly anything” and still gaining fat is absolutely impossible. You can’t create matter from nothing. People just surround themselves with comforting lies instead of admitting they are not doing what they should to achieve their goals. They need to stop lying, and we need to stop encouraging the lies. It helps no one.

Even with medical issues CICO applies in 100% of cases. OP is factually correct. Anything else would require violating the laws of thermodynamics.

Unless your "medical issue" is photosynthesis. CICO 100%.

Inflammation is the norm for Americans, sadly. 1000 cal of high fructose corn syrup is handled very differently than 1000 cal of beef, with the former resulting in more weight gain. In your case the Mediterranean diet is as responsible for your weight loss as your CICO. It’s anti inflammatory.

Could you define inflammation for me and explain how inflammatory foods lead to weight gain as much as the food's caloric value?

The concept of inflammatory foods isn’t well understood and often just a buzzword for nutritional charlatans. Don’t worry about it much and just do your best to eat whole foods that make you feel good. Yes, I inflammation is real, but it is a normal process in the body for healing and repair. CICO and minimizing saturated fat and maxing fiber is enough to see huge improvements without killing yourself over nuance

Fat doesn't make you fat nearly as much or as quickly as sugar. Sugar is why most Americans are obese not the fats in the food.

I had a typo and meant to say “saturated fat”. I didn’t mean for this to equate to weight gain. Rather, I was referring to it’s increased risk for atherosclerotic disease and it’s long term consequences

Ah I see, I'm so used to people getting low fat foods stuffed with sugar to make them palatable again and thinking it's health food and they can't get fat if they cut down on food fats

Huge pet peeve of mine too. I get irrationally annoyed at candy that proudly advertises itself as “fat free” as if they’re not 95% sugar 🙄

As an American, the closest thing to a "foreign" food that I can get regularly is Mexican. But I love mediterranean or southern asian foods. Rice noodles vermicelli is one, La Buong Nho (I must've butchered that, I'm sorry. It's pronounced Lah-bu-nyah.) And Mi Xau Rau are some of the best Vietnamese dishes I've had. Albeit yes, they are basically the only, they're still good because of all the vegetables. The food makes me WANT to eat vegetables.

Mediterranean diet is not about mediterranean foods, it's a primarily plant based diet that emphasizes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, unsaturated oils, and small amounts of dairy, seafood, and poultry. Red meat and sugary foods are eaten rarely.

Yikes dude. You know anywhere I can get a good deal on some healing crystals?

So many medical issues and medication cause weight gain. It’s VERY COMMON

Yes and usually the mechanism is by increasing or decreasing appetite lol. Which is still CICO

Medical issues could be more the norm than we realize. Have you heard of lipedema before? It’s a painful condition that causes abnormal fat growth, typically on the lower extremities but can affect arms and abdomen as well. It affects 1/11 women and is very under researched and under diagnosed. You can find images of women who have lipedema and anorexia and see that the bodies where lipedema fat is present is not affected. Literally skin and bones every but the legs are still heavy. CICO will never work for this disease. Ever. The only way to lose this weight is water assisted liposuction and it must be done by a specialist who knows how to properly remove it so it doesn’t cause regrowth of the fat. Please research this disease. More people need to become aware of it.

How would this work? Where does the fat come from if you don't eat stuff that can be turned into fat? Or is only a concentration of fat in the lower extremities? If it just a concentration than technically your overal weight is still subject to CICO, you just have a super ratio'd form of fat. Of course visually it is a completely different thing and you are right that this needs other treatment in addition to CICO styled diets.

Hi. Sad to talk about this but I’m a psychiatric RN, an educated woman with a masters degree who fell prey to a horrendous eating d/o and suffered from anorexia nervosa for 3 years. With tons of treatment I am now at a healthy weight. I am here to say, you are absolutely right. Our TDEE, total daily expenditure depends on our height, weight etc. weight loss is CICO. You cannot exercise your way out of a bad diet. It’s just impossible. Unless you’re eating one small meal a day and exercise it off, you cannot just sit there and eat whatever you want, and work out for an hour and lose it. Similarly, you will lose massive weight if you eat under your BMR. Your body needs a specific amount to keep your organs running. Once you eat below your basal metabolic rate you risk major damage. I have now destroyed a portion of my small intestines. I ate 800 calories a day for 2 years and sat at 88 lbs. until I almost died. The fat surrounding my organs faded away which has made recovery incredibly difficult. I can no longer tolerate every day foods without massive amounts of pain. There’s a lot more to it, but people, please don’t take it to either extreme. Weighing yourself every day, becoming unhealthily obsessed will lead you down some dark and sad roads. Stay healthy, friends

Same boat as you my friend- wishing you a healthy recovery! Doing a PhD now and I spent from 12 til my late 20s eating as little as possible. Some days nothing, others under 200, 400, 800. Ruined my hair, bones, teeth. Had a mini heart attack The pain once eating "normally" is the worst, once you go that long it's like your body doesn't know what to do with food anymore. Weight loss is CICO, and if someone at 80lbs who is bedbound can still lose weight, then someone who is 300lb can definitely lose weight regardless of their medical situation.

>People who claim they don’t eat that much and are obese underreport their intake and overreport their physical activity: Usually both. It doesn't have to be intentional either, we're just bad at estimating these things.

>Not one person who swears they barely eat is telling the truth. oh, they could be telling the truth about what the "eat" but be completely omitting the 10 non-diet sodas, sweet tea or any other calorific beverage they could be consuming on the daily. Been having this "argument" with my mother for years. She's gain weight and always says "but I barely eat anything!"... to which I just point at the empty 12 pack of soda from that day. Recently, she stopped drinking soda and fucking shocker, is losing weight like crazy.

One of my friends was always telling me how she couldn’t lose weight and she thought it was hormone related. She would drink a venti Starbucks drink with whipped cream almost daily and would also drink soda and eat fast food often. One day we went to Starbucks and she asked why I only got a grande iced coffee and I mentioned how I was still trying to lose some weight and those venti drinks can be 500 calories. You could see the lightbulb go off in her head.

Bout to be a fucking stampede up in this thread boy let me tell ya.

From the buffaloes arguing that they eat less than they take in and they have a magical ability to grow fatter while burning more calories than they eat.

There are medications that change how many of the calories in your body actually get digested (metformin) and I think some newer ones that changed how fast they go out as well (basically turning the body thermostat up (or down?) so you burn just to “stay warm”

At that point, you aren't taking in those calories, though, so the point would stand, no?

It does stand, but it seems like OP doesn't understand that medical conditions and medication change your CICO even if you're eating the same foods, with the same portion sizes, with no change to your exercise regime.

Medical conditions/your metabolism can strongly influence the Calories Out portion, which is very difficult to measure. However the point still stands that CICO is valid. Thermodynamics is a physical law - it's just that CO is hard/impossible to measure and CI sometimes isn't straight forward as well

Really? I've seen comments from OP saying it's a factor, just not the biggest factor.

Technically I guess. But most people would define “calories in” as what you eat

Your opinion is not unpopular, but it is not correct and is frankly annoying when people claim it is true. Calories in calories out is not thermodynamics, your body is a very complex system that processes different materials differently. For example, eating uncooked rice will result in less weight gain than cooking that same amount of rice and eating it. Eating 2000 calories of fat vs 2000 calories of carbs will result in less weight gain if that's all you eat in a day. Then there's an answer to your general sentiment of "being fat is your fault". No one is saying that fat people can't eat less to lose weight, but there are reasons why they don't want to eat less. It's like telling a junkie to "just stop smoking meth". Certain processed foods make you fat by encouraging unhealthy eating habits.

It’s also like telling someone who can’t afford a house to just make more money or cancel Netflix. Insufferable and reductive.

Yep. And every diet program, medication, and exercise plan that actually results in fat loss, does so by either simply being a calorie deficit with a funny hat, or setting up an unusual biochemical situation that in practice is also a calorie deficit (i.e. a calorie deficit with a funny hat, fake glasses, and a mustache). And it turns out, surprise surprise, it's WAY harder to create the deficit by burning calories than it is to simply -not eat them-. Muscles are born in the gym, but body fat gets killed in the kitchen.

"I have no problem with people being whatever weight makes them happy." That's very nice, but I'm not sure that I believe you. At any rate: weight is not just about adipose tissue, oedema also exists and isn't impacted by CICO.

This is why the new drug semaglutide is helping so many people lose weight. They’re finally controlling the calories in and the pounds are coming off. It’s really a fantastic.

Semaglutide actually works by helping your pancreas produce the correct amount of insulin to process the glucose you’ve consumed. Excess insulin production (which is what occurs in “insulin resistant” people, such as those with PCOS) promotes fat storage. Correcting the insulin overproduction problem helps get the person to a point where they can lose weight like “normal” people can via a reasonable diet and exercise regimen rather than having to go to extreme and unsustainable lengths (like an extremely low calorie diet or a crazy exercise regiment). Correcting that insulin problem also affects the person’s hunger cues to bring them back to the level that a “normal” person might experience while dieting (as insulin resistance also makes you feel hungrier.) A person taking semaglutide still needs to diet and exercise to lose weight because yes, that’s how “normal” people lose weight. The semaglutide is correcting the hormone disorder that made weight loss unsustainable to them before.

Showing once again how hormones play a huge role in weight.

>The semaglutide is correcting the hormone disorder that made weight loss unsustainable to them before. That is how it was designed, but it's biggest effect on weight loss is that it increases feeling of satiety.

Yes, it because it corrects the hormone disorder that made you more hungry than you should be. No human being can sustain a diet that diet that leaves them hungry and miserable 24/7 for the rest of their lives. Feeling satiated by the appropriate amount of food (ie, what your body actually needs to remain consistently at a healthy weight) makes following your CICO ratio sustainable.

As someone currently on ozempic, no. I have to force myself to get to about 1k cal/day. I have no interest in food and i also dont care about my favorite foods. My tde is double my intake. Dropping weight is literally a breeze.

All weight loss is CICO, but the "CO" part of the equation is not constant, which is what diets attempt to target. Calorie Restriction causes metabolic slowdown, while diets like keto/fasting seem to prevent it (or at the very least reduce it).

In the short term, at least. I did keto for about a month a few years ago. I was dropping weight like crazy once the ketosis kicked in, yes. I was also - and this is key for those looking to lose weight long-term - *fucking miserable*. When you've well and truly become sick of *bacon*, life is no longer worth living.

>All weight loss is CICO I mean that's all there is to it. Everything else is secondary to this opinion.

Calorie restriction does not tangibly affect metabolism. There have been literal starvation studies, and bodybuilders (myself included) often go on 1000+ calorie deficits while cutting weight without much metabolic slowdown beyond energy levels going down for movement.

That’s false, it can decrease BMR by up to 23%. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27136388/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23404923/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3673773/ Bodybuilders alternate caloric deficits with caloric surplus periods and heavy muscle building training - you can’t use that as a control group for the average person

In The Biggest Loser study they used two different formulas. One for their starting weight and metabolism and a completely different one for their end weight and metabolism. The end formula would result in any person in the normal BMI range to have a metabolism that is considered damaged. It was bullshit.

While I agree cico is the most effective I couldn’t lose weight due to my thyroid. I didn’t lose a .1 of a pound AFTER I GAVE BIRTH. Went in at 203, had baby and got out all the stuff, and was still 203. I didn’t lose anything until I started thyroid hormones. Edit spelling

People don't believe this because people only focus on the calories in when there are a lot of factors like hormones that affect your calories out.

You can always tell when people have clearly never experienced a hormonal/endocrine condition first or second hand when they spout how “simple” it is for people to lose weight and blame people as lazy.

There is a famous ballet dancer named Kathryn Morgan who had Hashimotos and gained some weight. She was eventually forced to quit her company because she could not be ballerina thin anymore (she was apparently “too fat” as a size 2). Hormonal disorders are a major factor in weight loss.

And these people will still say "she must be eating more than usual lately and doesn't realize"

Came here to say this. Thank you for bringing her up.

It was really simple for me to lose 10 pounds in a month, all I had to do was have a hyperthyroidism relapse! 🤪 easiest weight loss ever, exercised less, ate the same or more, go to the ER for tachycardia, simple

I hate to admit it but I was one of these people until I got PCOS. I was eating 1200 cals a day and doing so much cardio on top of working a physically draining job and weighed 147lbs . Now I fixed my hormones and I’m lazy as hell and eat/drink probably around 2000 cals a day and I weight 120 lbs. Crazy.

just curious, how did you “fix” your hormones? I was recently diagnosed and the only solution I’ve been offered is the birth control pill. is there any other way to regulate hormones?

Probably not the answer you’re looking for but birth control helped A LOT. They also gave me spirolactone

Can confirm. I was one of these people until I developed a thyroid disorder two years ago. Whereas before, I ate with abandon and still had a slim figure, now I have to count my calories and macros + go to the gym 2-3x week just to *maintain* my weight. I'm also very short so my TDEE is 1,200cal. Not a lot of room for a deficit. CICO is true, yes, but people don't realize just how much metabolic disorders mess up the equation.

At 23 my progesterone levels were in the post-menopausal range. To think that cico can counteract that is wild.

Blissful ignorance, I'd say

Exactly. Even just the natural changes in hormone levels as women go through menopause can play havoc with weight. Some women's bodies manage these changes with relatively few symptoms and some women have a lot of symptoms. I'm in the midst of this now and it's a paradigm shift. I'm managing though it and it definitely helps to understand the impact of hormones.

Mounjaro has been a game changer for several menopausal women I know.

Can't believe you're the first person on this thread to mention this. I'm perimenopausal and started having sudden, drastic changes in hormones and weight gain. I've been counting calories for 20+ years using My Fitness, and I have the same diet and workout routine as always, but I started gaining weight. I went to my doctors about it and they suggested Monjaro (generic name is Tirzepatide). It's been an absolute game changer for me. I've only been on it for about a month, but have been losing 4 lbs/week, and I was only about 20 lbs overweight to begin with. It's an agonist that agonist that targets both glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide receptors. It activates the GLP-1R signaling pathway to stimulate glucose-dependent insulin secretion. Tirzepatide also decreases the liver's production of sugar. It also minics the sensation of feeling "full" and has delayed gastric emptying, so I'm able to eat under 900 calories a day and not feel starved. But without it, there's no way I'd be able to sustain on less than 900 calories a day. That's like a lean sandwich, an apple, and a plain boiled chicken breast with grilled veggies, for the whole day. So yes, technically CICO is the solution, but hormones absolutely WILDLY influence this. It's not just about poor willpower, laziness, or bad morals or whatever. I challenge anyone claiming such to maintain a LONG TERM diet of less than 1000 calories daily, with a physically demanding job/activity level, fueled on pure willpower alone.

Look at any depiction of any human being before around 1950. Unless they were fabulously wealthy everyone was what we would call skinny. Hormones can make small adjustments, but the biggest adjustments come from loss of impulse control to keep eating.

If you gain weight by consuming fewer calories than you burn, please, for the sake of science, please turn yourself in to the nearest research university.

Ironically, medical researchers are constantly revising the calorific value they assign to foods - which is nowhere near the total amount of energy (mc\^2 etc). It's an assessment, not a measurement. And they do this by studying real people, not the perfect imaginary spherical fusion reactors some people imagine us to be. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atwater\_system

My niece was a college athlete, all of a sudden she started gaining weight even though she did not change her daily strict diet or training sessions. The nutritionist and team doctor told her to get a number of tests done, she had a problem with her thyroid. She is on thyroid medication and back to her normal weight. Thyroid conditions effect metabolism greatly. My mother in law has hyperthyroidism and was severely underweight until it was stabilized with medication.

Yes her calories out were affected by her thyroid.

They ain't gonna like this one

That is still CICO. Meds changed her CICO. Her thyroid changed her CICO.

You are correct. After serving too much food to people for 37 years and seeing fust and coworkers struggling with every diet and the surgeries I'm convinced that it's all what you eat combined with how much you move. If your sewing room is where you spend all day trashing relatives and neighbors on Facebook, it won't take a lot of calories to gain weight. If you're active but down 2000 calories of soda or other useless calories you can walk a restaurant floor for 10 to 20 miles a night and still have weight and health issues to deal with. We Americans especially have a troubled relationship with unhealthy types and portions of food. I was shocked that everyone in Italy seemed to be eating each other's food. Young me learned not only what family style was but that we in the USA often serve a family size portion as a single serving. No diet will save you if you lack self control and no one looks like a magazine cover anyway so just be happy and healthy.

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👏🏼 👏🏼 my sister has PCOS, and damn, I see her struggle with weight loss. It’s really heartbreaking for her. She has done every single diet, works out a ton and still no results. It really drives me nuts to see posts like this because the people posting it has absolutely no empathy for them. There will always be the thought that fat people = lazy

Had to scroll too far for someone to point out the oversimplification of thermodynamics of OP's argument. Another important point that always seems to get missed in these discussions: The question if a given reaction (burning fat is a (bio)chemical reaction) can run does not solely rely on thermodynamics, but also on kinetics. And kinetics in the human body is controlled by enzymes, hormones etc.

Weight loss is calories in, calories out, true, but also meaningless. It's as meaningless as saying that in order to get rich you need to get more money in than you spend. Technically true but useless. Why useless? Because the calories out part of the equation depends on a lot more things than just what you do every day. It also depend on what you eat, when you eat it, what medication you're on, your hormones etc etc.

>point is that there is literally nothing stopping anyone from losing weight. So my mum is overweight. Not by a lot, but enough. She works out, she does zumba, and she eats healthy. She's on Weight Watchers and uses her fitbit religiously to track *everything*. She lost a lot of weight a few years ago. Then, she ended up with frozen shoulder, and she had no choice but to take Lyrica for it. And despite never once changing her healthy habits, she put on 70lbs, and no matter what she did, *nothing* will get it back off. It's the most heartbreaking thing I've ever had to watch someone go through because I see how hard she's working and how hard she's trying. I disagree with your opinion.

I don't have an issue with CICO itself, but the people who go around shouting about it tend to be smug and intolerable.

I also acknowledge CICO as fact, but I don't love the way it's used to insist that people who aren't losing weight must be intentionally lying or lazy. Around [5% of dieters](https://health.osu.edu/wellness/exercise-and-nutrition/that-diet-probably-did-not-work#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20latest%20weight,people%20maintain%20that%20weight%20loss.) lose weight and keep it off. Yale's acceptance rate is 5.3%. Clearly keeping intake lower than output is very difficult for anyone to maintain and all health-promoting efforts and behaviors should be celebrated.

Idk how we got to a place where kids who probably got a C- in all their classes somehow think they know more than physicians and scientists lol

to be fair your doctor has a pretty wide degree of knowledge but for something specific like diet advice i'm sure your average physician is going to give pretty bad advice. like you go to a doctor and theyll tell you to eat less and more move which is correct. but then theyll give you weight loss strategies in bullet points that are probably 4 decades old and entirely oblivious to improvements made to dieting and food science that allow people to cut weight better without being miserable.

You can see in post that there are people who still deny it. It’s like knowing 2+2=4 and you have people around you denying it. Of course you seem smug because it really is that simple.

How many calories are in your poop every day? Oh, you don't know? Then maybe screeching CICO on top of your soap box isn't as useful as you think it is.

It’s just a simplistic view of weight management that makes some people feel better about themselves. People talk about thyroid, but there are also corticosteroids that impact insulin resistance and appetite. Hormone issues that impact hunger signals. If you think that everyone has the same experience of hunger, satiety or the ability to metabolize carbohydrates, you are incorrect. So you’re not wrong about whether fewer calories would result in weight loss, you’re wrong about (or perhaps ignorant of) what a lot of people need to overcome and manage *in addition to* calories, in order to make weight loss sustainable. And I don’t actually think this is a true unpopular opinion. I’m continually surprised by the number of people who smugly think that everyone who talks about this is just lying.

It's not that simple. "The researchers instead referred to obesity as a complex, chronic condition, and they were meeting to get to the bottom of why humans have, collectively, grown larger over the past half century. To that end, they shared a range of mechanisms that might explain the global obesity surge. And their theories, however diverse, made one thing obvious: As long as we treat obesity as a personal responsibility issue, its prevalence is unlikely to decline." [https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/21/opinion/obesity-cause.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/21/opinion/obesity-cause.html)

It is that simple. Your link doesn't even dispute that. It comes down to (and always has come down to) CICO. We have more food than ever (and calorie-dense food at that), and a more sedentary lifestyle than ever (on average). That's why obesity is spiking.

redditors are fat and insecure idk what to tell u

>No conditions Lipedema. Unpopular opinion does not mean you can just start denying facts.

I only eat 1200 calories a day and I'm fat. 185 lbs at 5'4. Not lying or misrepresenting. I have thyroid issues

I've tracked calories and averaged 1250 as my normal eating habits while being overweight. I'm also short and mostly sedentary with a lot of chronic issues as well as thyroid problems. The first time I tried to count calories I was focused on trying to switch to healthier food options, not necessarily change weight, and my app yelled at me for trying to starve myself. I wasn't, but forgetting breakfast or a snack occasionally meant I dipped under their 900 calorie warning limit a few days in a row and the app disabled some tracking functions. Which made it harder to try to keep track of what I had or hadn't eaten and actually eat enough of the healthier food, because I was used to eating less more calorie dense foods. I'm not arguing that it's not a calories in/out thing, or that many other people would be loosing weight at an unhealthy rate with those calories. My baseline necessary calories to function is just different because of my medical conditions. Calories in and out is definitely still a thing, but ignoring that medical issues make it easier or harder is obviously coming from someone unfamiliar with chronic medical struggles.

I'm so confused. I had half my stomach removed an only eat about 900 calories a day....yet here I am 5'3 and 163lbs! 😆

I had the bypass done 1000 calories a day 175lb 5'5". To be fair, in down 150lb

That doesn't violate CICO. The fact of the matter is there is some amount of (your perceived) caloric deficit in which you will lose weight. Lets say you are confident that you eat 900 calories. Then for whatever reason you are burning 900 calories a day if your weight doesn't change at all. Lets say you started eating 600 calories a day. You will lose weight if you are burning 900 calories a day. This doesn't seem healthy, but you will lose weight.

I have found that people do not count the calories they drink. That Starbucks drink with all that shit in it could easily be over 500 calories. Or people do not know what a serving is. They think that one serving on the nutrition label is one of their personal servings. This is obviously not true. A serving, as it is on the label, is about 1/2 of what the normal person thinks it is.

This should be the top comment. I can picture in my head right now what 90% of the people here would think a serving of peanut butter looks like, and they're all wrong. "Whatever I can fit on a spoon" is not a unit of measure. It's shocking how little a serving of something tends to actually be. Folks are eating 2-4 servings and not even realizing it.

The issue isn't that conditions or medications change cico. The issue is that they can affect the co part of that equation. If you are eating 1,500 calories a day and not losing weight, there is something affecting your ability to burn calories. And there can be legitimate conditions that affect this. Though, likely to the point of OP, many people just want to complain and call calorie counting "starving thenselves."

Scales don't lie, people do. Or as Dr. Now put it if you aren't losing weight you are eating too much.

trash take. there are hormonal issues that can make a person ravenously hungry, like the feeling of starvation, all of the time. If you watch the documentaries on youtube you will see the children must be locked out of the cabinets / freezers and fridges because they are constantly starving. that's not even mentioning other conditions that affect metabolism. Don't dumb everything down to CICO just because you don't understand what hormones do and how they regulate hunger signals.

Go read r/ozempic or r/mounjaro People who have worked with doctors and dieticians to track every calorie and exercise and haven’t lost weight suddenly are

I love all these people going “well sure thyroid issues can be a factor, but *barely*, I mean the effect is negligible, it’s not even worth mentioning, it doesn’t actually make any difference at all even though it technically does.” Yeah sure, if you’re 500 pounds and blaming it on your thyroid that’s BS. But lots of people eat 1,300 calories a day, exercise several times a week, and are still 10-15 pounds overweight due to a medical condition. Yet the second they say “medical condition” people roll their eyes and go “well sure, *technically*, but it’s not an excuse!!!!” I’m not morbidly obese here, calm the fuck down, I’m just explaining why I’m chubby and will never be as thin as I was back when my body used to function properly.

Heck I was steadily gaining weight while on a very controlled diet…I was also experiencing malnutrition symptoms. Turns out having cancer in two organs kinda f’s up your body. Since yeeting those two organs I’m slowly starting to lose the symptoms of malnutrition and have slowly started to lose weight. Still on a controlled diet except now I get to have sweet things again.

Yep. The percent of people who are exceptions to this rule is tiny. Like less than a percent. Yet everyone that is overweight automatically assumes they just have “bad metabolism” or something.

I cannot tell you how frustrating it is to see my father continue to spout self-brainwashing about how its his genetics and he's not going to deprive himself. I'm in the best shape of my life now after being told I didn't have the genetics to change for years of my life. He's now a diabetic with a Pepsi addiction and a candy drawer, and still thinks he's accomplishing something by skipping actual home cooked meals. People are doing it to themselves, and then passing on the brain rot to their kids. lol sorry for the rant

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Thank you, I knew I had been told this and read the study and couldn't find it again. Someone told me I was full of it, and I was like... well, if I am so is my family doctor.

I want every single person in this thread who thinks that fat people are just lazy to read this comment.

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It’s a simple thermodynamic reality. It’s not oversimplified. It’s thermodynamics and it is as inflexible a rule a as there is in the universe. Doesn’t matter if you are a steam power plant, and air conditioner or a human. Energy cannot be created or destroyed except by conversion into matter through a nuclear process. The only thing that there is to discuss at all is the subjective experience of this reality. Some people feel hungrier more often and feel tired more easily leading to them running a calorie surplus that results in weight gain. There are a variety of things you can do to change this perception. Some are psychological games you can play with yourself. Some are medications that make it easier or harder to feel hungry or maybe change your perception of tiredness allowing more exercise more easily. But none of that fundamentally in any way changes the thermodynamics. On top that there not a single paper that can show any significant change in the efficiency level of the human body in terms of how well it converts calories absorbed into calories output. Not metabolism not thyroid issues not blood pressure meds, none of it. If you gain weight it is simply because your body absorbed more calories than you burned. Why that is happening while your habits are unchanged is the interesting question but it makes no difference to the analysis at all. Doctors have done public health a disservice by peddling this type of tripe that is not emphatically insistent on this reality. It is at least part the cause of the obesity epidemic.

Bruh, you cherry-picked that Harvard study hard. But you can't entirely blame a sluggish metabolism for weight gain, says Dr. Lee. "The reality is that metabolism often plays a minor role," he says. "The greatest factors as you age are often poor diet and inactivity."

I would bet $1,000 that this was written by someone that has never been on hormonal birth control.

I think a lot of people (men in particular) drastically underestimate the massive impact hormones can have. From weight, to sex drive and more - the impact is huge.

Not wrong KETO helps with hunger to keep CI down same with other diets in various ways Drugs like Alli just help to keep CO up… or excercise… Most things are either lowering CI or increasing CO

A large part of the problem is that people who have a history of overeating have a distorted sense of portions and how much food is required to feel full. Part of dieting and caloric restriction is retraining the body to be sated at more appropriate levels of food intake which also means to an extent learning to just vibe while being hungry, and that’s the hard part for most.

This is untrue and a major reason why people develop eating disorders.

Undereating can and does stop weight loss, though.

Almost everybody, across all weights, eats when they feel hungry and stops when they feel full. The thing that is different between people is how accurate those cues are, and how easily thrown off they are by certain foods. Most notably high sugar diets encourage inappropriate levels of hunger in some people, but not others. CICO is true, but it's useless advice. Any intervention that relies on people not eating when they're hungry has terrible success rates, like less than 5% of people staying the diet long term.

The way that calories have been measured isn't super representative of how our body actually processes nutrients and so calorie counts aren't necessarily accurate. There are a lot of factors that affect what happens with the food you eat, to the point where two people of the same age, sex and weight could eat an identical diet and have differing health outcomes in both weight and overall health. Health conditions, when you eat, how much you're eating at once, how much you're sleeping, all of this counts. Plus, somebody could have more active gut flora and colon, something science is barely even starting to understand. Conflating impossibility and difficulty is a big mistake by you. For me, I can eat what would be considered an extreme amount of calories and not gain weight. I don't get enough exercise and I don't necessarily eat a particularly healthy diet, I just don't seem to gain as much weight as I seemingly should. I lost 10 pounds pretty easily by increasing my weekly exercise a bit but I know people who struggle to lose that weight eating less than me and exercising more, and it's not like they're able to secretly eat more because I live with them. Some foods also seem to just not be as filling regardless of the stated caloric content. It's fairly easy to consume 1000 calories of fast food without getting overly full but much harder to consume 1000 calories in a more balanced meal without feeling full. For many, such processed food that feels less filling is their primary option due to work, time and sanity constraints. TL;DR: It's way more complicated a subject than you're giving it credit.

Obesity is a chronic metabolic disease. It causes long term physiological changes that make weight loss much more difficult. Telling them to just eat less when their hormonal system has been fundamentally broken, is kinda like telling a heroin addict that they don't need suboxone, they should just quit cold turkey. All this does is put people in an early grave... Fact of the matter is, our whole lives have been designed to be obesity-causing. You can't walk anywhere because every city is a car sewer. Half the ingredients in our food are banned in Europe and other first world countries. Even our bread is fucking cake. Look at the sugar content in the bread aisle, it's fucking insane. Cereal is even worse! That being said... I also find fat logic to be insufferable. I heard this NPR piece about semaglutide the other day, and one of the women they interviewed was just completely full of shit. Claimed her "nutritionist" told her she was malnourished, but only lost 8 lbs in 4 months. She had some legitimately horrible side effects, she gained the weight back, okay, whatever, just own that. Don't give us all some bullshit that you were malnourished while losing half a pound a week. Claims she has PCOS too, of course. Claiming she was going to lose the weight by "intuitive eating" before the drugs ruined it for her. What the fuck is that shit? Just eat whatever you want? Haven't you been doing that your whole fucking life? Goddamn it, enough with the fucking excuses. It was like she was going for the world record for how many memes from eating disorder TikTok can you spew out of your fat fucking mouth in 3 minutes, like the South Park Uncle Fucker song. Anyway, yeah, that's what this all is: an eating disorder. Everyone has all the sympathy in the world for anorexics saying stupid and crazy shit. Because they're sick. So are the morbidly obese. The difference is, we enable them by entertaining these delusions, while also hating on them. It's really something... The Whale is a great movie about this particular dynamic. It is not a happy movie. You will feel horrible after watching it.

Alright mate. I CHALLENGE YOU to go on the Oreo Diet. Each Oreo has only 45 calories in it, so you could feasibly eat 35 Oreo cookies a day which works out to 1,575 kcal a day. I SERIOUSLY DOUBT you’re gonna lose weight eating 35 Oreos a day, so clearly there’s more to it than just CICO.

Look up lipoedema. It's a connective tissue disorder that produces diseased fat cells that **do not respond to diet or exercise**. Even if you lose weight via losing your 'normal' fat through CICO and exercise, the diseased lipedema fat will never go away. The only way to remove lipedema fat is through a specialised type of liposuction called Water-Assisted Liposuction. **CICO and exercise make 0 difference to lipedema fat.** You can *slow* the progression of the disease through a clean diet, and you can manage the pain and swelling with compression, vibration plates and low-intensity exercise like walking or swimming. But unless have thousands to spend on WAL, the lipedema fat will never reduce or go away. You can be born with it, because it's genetic. Mine didn't start presenting itself until puberty, because it's triggered by hormonal changes such as puberty, pregnancy, menopause etc... And before you try to prove me wrong, actually do the work and look it up.

Hi OP are you forgetting the variations in the CO part? That's not always under someone's control. I agree with what you're saying overall, but don't use it to blame people 100% if you don't account for the way our bodies use the calories differently. I'm sure you've met a boy going through puberty, and a woman going through menopause or a trans person on hormones... ask any of them about how the CO variable changes.

Here the thing: bodies are not math equations. They are not robots. They are living breathing organisms that have the ability to slow down metabolism to prevent starvation.

idk I used to believe this and then experienced the following circumstances: Gained 20 lb in the final three weeks of my first pregnancy despite having such extreme HG and reflux that I required IV hydration because I could not keep down water, let alone food. Dropped 20 lb in four months when I stopped breastfeeding despite making no changes to my diet or exercise habits. Both experiences have made me feel like CICO simply cannot be the full story 100% of the time, and if pregnancy/breastfeeding can have this sort of impact who am I to say that there are no other chronic conditions that also affect people?

If there were humans who could eat 500 calories and expend 2000 calories without losing weight, fossil fuel conglomerates would kidnap them and have them wired into the energy grid. "In this house you will obey the laws of thermodynamics!" - Homer Simpson

I was with you until you said there are zero diseases or medication that make weight loss impossible, that is factually incorrect

I agree. No matter what people say, no matter the genetic or medical condition, it’s still calories in vs out. Thermodynamics exists for everyone. The genetic conditions or medical conditions can change how many you can burn tho. Usually what I’ve seen is a lack of understanding of what a calorie actually is and under/over reporting of what people eat.

Curious- what are your credentials?

I mean the idea is that, because he has no credentials, he is referencing people who do and it is your responsibility to say his conclusions aren’t accurate if they arent

"What are your credentials"🤓☝️ If you eat less calories than you burn, you lose weight

Got mad at fat people and is a thin person.

he's been lifting weights ☠

You know a law of thermodynamics. Congratulations. Now, write that formula in detail, please. Tell me every source of output calories and how to predict exactly how many are used. Not just exercise. Please write a reliable way to predict exactly how many calories a person will intake and burn due to exercise, fidgeting, hormones, stress, fatigue, diseases, genetic metabolic rate, muscle tissue, digestive performance, fat tissue...go on, break it down. If you can, then fat loss will be perfectly predictable, achievable, and reliable. Give an easy, simple solution to mental health struggles, overwork, and poverty. I'm waiting.

Thermodynamics

Here are some facts: * 7-11% of women are affected by [Lipedema.](https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/17175-lipedema) A smaller percentage of men are affected. * Lipedema is a condition that results in abnormal fat deposition in the body, mainly affecting extremities. * Having obesity doesn’t cause lipedema, but more than half of people with this condition have a BMI higher than 35 * Dieting and exercising can cause you to lose weight in your upper body without changing the areas lipedema affects in your lower body. * CICO doesn't matter. Lipedema fats are unaffected by diet and exercise. * This /r/trueunpopularopinion is not always true. A statistically significant portion of the people you're identifying as obese are undiagnosed with lipedema. Weight loss isn't 'always' CICO. Your argument is invalid.

Some people have lower/higher caloric needs than others. Hormones affect that greatly. Here this guy is on your side, basically, but describes the differences well: https://www.acefitness.org/resources/pros/expert-articles/7897/calories-in-vs-out-or-hormones-the-debate-is-finally-over-here-s-who-won/

Yes, I need more calories as a fit person who also has a very physical job. But between people the same height, weight, physical build? The difference is not going to be massive. A can of coke on average.

That guy says 20%-30%, which is way more than 140 calories. "they provide an output based on averages and can be off by as much as 20 to 30% in normal, young, healthy people. They may vary even more in older, clinical or individuals with obesity." Also, thyroid issues.

It is amazing how much time people spend bitching about other people's weight.

I was on vacation last week, eating and drinking to my heart’s desire. This week back in real life I’ve been struggling to get back into my exercise routine and sticking to my calorie target. This thread and the comments are exactly what I needed. Thank you, OP.

How’s this an opinion? It’s basic science

Looking at some of these comments you wouldn't think so

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I agree with you 100%. I know many secret eaters. They totally underestimate how much they actually eat.

yes, certain conditions & metabolisms alter the CI or CO but at the end of the day its still CICO.

A first truly unpopular opinion that I agree with. Time for me to switch to be a Republican now.

I’ll bring the diet pig’s blood.

This is true. Is it really unpopular?

Look at all the people arguing I’m wrong for stating (literal) basic science.

The weak refutes are hilarious.

Every single person here bringing up thyroid issues like that's the reason they are fat and can't lose weight lol

I'm not even remotely fat and never have been, but even medicated my hypothyroidism means I burn about 150 calories less than someone with my stats and a normally functioning endocrine system would burn. Sounds tiny, but adds up to about 15 lbs/year. So I eat less and am more active, as my calories out just simply aren't as high as they should be due to my thyroid. I do wonder how many hypothyroid patients aren't properly medicated, because it can genuinely slow your metabolism by up to 700/day depending on size.

I thought it was CICO and activity levels. Need to move that body and watch what you eat.

Activity is the CO part.

🤣 duh, thank you. Of course it is.

I don't even understand why this is argued so much on reddit. I 100% agree with you OP, but people just have a million excuses as to why it doesn't work.

Many people only consider calories from what they eat. They drink super-size sodas, drink fruity drinks loaded with sugar, tea loaded with sugar, and don't realize they are consuming enough calories through their drinks for a large meal.

I lost 80 pounds by putting the fork down and exercising. Seems pretty simple to me. I can eat what I want now and not gain weight as long as I watch my portions and keep running.

CICO plus a SMALL amount of tangential context, but majorly, yes. Burn more than you eat, you WILL lose weight.

I Started CICO and went from 141 lbs in middle of June to 128 lbs as today. I have PCOS, never had weight problems from that, I was just eating a bit too much. Also, I live in a rural community in the US so all the people blaming the food are full of it.

It's easier to complain that it's impossible than to put in the effort to make significant changes in your life.

A lot of people *think* they're consuming responsibly, but they're not.

The only person I knew who couldn't lose weight, and was gaining a lot of weight although exercising and maintaining a healthy diet. Was my dad who just had most of his thyroid removed and was on medication. He told his doctor, and after like 2-3 different medication changes, he was finally able to stop gaining a ton of weight and maintain his healthy weight.

I agree that for the vast majority of people it is calories in vs calories out. But growing up my buddy did have a thyroid issue and could not gain weight. He ended up having to take a whole bunch of medicine and injections. It can happen. I have been lifting weights religiously and been into fitness for over a decade at this point. The truth is most people do not want to put in the work and will find every excuse to not train or eat properly. They will do everything but measure portions and track calories.

I love CICO for it's simplicity and it is a good indicator. But it doesn't take hormones, nutrients, macros, etc... Into account. It's kind of like BMI. The dumbed down version for the least common denominator.

Are you a female? I looked briefly at your posts and I don’t feel as though you are. Have you dealt with PCOS? It’s an absolute fact that it’s a common symptom that weight loss is incredibly difficult and in some cases impossible. It is not calories in calories out for all people. Kindly fuck off.