Had to bookmark this one. Good article.

@ Brian Beaven:

"But, at the end of the day, it still remains that if you consume more energy than you expend, you will accummulate fat."

Actually that's not true at all. Maybe you will gain muscle, or bone, or connective tissue or intestinal villi or capillaries. If you had said "weight" instead of "fat" you'd probably be correct, but most people aren't _really_ is opposed to gaining weight, they are opposed to gaining fat beyond what looks/feels good. And the second point I have is that what you have basically done is stated that you are consuming energy, and that the only place that energy can go is to expenditure or fat. This is completely false.

What you could say is: If the food you eat is not used for anything other than energy expenditure then the net energy excess of the food you eat that is not utilized it will be stored (or excreted, who knows). And I don't think anyone is really arguing with that. Even though it's not super helpful or relevant. I'm sure that in a highly specific personal context a gram of food contains X amount of "energy" and I'm perfectly happy to define that based on joules, watts, calories, whatever. But the simplification of CICO implies that the only possible outcomes of the food are based on the energy content. I think JS did a great job of explaining how that's completely false and I don't really see you presenting any good argument against it.

You can even see in my re-wording of your argument that it already starts leading one towards the thought pattern of "why am i eating foods that are only good for energy metabolism and expenditure" and hence why many people prefer a nutrient rich diet, with sufficient energy to fulfill their needs (which for _most_ 'paleo' people is pretty well auto-regulated, it's called hunger 🙂 ).

jesse

The body burns ATP, not calories. Also, the base units of a calorie is kg*m^2/s^2. If one is interested in body composition, the obvious question is how does one extract the mass component (kg) out of a measure of heat?

Anyone that spouts off about CICO has no basic understanding of science nor understanding of metabolism. They're a nuisance and should be ignored.

Wow JS love your website and articles!! I was introduced to your site via the latest and fantastic Everyday Paleo and Fitness Lifestyle podcast produced every week by Sarah Fragoso and Jason Seib. Jason talked about your recent article on whether our health is really measured by feeling "just fine". I was entrigued and checked your site out. Well I have spent the last 3 hours reading your wonderfully written articles and I totally agree with him! I would love to hear you sometime in the near future on their podcast - I'm sure Jason and Sarah's audience (including me!) would love to get even just a small part of what you produce here each week. thank you so much.

noko: please note the tongue firmly in the cheek.

conventional wisdom states that a pound of body fat contains 3500 calories. look any where you like and you will find this number quoted all over the place.

my point is that 1 pound of butter actually contains more than that, so how is this possible?

(this is all ignoring the TEF calclulations that state you'd need to ingest 4200 excess calories to gain a pound of fat. which is just as stupid)

JS i'd challenge anyone to eat a pound of butter a day. i mean i love the stuff. but no way i could do that! i experimentally tried adding 50g butter to my post workout meal for a few weeks last year around dec. first week i felt amazing, mood, sleep, libido, recovery etc etc all went up.
but after the first week it went away again. and eating that 50g butter became a chore so i stopped.
i would certainly not consider myself to be deficient in sat fat, but i suppose i must have been?

Sooooo, how many calories should we be eating???

Just kidding. I find the concept of 'calories' very useful. Eating like a predator is good advice, unless you kill an elephant in a watermelon patch...you will still become a fat-ass unless you limit overall (dum-dee-dee-dum) CALORIES!

"noko: please note the tongue firmly in the cheek.

conventional wisdom states that a pound of body fat contains 3500 calories. look any where you like and you will find this number quoted all over the place.

my point is that 1 pound of butter actually contains more than that, so how is this possible?"

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing; you keep making these idiotic statements without even reading what I wrote. Let's break it down:

-First of all, the 3500 calories = a pound of fat is just an estimate. It's not an exact number. A pound of muscle will take something around 300-400 calories.

I can already see your brain lighting up:

"But how can a pound of fat have 3500 calories, when a pound of muscle has less than a tenth of that?"

As I said before, density. Two different objects can have the same mass but different amounts of energy; that's one of the most obvious facts in existence, yet you seem to neglect that because you're colored by biases.

As for the actual article:

This entire article is just an extremely long-winded strawman argument. The only people who misunderstand calories in/calories out to this degree are, ironically, your paleo/keto/vegans etc.

Of course your body will not convert calories perfectly. Protein has the highest thermic effect, followed by carbohydrates, followed by fat (but I thought carbs were literally Satan incarnated?!?!?!). However, most people, when attempting to "disprove calories in/calories out", completely neglect the "out" part of the equation. The food you eat will affect your energy output - for example, protein will burn a fair amount of calories just through metabolism, a thyroid condition will mean that your BMR is lower, eating more will tend to increase NEAT, increasing your net output, etc.

However, it is a law of physics that every calorie you consume is going *somewhere*. If you've calculated your expenditure at 2000, and you're eating, say, 1500 calories and not losing weight (after more than a few days, because weight fluctuates within the couple pound range), you need to cut your intake more or increase your output. Why? Because the body is a complex system - maybe your NEAT has been lowered, thus lowering your net output, or maybe your caloric intake *estimate* was slightly overshot.

This does not disprove calories in/calories out, however, all it proves is that people don't understand what calories in/calories out *fucking means*.

Here's an excellent article which will help your average blind fool understand CICO: http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-energy-balance-equation.html

Also, statements like "your body is not a calorie counter" are just ridiculous and should be laughed at. Nobody is saying that; that doesn't mean that your body isn't a system, and all systems are subject to the laws of thermodynamics.

So, in conclusion, do we always know with 100% accuracy our intake/output? No, but we can estimate it with a high degree of accuracy, and if you're not seeing fast enough results, that means you need to ADJUST. Adjust, you say? You mean I have to actually act like an intelligent human being and adjust my strategy when it's not working? Yes.

Sorry for the condescending tone, but nothing works me up like reading stupid comments. To your credit, Stanton, this article wasn't necessarily incorrect (besides the title, but I think you just went for shock value there). However, it's arguing against a strawman. It's akin to a creationist claiming that bananas disprove evolution or something.

noko: well done on sidestepping the actual points raised and knocking down ones that were not made.
then claiming Stanton is making a strawman!

this is brilliant.
your poor attempt at snarkiness i can overlook with ease, i'm used to vegan responses personally so you'd need to try harder to upset me.
(even then...getting upset at some person on the internet? i don't think so)

cyclops has covered it quite well, but the main issue with CICO is that we (by that i mean humans) can only control the CI part of that equation and not the CO part, indirectly we can of course by exercise, cold therapy seems to be producing results for some people, controlling macro nutrient intake etc etc

but CICO theory holds thrives on the idea that we do have control, which is misleading at best.
At Best.
and at worst an absolute lie.

care to disprove that? your own post reflects that you agree with this? so what is the actual strawman you are claiming is being made here?
think i've read that lyle mcdonald write up before, it is good, but i don't think he is disagreeing in principle with what is being said overall.
ok before posting i read through the article, i have def read it before and memory did serve me correct.

so overall i think you're actually agreeing with JS' article. it is more complicated that CICO as put forward by weight watchers et al?

I've got to give you credit, Chevy, your wit far surpasses my own.

@Cyclops:

"The CICO argument relies on being able to know exactly what goes in and out to prove its theory..so how many CICO fans excrete into test tubes to evaluate their output.. hmmm not very many."

I think you misunderstand. "Output" is not poop, it's how many calories you're burning.

Like I said, nobody ever has claimed that we can 100% accurately track every last calorie in and every last calorie output. However, we can do so accurately enough - based on estimates - to gain/lose weight when we want to. That's the principles of calories in/calories out, which really isn't that hard to understand. It baffles me that 90% of the commenters here are arguing against a position that nobody is taking. What's that called again?

Right. A strawman.

Here's how you count calories, if you're doing so to lose weight:

You calculate your BMR, based on activity, weight, etc. You factor in exercise and other lifestyle factors, and boom, you've got a caloric target. Now you keep track of the calories you consume. You track yourself over weeks, and if you're not losing weight, you're either getting the in or the out part wrong, so you adjust.

Another strawman people try to knock down is to argue that restricting calories but still eating shitty food is unhealthy. Duh. Once again, nobody is saying that your micronutrients, macronutrients and anti-nutrients aren't important to take care of. It's entirely irrelevant to calories in/calories out, however. Look - if you forcefeed somebody a ton of grassfed meat, sweet potatoes, and whatever other "healthy" foods you want, such that their calories in exceeds their output, they will gain weight. In terms of weight gain/loss, the food quality doesn't matter, it simply determines the health of your diet. I will add, though, that obviously eating an unhealthy diet can cause issues (for example, a thyroid problem will lower your caloric output significantly).

So yes, Eddie, this article is a strawman. That's about the only part of your post I'll even address, because your post was honestly completely devoid of any evidence or even meaningful discussion.

And no, I'm not a vegan, I eat paleo myself. But I don't swallow the new-age horsepoop that often follows it.

Summary: CICO is an estimation, from which you adjust if you don't see results. It's only about gaining/losing weight, not the health of a diet. Yes, a calorie is a calorie, it's a unit of energy.