thanks for that, will see if i can find some. if only for interests sake!

@Paul, I agree; I love articles like this and people do think ridiculous things about food. However, I cannot agree that JS, or anyone in the various 'tard' communities, paleo, low-carb, or otherwise, are ignoring the facts you say are being ignored: "...that the IIFYM crowd is still getting ripped, the calorie counters are still losing weight, and the Bro-Science weightlifters are still getting buff." As JS state; those groups are not just cutting calories, they are manipulating food. I am continually surprised why this simple fact is overlooked by so many of the smug CI-CO brow-beaters (or should that be bro-?). Speaking of which, take bodybuilders, for example: If they were all about calories then instead of eating chicken breasts or tuna with NO fat or seasoning, plus the obligatory white rice, for however long it takes to get ripped, they would be eating simply less of their usual fare of, say, pizza, burgers, beer, wings, chocolate cake, what-have-you. But they don't do that, nor does anyone advise them to. Instead, they change the food they eat in order to cut the calories. EXACTLY as JS states.

After reading the many comments above, and many thousands more, plus numerous articles, books, blogs, etc., over the past number of years, I cannot escape the utter uselessness of smugly saying, "it's all about the calories in and calories out" (here one would add "bro" at the end of that if one were nice, but if not, then it would normally be said also with an air of derision or condescension.) Saying it is all about the calories is precisely the same as if a golf pro were to tell you that in order to improve your golf score, you simply had to hit the ball less often. That is true, by necessity, of course -- just as no one denies the veracity of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics -- but to suggest it has any practical, helpful, or informative value other than highlighting the obvious would be a colossal overstatement.

Peace,
Juan

Weight loss still puzzles me.
At the end of a coast to coast hike across the Scottish Highlands 4 yrs ago a Dr sharing my table warned me that the 18 lb weight loss should concern me. I'd never felt hungry despite the exertion. I am sure she was right tho' because ( as a lean guy)I suspect I may have been eating muscle.
On the following 3 two hundred mile hikes I have lost less and less weight ( last yr 6lbs). I'd forced myself to eat nutritionally dense food dehydrated at home.
At home I eat 2 meals a day both dense. I wonder if all the catering industry and media hype about sophisticated flavoured foods is to compensate for their nutritional poverty. Eat this s*** and get fat.

CI=CO, only in a closed system. The human body is not a closed system like the calorimeter.
so,
CI=CO+or-(other factors) these factors are numerous and based on metabolic functions.
or
adjust CI down until = CO so that weight loss is observed,
but both clearly disprove that CI=CO
at best,
CI approximates CO, but depends on the Efficiency rate of energy conversion of the human body.
which makes calorie counting a meaningless exercise

What you are saying about CICO doesn't really matter. As demonstrated in human metabolic ward studies, it appears that even with the different metabolic pathways diets of various macro-nutrient compositions take, the end result in the form of body weight is virtually the same.

The takeaway from all the literature is that the single most important way to predict body fat status is by counting the number of calories ingested in the food and estimate the energy expended.

I would say you have a meaningful point IF humans ate homegeneous diets and then tried to compare them. But when we all tend to eat a large mixture of foods, some more efficiently processed than others, the end result is largely the same.

@Marilyn: "The pounds just melted away. Every time." - So this means that you went on a diet more than once. That you had to count calories on more than one occasion to lose weight. Which means that the previous diets failed.

A food calorie (kcal) is not a simple bomb calorimetric like energy measurement (see Atwater).

Another truism I've discovered is that people will make a relatively simple problem, or rather solution, complicated because they can then use it to make money. The more complicated a problem the more outside help appears to be needed, the more the problem can be externalized (eg "metabolic syndrome" versus poor dietary discipline), etc.

One can use a reasonably constant macronutrient distribution that contains an effective caloric content and track weight over time against that constant. Adjusting the intake level for the same approximate distribution against the tracked weight over time using the approximate 3500 kcal/pound number is more than sufficient for producing the desired rate of weight loss or gain. This will work every single time. In the limiting cases it absolutely _has_ to work. People may not like where their maintenance level falls and what their intake will have to be to reach their goals in a given deltaT but it will work; hysteresis effects, edema, etc. can complicate the process, but it will work.

Just because the body doesn't care about calories doesn't mean they can't be used to manage diet and manipulate weight. Massive bodies and space don't know anything about the gravitational constant but the motion of bodies can still be calculated using it.

This is an incredible post! I have been telling my friends about how CICO is completely wrong and a terrible metric, but I have been met with a lot of adversity. This post pretty much is the nail in the coffin. I wanted to write a post like this but you did a much better job than I could have! Thanks.

I realize that this is an old post, but the comments still appear to be going, so I figured I'd say something.

I didn't read all of the comments, but I followed a decent part of the discussion between noko, Tim, and JS. Having said that, I do not understand the mentality of the posters who seem to suggest not counting calories, or that doing so is in some way ridiculous or laughable. Yes, it is true that the macronutrient and micronutrient compositions of a diet matter greatly. Yes, it is true that different foods have different thermal effects. Yes, it is true that food energy can be used in numerous different ways, and at least some of those ways are affected by the diet's composition itself. NEVERTHELESS, using "calories in, calories out" as a simple heuristic is often extremely beneficial. I have used it for years with great success, gaining muscle and losing fat as I desire, without any difficulty whatsoever. Concerning myself with details like TEF and different potential metabolic pathways has simply been completely unnecessary. The simple heuristic works well enough, and, in my experience, is optimal given the uncertainties and time investments that would be required to use some more detailed considerations.

Put simply (and yes, it is simplifying, but that is exactly the point!), I find that, so long as my diet is composed of a reasonable amount of each macronutrient -- given my activities, I try get around 1g of protein and at least .5g of fat per lb. of bodyweight -- and a sufficient variety/level of micronutrients, the only other factor that I need to concern myself with is calories. Once the levels of macronutrients and micronutrients are met, I generally eat whatever I want within my set caloric intake (which I establish using only "calories in, calories out" as my heuristic) and succeed, progress, and love life.