[sph]

Sorry if I'm missing the point, but of course if you don't eat you lose weight pretty fast.

I'm not a fan of CICO but when calories in = 0 and the average TDEE is around 2500 kcal, it's a pretty simple equation. The rule of thumb is 1 kg of body fat is equivalent to 7000 kcal of energy deficit.

[tokamak-teapot]

For those who aren’t well practised in shifting their body composition ‘at will’ - i.e. nearly everyone - CICO strategy is key when they are looking to reduce body fat.

There are a few who claim, without any substantiation I can see, that CICO is not the main factor in losing fat, and I’m sure there will be some oddness around the edges which makes this at least not 100% black and white, but yes CICO itself is generally accepted as what all fat loss is driven from.

So back to CICO strategy, because it’s that which nearly everyone struggles with, not CICO in and of itself.

Choosing a strategy that is comfortable enough for a person to sustain is key to long term maintenance of desired body fat level. Some are happy to just eat at a maintenance level through three meals a day, but for many this just makes them miserable and they creep up the calories over time.

Fasting is, for many, a much easier strategy to sustain. Often there is only a small period of hunger in a short fast, but this can even disappear with practice. Fasting can feel great during the fast, and make you feel good when you’re not fasting. CICO is under your control and you’re it even finding it hard. This is why fasting is a great choice for many.

[lazyier]

The problem with CICO is that it ignores the roles that hormones play in calorie consumption and fat burning.

By ignoring this CICO concept is not only oversimplifies what is happening in your body, but it is extremely misleading.

When you consume foods you get an insulin response. Insulin response is part of an elaborate chain of reactions that controls how your body regulates the usage of glucose and storage of fat.

Basically:

Your body will metabolize carbohydrates and fructose/sucrose sugars immediately into glucose. It will try to use this glucose as much as possible for fuel for your cells.

However too much glucose can be dangerous. So once your glucose levels in your bloodstream reach a certain level it will trigger your liver to start storing glucose in the liver.

Once the liver is near capacity then it will trigger the glucose to be turned into stored fat.

During that entire process YOU CANNOT BURN STORED FAT.

THAT is the part that CICO ignores.

One of the things that insulin does, along with associated processes and hormones, is inhibit the usage of stored fat for energy. The goal is to regulate glucose in the blood stream and store excess glucose as fat. That can't work if your body is busy consuming fat as energy.

SOo...

If you eat in a continuous manner and keep your insulin levels high then it makes it physically impossible for your body to "burn fat".

In order to lose weight using CICO you need to use up all the calories you consumed, wait long enough for the effects of insulin to wear off, and then start burning through your fat reserves.

It seems like this transition period takes times.

This is what bicyclists often see during races and such things. They load up on carbohydrates for the high energy they provide, but when glucose levels get low they "Bonk Out". That is they lose significant energy.

Where as if your glucose levels were never high to begin with then that can avoid that phenomena.

------------

One of the major problems with Americans diet is the high concentrated of sugars and complete lack of fiber.

When people consume natural fruits and vegetables high in carbs and sugars then that is mixed in with a lot of fibers. Long chain carbohydrates locked together and difficult to digest.

Which means that in order to get all the sugars out of the mass of the food it needs to be carried into intestines and broken down with the assistance of your gut biome.

Which means that high carb/high sugar foods in their natural state do not release all their calories instantly. It take several hours of digestion to extract everything.

Where as modern diets are full of extremely concentrated forms of carbs and sugars and no vegetable mass to go with it. Corn syrup drinks, concentrated juices, pasta, bread, candy, chips, etc.

These high energy foods are cheap to produce and provide a lot of "filler" in foods and are easily stored and consumed for snaking.

So as a result this style of diet produces the glucose spikes and the resulting "bonking out". Which is experienced by people as periods of acute tiredness, inability to concentrate, and lack of energy.

The easiest way to solve this is by having a quick high carb snack, which then restores the energy levels.

Which means that Americans, in order to maintain glucose levels, tend to eat 8 or 9 or 10 times a day (including snacks).

This not only promotes high calorie intake it also destroys the ability to consume stored fat as energy AND probably contributes heavily to problems like insulin insensitivity.

----------------

This is were one of the major misconceptions of fasting comes from:

During WW2 the USA observed the effects of famine among Europeans. To examine the effect of starvation diets on people the USA Military ran a number of controlled experiments involving volunteer service men.

Some of the effects observed involved intense prolonged hunger, lethargy, etc. Lots of bad effects and negative impacts to organs, various nutritional deficiencies, among other things.

It was then assumed that fasting would result in the same effects as extended starvation diets. And as been treated that way by the medical community for decades.

The trouble is that starvation diets involve regular meals, just very very limited ones. Where as fasting is no food at all.

The way the body reacts to fasting is different.

Why this is happens is theorized to be a survival technique.

Imagine you are a hunter gatherer. It takes significant physical effort to gather food.

If when you cease to eat your body sort of "hunkers down" down to conserve energy then it would potentially lead to a sort of death spiral were less and less food means less and less energy and, thus, less and less ability to get more food. You gradually become weaker and slower as time goes on.

Where what typically happens is after an extended period of not eating your hunger ceases and your energy increases. The idea being that the increase in energy allows to you work harder to hunt/harvest foods.

This is probably why it is becoming more popular for athletes to combine exercise and fasting.

-----------

And all of this, I think, heavily relates to why things like intermittent fasting, paleo diets, and keto diets are popular.

Now I don't believe that a diet of mostly steak and butter is particularly healthy, but I also don't think that a diet of cheap high-carb fiber-free "factory foods" is particularly healthy either.

I think it's likely that a high carb diet combined with moderate fats and proteins can probably be very healthy, provided those carbs come in a more "natural" format combined with significant amount of fiber.

[tdhz77]

Thank you for taking the time to explain this.

[sumanmd]

nice.

[Terry_Roll]

> Often there is only a small period of hunger in a short fast, but this can even disappear with practice.

I did a fast which lasted a few weeks (18days) and I could have carried on doing it for longer but I had to break it, I lost 1kg a day. Never felt so good whilst doing it, no hunger.

I think copper supplementation before fasting might help with going into a fast at will. Any nausea from copper is probably Interleukin-2 and its possible, never done chemo, but there might be copper in chemo which will explain the nausea along with the effects of Interleukin-2 which is nausea and fatigue. Copper RDA recently been lowered, controversial, from a cancer prevention perspective.

> Hence doing a workout during fasting gives the best bang for the buck.

Its why the military get recruits up and running before breakfast. The military know how to get people fit fast.

Nicotinic acid on an empty stomach will also cause a spike in a growth hormone. https://nutritionreview.org/2013/08/niacin-cholesterol-wars-...

The more fat in the diet the more the prostaglandin (the sunburn effect flush) & growth hormone response is blunted.

Niacinamide does not give you this effect, only nicotinic acid, both are classed as vitamin B3.

Nicotinic Acid in high doses can also cause abortions reportedly which might be topical for some but something to be aware of.

Also check out Herbet Shelton who was part of something called the Hygienists, he wrote a few books, but his attitude was if the fast kills you then there is nothing medicine could have done for you anyway, controversial but might be true. https://archive.org/stream/fastingcansaveyourlifebyherbertm....

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4684131/

If you get into trouble whilst at Forth Worth or Fort Bragg, they slam you in a tin shack with nothing but water and a multi vitamin to suffer the blazing heat and sweat it out. What do they know?

Supposedly, 15mins in a 80 degreeC sauna sweats more toxins than the kidneys can process in a 24hr period, so perhaps the US mil consider toxins to be the cause of bad behaviour?!?

[chimprich]

> I did a fast which lasted a few weeks (18days) [...] I lost 1kg a day

That seems unlikely.

1kg is 7,700 calories. You'd have to burn about 5,700 calories in exercise, which would be something like a 200km bike ride completed without eating anything.

Maybe a serious athlete who had specifically trained for that could do it for one day, but I don't think anyone could do that for 18 days. For a start, I don't think they'd be fit enough to do it if they had 18kg of excess weight they could lose.

[lazyier]

Your metabolism goes UP under fasting. Not down.

And everybody is different.

2500 is average male adult. That does not mean that he, or anybody else, actually uses 2500 calories per day.

Typically people can burn up to around 39 calories per kilogram of weight. Which means the bigger you are the more you burn.

90kg man, with an active lifestyle, would could need around 3900 calories to just maintain his body weight.

If he was a very large person who is overweight then 150 kg is not going to be very abnormal. I know plenty of guys that weigh like that don't look like fat blobs. They are just really big. Big frames, very tall, etc.

In that case then needing to consume 5500-6000 calories to maintain weight is not unreasonable. It is high, but not outside the expected range.

[chimprich]

> Your metabolism goes UP under fasting. Not down.

Short-term fasting might. Long-term, extreme fasting slows metabolism.

> In that case then needing to consume 5500-6000 calories to maintain weight is not unreasonable.

Let's assume that's correct, and the person in question is huge and needs 6,000 calories a day to maintain weight. To lose a kilogram a day you'd still need to eat nothing and do 1,700 calories of exercise a day above baseline to lose a kilogram a day.

You probably wouldn't be able to eat nothing for 18 days, so you'd actually have to burn the equivalent in exercise for whatever you ate.

Let's play with some numbers. Some of the heaviest athletes around are front-row rugby players. 150kg would be right around the top end of that range. If they were on a 50% calorie reduction diet they'd be needing to burn 4,700 calories a day. That's still about 100km of cycling even if you're 150kg. On a very restricted diet. For 18 days in a row.

I believe some Buddhist monks go in for multi-week extreme fasts, but I think they spend their time meditating rather than doing exercise.

[Terry_Roll]

All this talk about exercise and not one of you mentions my brain!

[tokamak-teapot]

Too late to edit...

CICO is under your control and you’re it even finding it hard

->

CICO is under your control and you’re NOT even finding it hard

[credit_guy]

Losing weight is not about CICO. Of course you need more calories out than in. Saying that is like saying “To climb a mointain, make sure every day you ascend more meters than you descend”. How useful is that piece of wisdom? The rule of thumb is that for each 1 kilometer of additional elevation, you need to ascend 1000 more meters than you descend.

[mehphp]

huh? I think you contradicted yourself. Losing weight absolutely is about CICO. You can't consistently eat more calories than you burn and lose weight.

[credit_guy]

I’m saying CICO is a truism. Telling someone losing weight is about CICO is as valuable as telling someone that mountain climbing is about taking more steps up than down.

Imagine someone sharing their experience with some new climbing gear, and someone else chiming in “All this gear talk is irrelevant, just make sure you take more steps up than down”. What value does such a comment bring?

The OP was sharing with us his experience with fasting. The response was pretty much “your fasting was not relevant. Just the fact that you burned more calories than you consumed.”

[ChrisRR]

What? Your first two sentences contradict each-other and then your analogy makes no sense

[simonebrunozzi]

CICO = Calories In Calories Out

F*ck acronyms, BTW

[sph]

I'm sorry. I am founding member of the Fuck Acronyms club, and I thought this one was commonplace enough not to need an explanation. I stand corrected.

[klondike_klive]

FAC represent!