[tarsinge]

Eating once a day indeed has nearly the same effect. Once a week is not possible due to physical limits of processing that volume of food.

It's easy to explain your example with diabetics: very simply insulin is what allow muscle to use glucose, but also what stop the body from using its fat reserves. From your link:

> Desperate to stop its cells from starving, her body had released hormones that, in turn, released byproducts called ketones that turned her blood acidic. If she had not been rushed to the emergency room, she would have died.

This is similar to the effect of a ketogenic diet, when you avoid eating carbs to avoid insulin secretion, forcing the body to convert the fat reserves to provide glucose for the cells. Diabetics type 1 don't produce insulin, so they just skip insulin shoots to stay in that "mode" but it has obviously other serious health side-effects for them as discussed in that article.

Also individuals are not the same, there is a lot of variation in TDEE (genetics, health, weight, insulin sensitivity, metabolism, ...). But once you have figured the TDEE for an individual, calorie counting becomes very accurate. Just from the fitness community there is an overwhelming body of research and evidence: https://sci-fit.net/bulking-deficit-gaining/. If you are in calorie deficit, you lose weight. If you are in a surplus, you gain.

[mister_mister]

The question how do we explain why people without insulin are able to stay thin, while eating massive amounts of calories with the CICO model. Because that case is breaking the model.

Since your stating that eating once a day is the same as eating once a day. Would you have any sources for that claim?

Did you know there is allot of research going into the effects of intermittent fasting[0]?

If you would search for OMAD (one meal a day) on google or reddit you would see that that statement does not hold. There are many changes because blood sugar will stay stable during the day. Nor will there be insulin spikes. There are health startups starting just for stable glucose levels and the health benefits by using continuous glucose monitors[1].

They already attracted many from the health and longevity communities. It's also possible not to use their product by just eating once a day.

[0]https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-preventi... [1]https://www.levelshealth.com/

[Frost1x]

>The question how do we explain why people without insulin are able to stay thin, while eating massive amounts of calories with the CICO model. Because that case is breaking the model.

To my knowledge this doesn't break the CICO model. The disease (e.g. type 1 diabetes) reduces or eliminates production of insulin which triggers metabolism of glucose. Since you're metabolizing less (or no) glucose, you're not gaining as much energy and passing most all that out through waste.

If you have a disease you need to consider that your energy expenditure isn't inherently going to be the same as studies estimating from healthy individuals. This doesn't break the model, it just means your intake and expenditure are different than most healthy individuals. People with hypothyroidism have similar issues. Is the CICO model great for these people? If you account for such factors the underlying principles should hold true.

[mister_mister]

I'm afraid that is incorrect, type 1 diabetes still have glucose metabolism, with diabetes type 2 glucose metabolism could be impaired but with type 1 that is not the case.

What has changed is that without insulin glucose will stay in their blood damaging organs and veins.

Insulin signals to cells take up glucose and other nutrients, first organs like the liver, then the muscles.

More information in the link from healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health/diabetes/insulin-effects-o...

[jonnycoder]

You just proved his point. If two people eat 10,000 calories and the one with type 1 diabetes is passing most of it as waste but the other person is storing that in the form of glucose and fat, then CICO is broken in that example. But like you say, account for such factors and the principles hold true; how do we know there aren't factors yet to be discovered?

[Frost1x]

How does this proove the point? In the example given, the diabetic is expending more calories (through waste) than the non-diabetic... the model still holds valid. The diabetic has less net calories absorbed by their body.

>how do we know there aren't factors yet to be discovered?

We don't and can't (by definition), that's part of the scientific process. Part of that process requires us to find evidence to the contrary or provide a viable testable competing argument. We don't just waive our hands in the air and claim magic gremlins are making people skinny or fat since there are likely limits to human understanding and knowledge, especially at any given specific point on time.

Most the evidence out there, that I'm aware of, vehemently supports the CICO model and it makes sense as a complex system resting up very well studied chemical and physical phenomena. The only thing broken seems to be a general understanding of the model being discussed.

[librish]

The point is that when people say calories IN they normally refer to what you put in your mouth, not how much your body absorbs.

[mister_mister]

That is problem with CICO proponents start with scientific terms. But it always ends up with magic what does or does not count based and whatever the argument they are in. CICO models doesn't state anything they claim, but it in the end it's argument into nothing. Because human cells does not use calories it uses ATP through the kerb cycle. That whole process so bizarre complex, and then also based on so many confounded factors, that CICO is just too simplistic and it's almost impossible to lose weight and keep it off according to the model. Link to study about how the biggest losers contestants are doing after the show. Hint not well...

https://www.health.harvard.edu/diet-and-weight-loss/lessons-...

[laserlight]

I find this interpretation of “calories in” very uncharitable. We certainly don't argue over whether eating coal makes one fat. Coal has lots of calories, but we're interested in metabolically available ones. If type 1 diabetes people cannot metabolize glucose, then it doesn't count as in.

[mister_mister]

They do have glucose metabolism[0], but that is the issue with CICO model already you have to start making extra rules about what is digestable and what is not. Calories doesn't state that all. Offcourse it wouldn't because the Calories concept was made for steam engines in 1800's.[1] Not that is matter from when it is. But maybe it's time for new ideas that do explain that conundrum of those type 1 diabetics. The Carbohydrate-Insulin Model of Obesity[2] does have a explanation.

[0]https://www.healthline.com/health/diabetes/insulin-effects-o...

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie

[2]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6082688/

[laserlight]

> extra rules about what is digestable and what is not. Calories doesn't state that all.

I wouldn't call those rules “extra”. After all, we're talking about human metabolism and what is digestible or not is central. The calories we're talking about under this topic has nothing to do with steam engines, except that both steam engines and humans take some input, called calories.

I don't see any conundrum with type 1 diabetes. They might have a different metabolism that counts differently which calories are in.

By the way, do you have a reference for this claim of yours [0]:

> people without insulin are able to stay thin, while eating massive amounts of calories

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34518288

[snowwrestler]

You can’t break the “model” as it is basic thermodynamics.

If a diabetic is consuming many calories but also excreting many calories, that is still calories in and calories out.

[mister_mister]

That's the point it will not lead to weight gain. But according to CICO they should become fat, but they won't. And if this is possible by not having one hormone. That is quite a big discovery. The human body is way more complex then one hormone. And fat gain can be due to many reasons, another hormone could be cortisol, bad sleep, Obesogens[0].

If CICO does not factor in what is not stored or digested. Therefor it's a flawed model. Therefor it would be better to look at what is working, and wath was working before we got unto the low fat craze. In the 1950 up to 1980 bodybuilders where eating low carb high protein diets. Everyone was thin back then, just now we are returning to knowlegde.

But the thing is according to latest science obesity the focus is not on CICO anymore. Would be great if more people would be willing to conduct their own N=1 studies and try low carb dieet, keto, or intermittent fasting. It works the same way by keeping insulin low. It might do wonders.

[0]https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/what-are-obesogens

[1]https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/stop-counting...

[Ar-Curunir]

Pooping out excess calories is not usually what people mean by “calories out” in CICO

[snowwrestler]

Right, because excreted calories are typically consistently small for most people.

That’s not necessarily true for diabetics, so someone with that condition will have a different experience with it.

[mister_mister]

And the reason is only the missing of one hormone, and fat cells won't store energy. The opposite also true, there are people with too much insulin that will gain allot weight.

> Despite intensive research, the causes of the obesity epidemic remain incompletely understood and conventional calorie-restricted diets continue to lack long-term efficacy.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6082688/

[snowwrestler]

“Get diabetes” is certainly a novel approach to a weight-loss plan, I’ll give you that.

[goodpoint]

*a lot

[watwut]

Eating once a day does not have the same effect on your body as spreading the food into multiple portions. And that has different effect then eating the same amount constantly.

If you will eat once a week, you will dispose of calories you did not absorbed. And you will be starwing by the end of the week, making you passive, weak and tired.

[mister_mister]

yup, Someone might even die because of refeeding syndrome.[0]

Continuing on your point the body is there not a closed system as defined as:

> In a closed system, no mass may be transferred in or out of the system boundaries. The system always contains the same amount of matter, but (sensible) heat and (boundary) work can be exchanged across the boundary of the system. Whether a system can exchange heat, work, or both is dependent on the property of its boundary. [1]

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refeeding_syndrome [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_system