Is it? In my experience the people who parrot that are people who were fat and through a combination of diet and exercise returned to a healthy weight.
I do agree though there's more to weight loss than just CICO(maybe insulin). Peter attia had a recent interesting episode on obesity and nutritional science.
There are also other ways to modify those two parameters that don't involve food and exercise. Are you a type 1 diabetic and want to lose weight? Just under dose your insulin and the pounds will fly off. Want to lose weight but you aren't diabetic? Take a little DNP. Want to lose weight faster? Take a little more DNP. Just don't take too much or instead of losing weight you'll die of hyperthermia. Taking DNP or under dosing insulin are not things I would ever recommend anyone do but they are both examples of non food and activity related ways to affect calories out.
What other science would you like prevented to spare people's feelings?
Which part of my comment says I’d like science to spare people’s feelings?
Show me the science that justifies fat shaming and inappropriate behaviour.
Fat shaming somebody because “science” doesn’t make you any less of shit person. In fact, you can’t really use any science to excuse poor behaviour.
So I think we might be in violent agreement? Do you talk to your mother like that when you misunderstand her? Wow.
Would I run up to a morbidly fat person and shout "Calories in/Calories out"? No. Would I contradict an obese person who said "Calories In/Calories Out" was wrong? Yes.
What precisely do you mean by Calories in/Calories out? Do you mean the very basic observation that eating significantly more or less than you eat today will help increase or decrease your weight, all things being equal? This is clearly true, but doesn't explain why some people naturally overeat, while others naturally undereat, and why overeating has been significantly increasing all over the world.
Or do you mean that people gain a pound for every 3.5k Cal that they eat? Because these sorts of numbers are pure gunk - there is huge variance between individuals in terms of how much overeating will cause how much weight gain. The relationship is also highly non-linear.
No-one said monitoring and reducing your calories is easy, but it is simple.
Which part of my comment says that it’s wrong? It IS a simplified view and there ARE many more variables that influence the success of dietary change. And there are even more that influence the wider obesity problem. But that doesn’t mean I’m saying it’s wrong.
As you said, the sky is blue. Is that wrong? No. Is it simplified? Yes, sometimes it’s grey. Sometimes it’s a deep blue. Sometimes it’s pretty much black. But, generally speaking, yeah it’s blue.
Is CICO the solution to the obesity epidemic? No, because it’d have worked to reduce the epidemic by now. It’s clearly _not_ the only thing we need to solve the epidemic. There is a difference between the method to lose weight and the solution to the obesity epidemic. The latter has many more variables in play.
Next time you contradict an obese person who “says CICO is wrong”, make sure they’re actually saying it’s wrong.
I am, however, glad you wouldn’t run up to people and shout “calories in / calories out”. That‘s a relief.
But it’s more complicated than that. Especially when you bring homeostasis into it, where the body will adjust calorific expenditure downwards in response to sustained reduced calorific intake, as just a single example.
But there’s lots of things going on that influence the calories coming in, the calories stored and the calories expended. It’s unfair to reduce it down so far.
It leads to fat shaming by people whom have never struggled with their weight who justify their cruelty by parroting “calories in calories out”.
Even worse, some of those will do silly experiments where they put on weight really really fast and then lose it just as fast, totally ignoring the fact that their body has been in the original state for a long time.