How is CICO nonsense...? Unless you are breaking the law of thermodynamics, there is no way you could gain more from what you eat. The best you can do is utilize 100% of the calorie intake. It's physically impossible to gain weight if you are burning for example 150% of the total calories intake! The fuel has to come from somewhere.

The variation lies in different utilization rate, the burn rate, and all other variables, but within the limit of PHYSICS.

CICO is nonsense not in the sense that it's wrong, but because it's useless. It implies that the solution to obesity is either eating less or working out more. However, both of these do not work for vast majority of people. Diets for example fail for 98% of people over 1 year of dieting.

If people, try to eat less their body gets unhappy -- it starts to burn less calories. Furthermore, it starts ramping up your hunger trying to convince you that you are starving. Over a year it typically wins.

> The variation lies in different utilization rate, the burn rate, and all other variables, but within the limit of PHYSICS.

CICO is useful as an upper bound on calorie utilization, but unfortunately not relevant to the problem of obesity, which deals with the exact opposite end of the problem space.

CICO might be important if the problem was that people in first world nations were starving due to an insufficient supply of calories. But the obesity epidemic indicates that this is not the case. So CICO is relevant to the problem in the same way that a theoretical understanding of the gasoline-air reaction is relevant to understanding why my car's gas mileage has dropped recently.

CICO is nonsense in the sense that it simplifies something to the point of being unhelpful. Similarly to if anyone claimed "garbage in, garbage out" is all there is to producing good code.

Personally, when I reduce CI, my body responds by decreasing CO: I don't think as clearly (problematic for being a functional adult), and I'm even colder than normal. With no reasonable way to accurately measure the change in CO, it's difficult to balance the equation.

tldr: what's simple and obvious with spherical cows in a vacuum is not so simple in the real world

That's such a typical straw-man argument. Firstly nobody with the right mind will say "garbage in, garbage out" is all there is to producing good code. Knowing principle doesn't automatically helps you solve the problem. It's like saying I know programming but why aren't I a successful tech company billionaire? Knowing the principle gives your a solid start, it doesn't guarantee your eventual success

Similarly, CICO is just an simple scientific fact to give you the idea what's happening physical world. Did anyone say CI and CO calculation is simple? Are you seriously telling me your could gain weight when you just eat air?

Tell me just one dieting method is simple, effective, helps everyone 100% to achieve the target weight again? As I mentioned in the above post, a good recipe doesn't make you a successful cook. You are not going to become Gordon Ramsay by watching his video alone

> Did anyone say CI and CO calculation is simple?

Yes, I have seen and heard plenty of people say CICO is simple and "all there is to it", often along with some "laws of physics" snip, as included in your previous comment.

> Are you seriously telling me your could gain weight when you just eat air?

That's a straw man if I've ever seen one.

> Yes, I have seen and heard plenty of people say CICO is simple and "all there is to it", often along with some "laws of physics" snip, as included in your previous comment.

Your problem is with the people who say it, not CICO itself. Once again, if you can't cook with a recipe from Gordon Ramsay, are you saying the recipe is bad? Btw I replied to above post when he said CICO is nonsense. Do you have a problem with his claim?

> That's a straw man if I've ever seen one.

Because I am countering his arguments? All am I saying CICO is simple physics, I am NOT saying CICO is simple weight reduction method. Can you tell the difference? If someone are saying the CICO nonsense, then isn't the logical conclusion is that you can defy physics and gain calorie from the thin air?

>CICO is nonsense in the sense that it simplifies something to the point of being unhelpful.

100%

Not all calories are equal.

Watch Robert Lustig's presentations on Sugar: the bitter truth. I think he explains what's happening quite well. Unfortunately it seems to "sciency" and most people aren't disciplined enough to stay with it and hear him out because they don't understand chemistry and physiology. :( https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+bitter+trut...

Anecdotal really. I honestly probably overstated that. I've seen it fail people on it's own more often than not. I've generally seen folks succeed more often when they change WHEN and WHAT they eat.

Not a scientist, nor a nutrition expert, so I'm not going to pretend to try and convince anyone.

Can you define their failures as they burnt more than they eat and still gain weight? Did they checked strictly with the math? Are you 100% sure when they fail, they were eating less calorie in total than the amount they are burning!?

If a person is eating 1000 calories per day regardless what what food, and is burning 2000 calories per day (CO), how is anyone going to gain weight this way?

Please, as I mentioned above, there are many variables, but not the core principle of CICO which is basic math. You cannot create calories out of thin air! It doesn't mean anyone can stick to strict diet with CICO calculation. It doesn't mean they always measure accurately. Don't mix up the failure in application with the principle. I watched many cooking videos in youtube. It doesn't mean that im gonna cook well; It doesn't mean that the recipe is bad