Comment by maerF0x0 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by maerF0x0 | Hacker News Reader

As I'm reading others' comments on here I'm shocked at the seemingly uneducated state of comments, I blame "influencers" and the fitness industry for spreading so much FUD + absolute nonsense. Most of them patterned like "I lost x lbs on Y diet, and you should too". I'm shocked at how few people realize that diets equated for protein + fiber are essentially identical.

I highly recommend Layne Norton's book Fat loss forever, and his free content on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3ePbeZJzYA .

Important tldr from his content:

* protein and resistance training are key if you want to lose fat (and not muscle), not just "weight"

* All restriction diets work when adhered to, the key is to find the one you will actually adhere to. This includes low carb, keto, intermittent fasting of various protocols (OMAD, 16:8, others), low fat, eat only soup, etc etc. They all work by causing a restriction on eating time or foods eaten. They all only work if there is a caloric deficit (net of cost of digestion for protein + fiber, or equal if equated for protein+fiber) .

* Calories in - calories out ("CICO") is absolutely backed by science when the researchers are smart enough to actually account for known things like caloric cost of digestion (changes the "CO" part)

Go DYOR on his content if you want the sources.

> They all only work if there is a caloric deficit

I don't believe this is true. On keto for example, I lost weight when eating an excess of calories.

> Calories in - calories out ("CICO") is absolutely backed by science when the researchers are smart enough to actually account for known things like caloric cost of digestion (changes the "CO" part)

Not exactly. If you eat fewer calories than you burn, you'll obviously lose weight. But the reverse is not necessarily true. For that to be the case, your body would have to always store all excess calories. This is probably pretty close to what happens on a high-carb diet, though, because insulin is a fat storage hormone.

> I lost weight when eating an excess of calories.

You're just misunderstanding your TDEE then. It's basic thermodynamics that is very accurate in human digestion too, save for extremes like bulemia, gastric distress (you shit out undigested food), or pills that simulate it w/ carb/fat blockers.

The most pedantic detail is CICO is actually on digested calories, not swallowed calories.

Your anecdata is likely accounted by:

1. Protein takes more calories to digest (many people unintentionally eat more protein on keto, though keto is actually about fat intake and protein can break ketosis through gluconeogensis)

2. Up regulation in things like thermogenesis (ie you lose more calories to the ambient air)

3. Inaccuracy in food tracking

4. Higher NEAT

5. Loss of water weight due to lower food mass in digestive tract, and lower glycogen(+bound water) weight.

> 1. Protein takes more calories to digest (many people unintentionally eat more protein on keto, though keto is actually about fat intake and protein can break ketosis through gluconeogensis)

I'm pretty sure this is a myth, unless you're eating such a small amount of fat that you can't get energy anywhere but though gluconeogensis. Your body uses gluconeogensis to create glucose for the cells that need it. It's not an efficient way to produce energy for cells that can just use ketones.

> Your anecdata is likely accounted by:

I suspect it's mostly that I didn't store all of the excess calories I ate. E.g. I've seen excess fat in my stool.

When people say CICO doesn't work, they don't mean thermodynamics doesn't work. They mean that not all calories consumed (i.e. eaten) get burned or stored. If you limit "Calories In" only the calories that get burned or stored, then sure, tautologically, CICO is correct.

Crazy that I had to scroll this far to read this. This diet is crazy good at losing muscle mass. Atleast you can lose kg at doubled speed.

best comment here. losing half your muscle is not healthy.

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