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Links to studies supporting Low Carb/showing calorie restriction ineffective?

Dark Horse said:
I think there may be some misunderstandings within this thread. If someone says CICO holds true, that is not the same as saying that LCHF does not work for weight loss. Although people following LCHF do not explicitly count calories, they may reduce their calorie intake without realising it, for example due to effects on appetite.
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Or equally they may not?
The over feeding studies I mentioned way back upthread would seem to indicate that excess calories do not necessarily lead to weight gain.
The simplicity of CICO is alluring but that doesn't make it "true". And if it doesn't work for weight gain then it has been disproven?
 
bulkbiker said:
The simplicity of CICO is alluring but that doesn't make it "true". And if it doesn't work for weight gain then it has been disproven?
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Sorry, I didn't find your previous link (it's a long thread) but the fact that someone doesn't gain weight even when they are overfed doesn't disprove CICO. Changes in diet can affect thermogenesis (part of the CO part of CICO).
 
Dark Horse said:
Sorry, I didn't find your previous link (it's a long thread) but the fact that someone doesn't gain weight even when they are overfed doesn't disprove CICO. Changes in diet can affect thermogenesis (part of the CO part of CICO).
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I understand that but the simplistic explanation of CICO doesn't hold true under many (if any) circumstances which is what we were disagreeing with. There are a huge number of complexities and confounders that will effect it. The "eat less, move more" method of weight loss and maintenance is for most people ineffective. I think you would agree?
 
Dark Horse said:
Home measurements are not really accurate enough.
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Except they invaluable and accurate enough for the individual to be able to say n=1. How I wish HCPs would look at the individual. How many people does it take to make it a scientific study? 3 apparently according to a recent newsbot article about T1s not needing insulin during the honeymoon period if they low carb. How many anecdotes does it take to make something true? A million wouldn't be enough if it's not part of an official study. How crazy is that? I don't think many of us here care whether science says we are correct or not. We know what we have seen with our own eyes. I know that when I calorie counted I was eating far less than I eat now. I know that I lose weight having more calories as long as they aren't carb calories. True I must be in calorie deficit to lose weight, but I can be in calorie deficit and not lose weight if I have too many carbs. So far today I have had 8g carbs and 470 cals (kcals to you) :)
 
...and surely satiety is subjective? How does a boffin measure that?
 
Guzzler said:
...and surely satiety is subjective? How does a boffin measure that?
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Oh that's easy. If you're fat you have had enough, if you are slim you can eat more. CICO ;)
Edit: Seriously though I am not sure they would even think about that since it is assumed that fat people just keep on eating even when they are full, that's what makes them fat - CICO.
 
zand said:
Oh that's easy. If you're fat you have had enough, if you are slim you can eat more. CICO ;)
Edit: Seriously though I am not sure they would even think about that since it is assumed that fat people just keep on eating even when they are full, that's what makes them fat - CICO.
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Oh yes - the belief that ALL fat people stuff themselves and are gluttons! Thats a given in most places I have been.

And "We should be ashamed of ourselves for eating so much that people in other places dont have enough and are starving because fat people ate all the food" (yep, really had that said to me)
 
bulkbiker said:
I understand that but the simplistic explanation of CICO doesn't hold true under many (if any) circumstances which is what we were disagreeing with. There are a huge number of complexities and confounders that will effect it. The "eat less, move more" method of weight loss and maintenance is for most people ineffective. I think you would agree?
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Sorry, but I don't actually know what you mean by the 'simplistic explanation of CICO'.

Someone who locked up and is forced to 'eat less and move more' will lose weight so you could say that method of weight-loss is effective under those circumstances. Similarly for weight maintenance. However, in the real world most people (not all) gradually regain weight they have lost by dieting. That doesn't mean that CICO does not apply.
 
zand said:
Except they invaluable and accurate enough for the individual to be able to say n=1. How I wish HCPs would look at the individual. How many people does it take to make it a scientific study? 3 apparently according to a recent newsbot article about T1s not needing insulin during the honeymoon period if they low carb. How many anecdotes does it take to make something true? A million wouldn't be enough if it's not part of an official study. How crazy is that? I don't think many of us here care whether science says we are correct or not. We know what we have seen with our own eyes. I know that when I calorie counted I was eating far less than I eat now. I know that I lose weight having more calories as long as they aren't carb calories. True I must be in calorie deficit to lose weight, but I can be in calorie deficit and not lose weight if I have too many carbs. So far today I have had 8g carbs and 470 cals (kcals to you) :)
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Your report that you ate less when you calorie counted than you do now is indeed very interesting, but unless you were measuring your BMR you can't actually use that experience to negate CICO as you don't know what your 'calories out' were. If someone wanted to try and disprove CICO, they would need controlled studies in which both the calories in and ALL the calories out are measured.

Anecdotes are important (that's really what a case study such as the 3 type 1s no longer needing insulin is) as they suggest the direction in which research should go. They are not enough on their own because there is no control of variables and no matter how honest, arduous and conscientious we are, we are all (including scientists) affected by cognitive bias. Studies are designed to try and remove bias (some more successfully than others). Peer review of published studies also allows methods and conclusions to be criticised which can then lead to further refinements.

None of this takes away from your personal experience of what is working for you.
 
Guzzler said:
...and surely satiety is subjective? How does a boffin measure that?
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Yes, it is subjective. It wouldn't be necessary to measure it in that kind of study - it's really just saying that people weren't denying themselves food.

When people do want to measure satiety,they can ask participants to rate how hungry they feel out of 5 (or 10).
 
lucylocket61 said:
Oh yes - the belief that ALL fat people stuff themselves and are gluttons! Thats a given in most places I have been.

And "We should be ashamed of ourselves for eating so much that people in other places dont have enough and are starving because fat people ate all the food" (yep, really had that said to me)
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I was once accused of ordering 2 main meals for myself and my husband because our sons were playing at the quiz machines when the waitress brought them over. I asked why she would even think that and she gave me a triumphant look and said "Because there are only 2 drinks on the table" "Yes, that's because my sons are over there and have taken their drinks with them" In case you're wondering, no, we never went into that pub again.
 
Dark Horse said:
Your report that you ate less when you calorie counted than you do now is indeed very interesting, but unless you were measuring your BMR you can't actually use that experience to negate CICO as you don't know what your 'calories out' were. If someone wanted to try and disprove CICO, they would need controlled studies in which both the calories in and ALL the calories out are measured.

Anecdotes are important (that's really what a case study such as the 3 type 1s no longer needing insulin is) as they suggest the direction in which research should go. They are not enough on their own because there is no control of variables and no matter how honest, arduous and conscientious we are, we are all (including scientists) affected by cognitive bias. Studies are designed to try and remove bias (some more successfully than others). Peer review of published studies also allows methods and conclusions to be criticised which can then lead to further refinements.

None of this takes away from your personal experience of what is working for you.
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In the meantime, the majority of the population still think that fat makes you fat. Science won't move very quickly on this one because the people who fund the experiments/studies have nothing to gain by proving us to be right. Long live the anecdote!
 
Dark Horse said:
Yes, it is subjective. It wouldn't be necessary to measure it in that kind of study - it's really just saying that people weren't denying themselves food.

When people do want to measure satiety,they can ask participants to rate how hungry they feel out of 5 (or 10).
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It wouldn't be necessary only because a boffin cannot measure it, and would probably conclude that it was worthy of dismissal. When in the real world it is probably why CICO diets fail so regularly.
 
Guzzler said:
It wouldn't be necessary only because a boffin cannot measure it, and would probably conclude that it was worthy of dismissal. When in the real world it is probably why CICO diets fail so regularly.
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Yes exactly! If I get hungry on LCHF a cup of coffee with cream sorts me out, very few carbs in that. You can't do that with low cal because anything you add also adds cals. Fat satiates without making you fat.
 
zand said:
Yes exactly! If I get hungry on LCHF a cup of coffee with cream sorts me out, very few carbs in that. You can't do that with low cal because anything you add also adds cals. Fat satiates without making you fat.
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Agreed. CICO is fine for automatons and machines using fossil fuels, variables can be measured precisely and end results can be fairly well predicted simply because there are so few variables. Then there's us, we pesky animals who are affected by illnesses, stress, motivation and personal threshholds. It is our fault that we rarely succeed on CICO diets because we have just too many hormones affecting the results, hormones such as Leptin, y'know, that little, insignificant hormone that is designed to tell us to fuel up!
 
Guzzler said:
It wouldn't be necessary only because a boffin cannot measure it, and would probably conclude that it was worthy of dismissal. When in the real world it is probably why CICO diets fail so regularly.
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Eating to satiety just means. 'when you are hungry you should eat, and when you eat you should eat enough to stop you feeling hungry'. Satiety is subjective so scientists would have to rely on self-report to measure it. If the answer to the question 'on a scale of 0-5, where 0 means not at all hungry, how hungry are you after eating' is always 0, then there really isn't much point in measuring it, it's not a case of being dismissive.

I agree that if a diet doesn't allow people to feel satiated, it would be very difficult to stick to.
 
Dark Horse said:
Eating to satiety just means. 'when you are hungry you should eat, and when you eat you should eat enough to stop you feeling hungry'. Satiety is subjective so scientists would have to rely on self-report to measure it. If the answer to the question 'on a scale of 0-5, where 0 means not at all hungry, how hungry are you after eating' is always 0, then there really isn't much point in measuring it, it's not a case of being dismissive.

I agree that if a diet doesn't allow people to feel satiated, it would be very difficult to stick to.
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I know what satiety means. Fundamentally it means the difference between success and failure.
 
I find that satiety was unreliable when I was eating the Eatwell plate diet, as I always felt hungry, even just after eating a big plate of food.

Only through low carbing am I discovering true hunger and satiety. I suspect that may be true for many dieters out there.Dome of them may not eat few enough carbs to break the false hunger cycle.
 
It is interesting, that like a lot people, I finish what is on my plate. If we were really eating to satiety then sometimes I would eat say 80% and then stop. Also the amount on the plate varies, especially when not serving myself but I finish it anyway or if the portion is small, say in a restaurant, I just shrug and think that will have to do. So at least for me the idea of eating to satiety doesn't apply.
 
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