For some people, a 50% "deficit" fails. And the entire concept of "X workout burns Y calories" is completely bunk. Again, there have been multiple studies to this effect.

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ses1984 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Are you actually saying some people don’t lose weight on a 50% caloric deficit? Is there any evidence of that?

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4 hours ago | parent [-]

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slopinthebag 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's not physically possible for a 50% deficit to fail, what you probably mean is that their energy expenditure was incorrectly estimated at +50%.

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JoshTriplett 4 hours ago | parent [-]

No, what I mean is that their body's energy expenditure changed in response to the change in their caloric intake, with no other changes taking place.

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slopinthebag 4 hours ago | parent [-]

The body may try to maintain homeostasis but 50% sounds way too high. Someone with a tdee of 2200 kcal will not be able to maintain their weight at 1100 calories for very long.

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JoshTriplett 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Adaptation in energy expenditure includes both metabolic adaptation as well as "NEAT" ("non-exercise activity thermogenesis"); the latter includes subconscious changes in posture, fidgeting, and various other things that can increase/decrease the body's energy expenditure by a massive degree, in an effort to (as far as people can tell) maintain a "set point" in the body that is difficult to change. This set point resists both weight gain and weight loss, both attempting to resist the change in the first place and attempting to undo it if successful.

I'm not suggesting that it's impossible to lose weight through sufficiently large caloric restriction. I'm observing that it is not anywhere close to as simple as "CICO", because CO is heavily a function of CI, rather than the popular incorrect perception of CO being things like "exercise".

	▲	slopinthebag 42 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Neat can maybe explain a couple hundred kcal variance in most people, perhaps there are exceptions but 50%? I've never seen that in the literature. Calories in calories out is just the summation of expenditure and intake, just because the body is complex and there are many interdependent factors doesn't mean it cant be resolved to a vector which determines weight gain/loss. The problem is people google a tdee calculator, get some scalar which is likely wrong, perhaps substantially, make lifestyle changes, and then have an expectation of some result in a specific timeline that isn't realistic, and then eat a bunch of sodium, put on 2 lbs in their "deficit", and think the diet made them fatter! Or they read that -3500kcal == -1lb fat, calculate their calories burned from the machines at the gym, and get frustrated when it doesn't work (I'm guilty!). Weight loss is actually really hard because it really just requires a sustained effort over a long period of time to achieve anything. You might not see any results for weeks as your body adjusts, you get your diet locked in, etc. And since your weight can vary so much day to day, it's hard to stay motivated. Ozempic kind of bypasses these problems. You know what else works? 20k steps a day and eating on a backpacker budget :P