Calories In - Calories Out (CICO) and Flaws in Theory of Energy Balance to Lose or Gain Body Weight

When they have realised that faeces contain calories, some academics involved in obesity science have retreated to anonymity. But the majority start to promote the new model of obesity, which is "Calories In - Calories Out."

Around 2005, it was realized that a significant amount of energy in food intake leaves the human body as metabolic waste like faeces, urine, sweat, breath etc. which caused confusion, but another theory was quickly invented. It was “Energy Balance Over a Period of Time” (calories in – calories out over a prolonged period of time”). This theory is widely known as “the energy balance”, which says that weight loss occurs because of a state of negative energy balance and that weight gain occurs because of a state of positive energy balance.

Just a little sense of biology telling us that energy balance doesn't have any meaning when it comes to understanding weight gain or weight loss, no to mention understanding body mass distribution.

The “energy balance over a period of time” has meaning in economics, physics, climatology, hydrology etc. and that is the fact that easy misleads to the conclusion that in biology, energy balance over a period of time exists.

For example, the financial balance over a given period of time is real. We do not need to know each day what the financial situation is. It is enough at the end of the year to count how much was made and how much was spent. Whether we know or do not know what the financial situation is for each day is not important. What is important is that the financial balance for each day of the year exists (it is real) and if we like to know what the financial situation for a particular day is, we would be able to gather this knowledge. Each day of the year, it is possible to know what the current financial balance is. Financial balance exists for any particular point time of the day, week, or month, which enables us to know what the balance between the annual income and the annual expenditure is.

Nonexistence of financial balance in one particular moment of time will make it pointless for any attempt to know what the financial balance is for one year.

Weather and climate balance over a given period of time is a real thing because we can see and know what the current climate and weather situation is and because of that, we can observe the change that is happening in the climate and weather situation over a period of time. We can observe only changes that have really happened.

The questions are; When is the human body in a state of negative energy balance When does the body expend more energy than what it takes in? Is it when there is not a single calorie left in the digestive system? Is it when the body is in a state of negative energy balance when there is no digestible content (food) left in the digestive system and at this point, it is when the body “draws upon its energy stores” (literarily, bite own fat adipose tissue... self-cannibalism ...?) Or is it that the human body is in a state of negative energy balance when there is 1kcal calorie left in the digestive system and at this point, the metabolism starts to “draw upon its energy stores”? Or is it when 5kcal is left in the digestive system, or when 10kcal, 50kcal, 500kcal, or when there is 2000kcal?

The fact is that long before a body expends the last amount of digestible food, the strength of the body will decrease to the point that it will cause an unconscious state, and in a short time, death will follow parallel with the loss of the remaining strength. Still, the lifeless body (corpse) contains plenty of calories, (glucose, ketones, adenosine triphosphate, etc.) but no strength.

The internal combustion engine stops working when it runs out of energy.

The human body stops working when it runs out of strength.

The same questions apply to “a state of positive energy balance”; at which point is the human body in a state of “positive energy balance”? Is it when the human body is in a “state of positive energy balance” when there is 1 kcal in the digestive system that the body decides to convert this energy into fat mass for later use, or is it when there is 5kcal, 10kcal, or when there is 50 kcal, 500kcal, or 2000kcal in the digestive system?

To get the idea of how this scientific explanation is pointless you can discover it in this way: In the time when you read this article, ask yourself are you at this moment in a state of “positive energy balance” or are you in a “state of negative energy balance” or you are in a state of balance between calories in and calories out.

In the real world, it is not possible to have a situation where a balance exists over a period of time, but it doesn’t exist at a particular point in time. In the real world, nothing can turn into something, no matter how long a period of time it is.

Any attempt to observe the change that we cannot find, their existence at the present point of time (which is the case with the state of positive and negative energy balance) is pointless.

Weight gain of fat mass is not “a simple matter of energy balance” but it is a life process - the biological process of fat mass hypertrophy (adipose tissue hypertrophy and hyperplasia).