HAVE YOUR CAKE AND LOSE WEIGHT TOO... OR CAN YOU?

Another day, another diet and this new diet, named CICO for “Calories In, Calories Out” is particularly appealing because you can eat whatever you like and still lose weight. Well, kind of...

Sprouted on the Reddit website, it is claimed that the CICO diet works wonders as it allows dieters to eat whatever foods they like, in whatever form they want, as long as they consume fewer calories than they burn – the good old weight loss equation.

In real life food terms this diet suggests you could eat almost all of your entire daily calorie intake in a single fast food meal deal, eat nothing else all day and still lose weight. While this may sound appealing – and may work for those who are significantly overweight – for the average person who wants to drop 5-10kg there are a number of reasons that this approach is unlikely to work long-term.

WEIGHT LOSS DIFFERS

While we often talk about weight loss as a universal concept, the reality is that every single person has a unique set of genes, lifestyle and behaviours. This ultimately means the specific variables required for fat metabolism and sustainable weight loss will be different for every single person. Each different metabolism will respond differently to different diets and while some individuals may get initial results by watching and cutting back on their calories, for others this strategy will have no observable effect.

THE CALORIE FACTOR

The CICO Diet sounds appealing – eat cake and lose weight but it is important to remember it is difficult to control daily calorie intake when high-calorie, processed foods are consumed.

With the average adult needing only 1500-2000 calories a day, and a single slice of cake containing up to 800 calories, or a fast food meal more than 1000 calories, just one or two of these “allowed” foods will completely wipe out your daily calorie total.

Also, all calories are not equal. The most farcical aspect of the CICO diet is that it assumes that all the calories we consume are metabolised equally in the body, which is not the case. Calories consumed as added sugars are more likely to result in elevated insulin levels, which can result in fat storage over time. The timing of meals is also important.