
Image created by and copyright property of Angela A. Stanton PhD by AI
Introduction
Traditional nutrition guidelines emphasize calorie counting as the key to weight management. The concept of “calories in, calories out” (CICO) suggests that weight gain or loss is dictated solely by energy balance. However, real-world observations reveal that two individuals consuming drastically different caloric-content diets can experience opposite and unexpected, quite counterintuitive, metabolic effects: one may lose weight while consuming 3,000 kcal of animal-based food, while another gain weight on just 800 kcal of a mixed Standard American Diet (SAD) or a plant-based diet.
The stark contrast in metabolic outcomes highlights the fundamental flaws of the calorie model and underscores the importance of macronutrient composition, hormonal regulation, and metabolic flexibility. In this article, we’ll explore the physiological and biochemical mechanisms driving these differences.
I am writing this article because I see so many exercise gurus and strength training experts (even in my family!) push Calorie-Counting (known as CICO) as a way to encourage their clients to lose weight, but it rarely ever works and makes people very frustrated. In fact, reducing the Calories one eats may easily backfire and make them gain weight!
In this article I disentangle a very complicated subject into small bits of information you can understand.







