There's nothing wrong with tracking CICO, per se. But, as noted (and implied by "proximal cause") the weight gain *is* indicative of a CI surplus. So, a proper accounting of CICO *will* demonstrate that. The question is, "what is the ultimate cause of the surplus?" In an unstable hormonal environment, the standard assumptions of a CICO can't be applied.

Under normal circumstances, a 29 year old male training for 70.3, and performing at a high level should have a hard time gaining significant weight, suddenly. When someone has a significant (>10%) and sudden (<6 months) change in weight there is cause for concern...especially, a young male training heavily. Further, the OP claims there's been no major change in diet, no increase in stress, and no uptick in Alcohol consumption.

So, its in that light that I made the recommendation....not simply because the OP gained a few pounds. I am semi-assuming (I did ask for clarification, pending a response) the OP has professional level healthcare...in which case, an Endocrinologist isn't really much more expensive than any other doctor.

All that said, an accurate accounting of nutritional consumption is likely to be useful to either the Doctor or a Nutritionist, regardless. So, I agree its still a good idea. Its the first thing a Nutritionist/RD will ask for...so, having it will short-circuit 3 weeks of delay.

I think we have to agree to slightly disagree on this one. If everything OP says is very strictly true then absolutely something weird is going on under the hood. That's a gigantic if though. I'm not making any moral judgements or calling or OP, but anyone saying they've been consistent in their diet and exercise should be taken with a grain of salt. It's tiny changes over time that are hard to notice. There's also a social incentive to believe that the issue isn't food. Nobody wants to think of themselves as a glutton, so the mind constantly skews the memory of eating habits. It's a tale as old as processed foods.

Add on top that it's common for people to gain weight with heavy training. Even 2000kcal/d burned in workouts is easy to overcome, especially once you're used to that much in/out.

Last thing, even if there are metabolic changes to the tune of 250 kcal/d, that can strictly be undone by eating 250 kcal/d less. I don't think that's a good idea if metabolic issues are established, but it's the only metric that you have direct control over. The athletic performance needs to be balanced. A perfect metabolic profile isn't gonna help your triathlon if your weight is slowing you down by more.

It's an interesting case and cool that a bunch of perspectives came in to discuss. Always stuff to be learned here.

Just thought I would follow up and share the test you should request as a lot of these are not "standard" but necessary to find out what is going on.

Pic is broken.

I think a few people here are providing other view points, because you are couching your statements in terms of "any", "only", "fundamental", and the like, with no room for qualifications or exceptions. I would have no issues had you phrased your statement as most who say they've been consistent in their diet and exercise should be taken with a grain of salt, but you didn't couch your statement in such terms.

Perhaps it's a pet peeve of mine, but the burden of substantiating such an exacting statement is exceedingly high, b/c all it takes is one counter-example to disprove your statement.

In which case, I've tracked calorie intake with a food journal for 10+ years. I've also had access to a power meter for 10+ years. There was a 3-month period when I gained 3 kilos and couldn't shed any of it despite maintaining a caloric deficit (in the past, a true deficit maintained for that long would see the scale budge at least somewhat), only to have all 3 kilos go away in the following 3-month period despite not maintaining much of a caloric deficit afterwards. In other words, the weight first piled on and then went away, all without me doing anything different in the CICO aspect suggesting that I'd shed the 3 kilos.

My suspicion is that as I've gotten older, my tolerance for cold temperature decreased, and that perhaps triggered something that changed basal metabolism; then as the temperature warmed, basal metabolism thankfully reverted to what it was. Unlike kcal-in and energy expenditure, there is no immediate way for me to measure basal metabolism, even on a monthly basis; so all I have is guesswork. And with most doctors not really interested in such relatively minor weight gain, I knew I was going to get pooh-poohed and find myself a few hundred dollars poorer.

Which is why kcal-in kcal-out is premised on the assumption that basal metabolism stays constant, which in the case of the OP very well might not be the case.

At least as far as running goes, I think your drop in performance can easily be explained entirely by the weight gain. On average, one pound is worth 2-3 seconds per mile. However, I think it's very alarming that you've gained 15 pounds in 10 months or so for no apparent reason. I'm not sure I buy the "you're getting older and so your metabolism is slowing argument." That explains 2-3 pounds of weight gain per year maybe, not 15 pounds in one year. I used to be naturally very skinny and now have to watch my diet, but that happened gradually over decades, not over the course of one year. I generally experienced jumps in weight if I had a major lifestyle change, like going from being a student to getting a desk job. Even then, I never gained 15 pounds in a year.

So I'd keep looking for an explanation for the weight gain.

I'll stick up for the phrasing there. Everytime they do a study on self reporting of food intake it shows a substantial amount of people under report. Anywhere from 18%-70% of people in studies underreport. And that's people in studies asked specifically to track for the study. Not someone remembering back to how they ate 6 months ago.

One counter example doesn't disprove that it should be taken with a grain of salt. N=1 doesn't cancel out the preponderance of evidence. Self reported intake may be accurate in any specific case, but it's basically a coin flip. If you had a power meter that was off by 10-50% for 18-70% of your rides I think you'd agree that those pretty numbers "should be taken with a grain of salt"

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1454084/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33742193/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35257435/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12396160/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19094249/

Of course a single counter-example is all that is needed to disprove a universal statement. That's as basic as it gets in propositional logics. If you have never taken propositional logics or have forgotten some of its key tenets, I even did the legwork for you, see sub-section 9.1 of this book on logical proof.

Also, in most contexts, a preponderance of evidence is anything >50% (aka most). Are you actually trying to say what you wrote applies to anyone or only to most people (which is moving the goal-post and not sticking to your original phrasing).

As a reminder to yourself (since your last post waffles re: whether the statement applies to anyone or whether it applies to most). Your original statement reads as follows.



I get that your username is not "logics", but I'd have expected more from someone calling him/herself "mathematics".

We're arguing past each other because of a different definition. "Taken with a grain of salt", from wikipedia, means: "To take something with a "grain of salt" or "pinch of salt" is an English idiom that suggests to view something, specifically claims that may be misleading or unverified, with skepticism or not to interpret something literally.[1]"


This is exactly what is meant here, that the data point of self reported calorie intake may be misleading or unverified, and should be viewed with skepticism. One counterpoint does not change any of that. It's a universal statement that we should be skeptical of every self-reporter, it's not a universal statement that every self reporter is wrong.

Nope. You don’t understand the basics of the differences between the following statements and what is logically sufficient to respectively refute each.

-Anyone should be taken with a grain of salt;
-Most should be taken with a grain of salt;
-Some should be taken with a grain of salt.

Your original post said anyone. Your next post says preponderance of evidence (implying most people). These are different but you try to pass them off to mean the same. Not very precise wording for someone called “mathematics”.

It matters not an iota what the population in question does (try the same with any triathlete can ride 40 kms under an hour, most triathletes can ride 40 kms under an hour, and some triathletes can ride 40 kms under an hour), and what is respectively needed to negate each.
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As for your other point re: taking with a grain of salt, it's just a constant moving of the goal post. When someone doesn't track, you say that the person should track. When tracking is provided (longitudinally over a decade, where for most the decade CICO mostly tracked with mass), you then say it's not necessarily accurate and consistent. Implicit in your series of posts is that it can't be ruled out that CICO has changed. This sort of outright dismissal seems rather unnecessary. Nor is it helpful. I can understand that for society at large, there are many who couldn't square just how much they are eating vs they are expending, but that prevalence is lower for the posters here and even less likely for the OP.

And for the record, b/c I also use HR, I can tell within 2 weeks if a PM is reading high by at least 3%; and I also do static calibration at least annually and when I see numbers that seem a tad too good to be true. In fact, I once noticed that I was doing efforts 10 W higher than what I should be doing, did a static calibration to notice that my numbers were inflated by 3%, complained to SRM that my PM was reading high, was told that the slope really shouldn't drift that much, and was shown to be right when I sent in the unit and SRM giving the unit a new slope matching what I determined using static calibration. Ditto for when I receive a new unit. Your hypothetical of "a power meter that was off by 10-50% for 18-70% of your rides" is so far beyond the pale that it's simply laughable.

But it wouldn't surprise me if you were to simply move the goal posts further with utterances such as "your scales were off" and "you weren't as meticulous", even though none of my methods changed and I still experienced a 3kg gain followed by a 3kg loss in 6-month, despite maintaining a higher CICO deficit during the time I experienced the 3kg gain. Anything but the recognition that the assumption of consistent basal metabolism might have been incorrect, also as if such a recognition were an anathema to personal responsibility.

What? That's entirely consistent. Anyone (100%, all, each and every, idk how to make this more clear) should be viewed with skepticism when reporting their calories. That doesn't mean "anyone" (or all, or 100%, or each and every) are actually under reporting, just that we should be skeptical of their claims and verify if possible. I never said anyone or everyone is actually misreporting.

The preponderance of evidence supports that claim, because there are numerous studies suggesting 18%-70% of people under report.

You can suspect EVERYONE of misreporting without EVERYONE being guilty of misreporting. Yes there's a difference between suspecting anyone, most, and some, I understand that. Again, suspecting everyone doesn't mean everyone does it.

Ten people behind a wall all say their 7 feet tall. Anyone saying they're 7ft tall should be taken with a grain of salt because a preponderance of evidence shows very few people are that tall. When revealed only one of them is 7 ft tall. By your logic (I think I'm reading you correctly), that means for the next round of ten people we should only suspect most of them, since one of them was telling the truth. Is this correct? Why not suspect all of them (you know, take their statement that they're 7ft tall with a grain of salt) until you can verify?


Tldr- Anyone self reporting their caloric intake should be suspected of under reporting. There is a preponderance of evidence that 18-70% of people underreport. One person providing an example of accurately tracking does not mean that the initial suspicion was unfounded. It can exonerate them from further suspicion, but until that evidence is supplied the suspicion should remain.

Pic didn't load. Would be curious to see the test you recommended.

Thank you for the recommendation. I've taken your advice and switched primary care doctors today. I was able to find an internist and have an appointment scheduled for the end of January.

In the interim, I'm also going to look for someone in functional medicine too. If anyone has suggestions of someone in this space who works virtually, please feel free to share.

Here is both my functional medicine doctor and also a search tool to find others. It is not cheap but actually fixing complex issues vs treating symptoms (especially hormonal) is worth the price in my opinion.

https://www.stewardinglifewellness.com/
https://www.ifm.org/find-a-practitioner/

Tests Jake normally does on my:
Thyroid: Free T3, Free T4, TSH, Reverse T3
Hormone: Estradiol, DHEA-S, SHBG, Corisol (big one for Adrenal fatigue), Total T, Free T

comprehensive metabolic panel
Lipids: Total Cholestrol, LDL, HDL, Triglycerides
Inflammation: Homocysteine, hs-CRP, ox-LDL
sdLDL

We did leaky gut test early on which of course.