Could this be your best option to burn off that extra fat?

The trend of the CICO diet “Calories in, calories out”, more than a diet is a caloric restriction. If it is said that you have to cut calories, the most obvious thing would be that you could lose weight, but this would be a very simplistic way of considering fat loss to reach an ideal weight or goal, since there are multiple factors that determine the people’s weight or even the presence of obesity.

What is this diet about?
Many diets, whether bogus or not, always lead to a reduction in food so that, consequently, a caloric deficit occurs and obviously, depending on the trend of each one of them, it is suggested that you avoid certain groups of maconutrients or eliminate some specific types. of foods such as sugars, carbohydrates, fats, etc.

In this CICO plan (calories in = the ones you eat and calories out = the ones you spend) in reality, the only joke is to consider the consumption of fewer calories than your body can spend both for your daily activities and for metabolic expenditure. at rest because if you don’t achieve this, these accumulate and at the end of the day can become stored fat.

So to achieve a CICO-based regimen, you don’t have to do more than count your Total Energy Expenditure (TEE) and pretty much eat fewer calories than your body demands. In other words, if you require 2,500 kcal per day, you can reduce 300 of them to consume about 2,200. Thus, if your body is used to receiving a certain amount of energy, consuming less will induce it to lose weight.

How to do a CICO diet?
It is very important here to count calories. What you consume and what you spend so you can make the necessary adjustments. All caloric requirements must be personalized and although you are going to cut calories, it is required first:

1- Calculate your basal or resting metabolic expenditure (vital needs)
2- Calculate your total energy expenditure (considering physical activity, the presence of illness, etc.)
3- Monitor and calculate your daily calorie intake
4- Reduce calories so you can eat less of them through food
5- Typically, the Mayo Clinic says that you can trigger a caloric deficit by cutting 500 to 1,000 calories a day.

What can you eat at CICO?
Everything! This eating plan doesn’t care if you subtract calories from an apple, a steak, or the onion and pickles from your favorite burger. At the end of the day, almost all foods provide you with calories.

But there is a big flaw in this diet and that is that calories do not equal nutrients. In other words, it is not the same, to eliminate calories from a pastry rich in sugars and fats, than the calories perhaps from the healthiest of salads (with fiber, water, vitamins, minerals, healthy fats such as seeds). The above is a great risk of the diet since you can even become malnourished if you do not eat the macro and micronutrients you need daily.

The good
This food trend is nothing new will allow you to have a better perspective on energy expenditure, your consumption and undoubtedly caloric restriction. In addition, you can also be aware of the portions and volume of food you eat, which can give you better control. In addition to all this, it is suggested that you practice exercise to facilitate and promote the expenditure of calories in your body.

In the best case scenario between diet and exercise, you will surely lose fat and this will lead to weight loss.

The bad
This plan will not help you improve the quality of your diet unless you propose it, just as increasing physical activity to have a healthier lifestyle will not be based on this, but rather, it can encourage everything do it only with the mindset of losing weight and calories, which may not end in good and sustainable habits in the long term.

On the other hand, also if you focus on the intake of unhealthy or highly processed foods, your body can suffer from it at the level of metabolism since not all foods generate the same satiety, they cause the same hormones or enzymes to be secreted to maintain optimal health, nor is it a guarantee that by losing weight you will be the most muscular or your fat will be the lowest you could possibly be.

Finally, counting calories can become an obsession and a compulsion that, if you are not mentally or emotionally stable, can generate excessive worry and lead to behavioral disorders regarding eating (anorexia, bulimia, vigorexia, among others).