I used to think weight loss was pretty simple – calories in vs calories out. No matter what you consume, the total number of calories are what make you gain/lose/maintain weight, right? I was recently diagnosed with PCOS and mild insulin resistance. Everybody’s saying that IR makes losing weight incredibly difficult, which is quite a bummer as I’m currently trying to drop several pounds. What I’m wondering is: How does insulin resistance affect the whole CICO rule (the law of conservation of energy, nonetheless!)? It seems sort of unrealistic for IR to make you an exception to the laws of physics. Is it more related to appetite and increased food intake or does it actually alter the way your body uses energy?
In: 6
I’ll point out that conservation of energy really isn’t the right way to think of metabolism and weight. We aren’t performing exotic nuclear physics on food. Why we have is conservation of matter: everything we eat has to come out, either undigested or digested and then somehow excreted.
Various metabolic diseases, including PCOS, change both sides of CICO. Your body can absorb more or fewer calories from what you eat, and it can either more readily use those calories to do things (and then excrete the waste products) or try to reduce expenditures.
CICO is always true, but calculating the in and out is not fixed and not trivial!
Latest Answers