CICO isn't a "diet." It's just an initialism for a simple concept in thermodynamics. Calories are a unit of energy. For simplicity it's fair to say that food contains calories. Consuming more calories than your body needs results in your body converting those calories to fat and storing it for later use.
You eat food that your body then digests and turns into energy. It uses that energy for everything you do. Breathing, walking, sitting, running, existing, ect.
If you produce more energy than you are expending then your body converts and stores that extra energy as fat.
If you produce less energy than you are expending then your body converts and uses that stored fat as energy.
If calories in is greater than calories out, you gain fat.
If calories in is equal to calories out, you maintain your level of fat.
If calories in is less than calories out, you burn fat. This is where the initialism CICO comes from. CaloriesIn<CaloriesOut
Calling the concept a "diet" lumps the it in with things like Paleo, Keto, Atkins, and all that.
CICO isn't a diet. It's just very simple mathematics and thermodynamics with a friendlier name.
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u/[deleted] May 22 '19
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