For instance, I spent my 20s eating very low-fat, very high-whole-grain, and overall (not realizing it) very low-nutrient, while doing 5 hours of high-intensity cardio every week. Result? I crashed my thyroid and adrenal health, resulting in a 30 year old who couldn’t get off the couch most days. My body went into something akin to starvation mode, forcing a drastic reduction in energy expenditure that my even my intensely strong will power couldn’t overpower. My appetite also went through the roof, and I had food cravings (especially for high-reward and high-calorie food combinations) 24/7 that I could ignore and ignore and ignore until I would suddenly realize I had just eaten an entire cookie cake or whole box of granola in 10 minutes and have no idea how to undo the calorie damage that had just occurred.

I’m now 42 and working on conditional CICO. I’ll reduce calories, but ONLY as long as I keep my micronutrients above the RDA in every category. I’m using Cronometer instead of MFP because it tracks all micros as part of its free plan. Doing this, I’ve been able to choose foods to fill in the gaps I had, and once regularly hitting all the targets, I looked at which foods were least nutrient-dense and started reducing those, and only those, till I had a 200 calorie deficit daily. The biggest thing I did was remove sugar entirely, because (like an alcoholic) I can’t do it in moderation, at all. A month after that last step, I finally started losing weight at a 1/2 to 1 lb weekly rate, with no hunger, an extremely varied diet, and an *increase* in energy and overall health. I’m 6 months in and this is working better than anything I’ve ever tried. I even have the energy to work out 3x/week (and it’s Crossfit, at that!), something I haven’t been able to do regularly for over a decade.

My overall diet is 90% paleo, with occasional rice, corn, dairy, and even more occasional treats with very small amounts of maple syrup or honey. The composition is *really* important, because I can’t maintain the “calories in” portion at the level I need to *and* maintain good health (including a good metabolism and good energy) unless every calorie is nutrient-dense.