> In my experience, while people know all these things, execution still requires knowing all the "gotchas".

In my experience, people that think they know all the "gotchas" don't really know as much as they think they do.

Knowing fat is calorie dense is great. Without context one would attempt to try to cut it out of your diet almost entirely. Sort of like what literally happened with the food industry in the 80's/90's and 00's.

But then they would wonder why they are so hungry and likely consuming more sugars. Which is even worse for most folks due to glycemic index and how that interacts with hunger.

A little bit of knowledge can be actively harmful. Common sense on this topic actually does far better than most who think they know better. Almost everyone knows what "healthy food" looks like without needing to know anything about much else. Education is not the issue.

Obesity is widely regarded as a chronic disease that includes the interaction of genetic and other factors with behavioral factors.

The unbelievably low success rate of diet and exercise programs for long-term weight reduction is widely documented and quite consistent with the earlier poster's experience.

This comes off as extremely condescending. I am pretty sure the person you are trying to give basic dieting advice already knows this. Why are you trying so hard to convince people to not take medication that helps them?

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> Maybe try to figure out why you’re feeling hungry. Is it because you’re running a 1000 kcal deficit?

I know several people who are feeling hungry because they're not dead, regardless of how much calorie surplus or deficit they have.

We can do the same activities and eat the same meals and I'll be satied and they will be hungry. Or I can confuse the hell out of them when we do some big activity and I say "i'm not hungry, we worked too hard"... or when we miss a meal by several hours and I tell them "I'm not hungry anymore, it's been too long... but I should probably eat something"

> I think there isn't as much variance as people like to believe,

Oh sure, I don't think everyone is really a unique snowflake, there are patterns. You can find lots of people in these threads who have a broken hunger sensor. You can find lots of people in these threads that can manage this intellectually. I don't see a lot of people in these threads like me who keep a healthy(ish) weight because IBS punishes them for bad food choices, but I'm sure they're out there. Plenty of people out there where celiac drives their relationship between calories in and calories out.

Diet research would be a lot more interesting if there were ways to classify people by their 'metabolism type' and then see what can work for which type. Maybe there would be more reproducability that way, too.

> Maybe try to figure out why you’re feeling hungry. Is it because you’re running a 1000 kcal deficit?

For me I always feel hungry. Always ready to eat more. Always.

It doesn't seem to matter what I eat or how much, I have no "off switch" apart from maybe being asleep. I sit at big family meals like Christmas or thanks giving and people around me are all "man I am going to pop if I have another bite" and yet I am still reaching for more while simultaneously thinking about what is for dessert. Once I start eating for the day, that's it game over I am going to be thinking about when I can eat next the entire waking time. I have done calorie counting for years (with deficits of usually around 400-800, tracking macros etc making sure I get enough protein) and am fairly active (running 20-25km a week, strength sessions 1-2 times a week) but even when I am not counting calories or especially active that doesn't stop me wanting to eat the whole damn time.

Dieting or not, exercising or not, it makes no difference I am always ready and willing to eat more. I am in a constant mental state of food binge.

I usually stop eating when the food physically runs out on my plate, so portion control when making meals etc needs to be airtight. I work at a BigCo where there is unlimited free food at every turn, so just going to get a coffee is a nightmare as you can imagine as I am surrounded by things to eat. Like e.g. on a bad day I might end up having 6 or 7 bananas a day just to avoid picking up a chocolate bar or donut instead. It's nuts (..and yes there are nuts too and also too easy to just grab a handful...)

I think of it like an alcoholic. But an alcoholic can "go sober" and just cut it out and not get that first taste that leads to the spiralling binge. I've got to eat to stay alive though so every day I "fall off the wagon"

I am seriously considering the pill form now that is a thing. The refrigerated injections just seemed like they were incompatible with a normal busy life with travel etc

> Maybe try to figure out why you’re feeling hungry.

For a lot of people, the reason they feel hungry is because the way their brain works is that they feel better when they feel full and their life sucks for some reason, so they want to feel better. Hence overeating. It’s entirely a psychological issue for a person like this. Counting calories is not going to help them. In fact, them even being able to maintain a calorie counting regime is downstream of resolving their anxiety/stress/depression. In other words, diet and exercise are not the beginning in the causal chain required for them to lose weight.

And you’re getting absolutely no traction in this thread because you’re completely oblivious to this. Which is common for someone for whom diet and exercise is easy to control.

It's about 1800 KCal, give or take, on a day of sedentary office work. I'm deeply familiar with it after years of calorie tracking. My grocery shopping and meals, most cooked from scratch on a daily basis, are designed around it to keep at a stable weight.

If what you actually mean to say is "you're wrong, there's no way you could eat like that", the response is "give me nothing but heads of lettuce with salt and pepper, and there are days when I could still continue eating them the entire day whenever my stomach isn't literally full".