Some people consume too much calorically as a mental-health coping mechanism. Some people consume too much calorically because the food culture they were raised in promotes that. Some people consume too much calorically because they have a lack of real options to purchase fresh whole foods.
Some people don't expend enough calories because their lifestyle makes it difficult (work + family + etc). Some people don't expend enough calories because the lifestyle they were raised with doesn't promote that.
These are just some of the ways that simple equation you've posted become immediately more complex.
This is why poor people have greater obesity problems than the rest. Potato Chips, white bread, pasta, and of course sugar feature prominently in their daily calorie intake, these are the cheapest calories you can make a diet out of.
I'm sure there are tons of intricacies in how metabolism works, but glycogen storage in a human is about 2000 kJ. Once your deficit surpasses that (and we'll happily allow a multiple to account for any error here), your body will either consume fat or you'll experience actual low blood sugar and drop dead.
The reality is the vast majority of people eat way too much, and the dietary guidelines for caloric intake are far too high for a largely sedentary society.
It is somewhat harder to stay on the diet while traveling, attending conferences, or business meetings. Having a host choose a place to eat, offer you local cuisine, etc makes it harder to stay in keto. Hunger though, was never a problem after the first full week.
I'm an on-and-off-again keto dieter (I appreciate that for me it seems to take at least 2-3x as long to put the weight back on as it takes to take off as I inevitably revert to former diet choices...) and I never find the transition period difficult, but there's a consistent point where I hit "eh, still fat, but don't feel super fat anymore" and that's when the cravings or the pressures of eating non-keto with company have the highest chance of getting to me. There are also unforeseen stressors that can make things difficult (in my case a forced house move) but I'm ok with the state of flux. I don't want a six-pack physique enough, not really, and that's the last willpower component -- how long can you stick with it (and introduce more exercise), even with bumps and setbacks? My friend who introduced me to the diet lost 100 lbs by forcing himself to do keto for about 5 months, but he was fat enough at the start that he could stand to lose another 50 lbs but it's not as easy now. Still, he's much happier and healthier now than before. One's level of willpower is still involved even with how great keto is and is the difference between losing 50 lbs (not bad), 100 lbs (pretty awesome), and 150 lbs (your ideal).
I've tried before, but I feel like complete garbage. I'm told it goes away, but I don't really have days to waste feeling dizzy trying out something that may or not work for me.
On a global scale countries low on the obesity scale (Japan, Singapore, Korea, France) are not teeming with starving under-nourished citizens, and countries high on the obesity scale (Mexico, US) are not lacking gyms, exercise equipment, or opportunities for simple nature walks.
The fact is if you're fat, you've conditioned yourself to eat too many calories, and eating a normal amount of calories will likely leave you feeling hungrier while you adjust.
http://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(96)00456-1/abstract
"In the adult US population the prevalence of overweight rose from 25.4% from 1976 to 1980 to 33.3% from 1988 to 1991, a 31% increase. During the same period, average fat intake, adjusted for total calories, dropped from 41.0% to 36.6%, an 11% decrease. Average total daily calorie intake also tended to decrease, from 1,854 kcal to 1,785 kcal (−4%). Men and women had similar trends. Concurrently, there was a dramatic rise in the percentage of the US population consuming low-calorie products, from 19% of the population in 1978 to 76% in 1991. From 1986 to 1991 the prevalence of sedentary lifestyle represented almost 60% of the US population, with no change over time."
Somebody who is using food as a coping device has an underlying issue they have to tackle before they can reduce their caloric intake. I mean, you could force folks to eat less, but you really want them eating less because it's healthier for them and that they themselves recognize and embrace that truth so they adopt the healthier habits as their personal culture to re-transmit to family and friends.
Logging and limiting calories isn't the only way to achieve CICO.
Claiming "calories in calories out end of story" is like saying "the solution to aids and unwanted pregnancies is condoms." People are still getting HIV and unwanted pregnancies, and most of them know about condoms. What gives? "The solution" doesn't take into account we are mammals with millions of years of evolutionary programming driving our every action.
Honestly, ending conversations because of CICO prevents people from exploring the real problem. It's counter productive. Please take a moment and listen.
It's literally just that simple too.
Unfortunately this isn't good advice for a fat person trying to lose weight. Even a very low IQ fat person understands that if they eat less and move more they'll lose weight. Nor is it particularly good advice for trying to craft a top-down policy unless the intention is to force people to eat a certain amount only and burn a minimum amount of energy.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/nov/03/obese-soda-suga...
Hold on! The market consists of both suppliers and customer. One would think that being fat is not profitable for the latter. Meanwhile, only 3% of Japanese people have a BMI over 30, while 32% of Americans do. It must be that Japanese markets don't optimize for profit! Or maybe you got the source of the problem wrong. Guess which one I think it is.
> Mexico has shown that regulation does work, they regulated sugar which has had a positive effect on health.
Hungary has a higher sugar tax, had it for a longer time, and it appears to have no effect on health at all. Go figure.
At best the results range from "inconclusive" or "wide variation" to "they tried to expend more calories via exercise and gained weight, oopsie" https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/12/exercising-but-gai...
All the obese people you see walking around are not suffering from a lack of willpower to go on a fasting diet. All the thin people you see walking around are not meticulously tracking their calorie intake and burn.
There are people who eat more and still are thin but if you are not one of those people they should be none of your concern similarily to how people who inherited wealth - what they do - is meningless for person that was born poor, is poor and wants to get bit richer.
And fasting is conclusive anwer to weight loss if you can enforce it.
If you were in charge of getting inmate less fat that's exactly what you would order and he'd loose weight.
The problem with fasting in real world is that weight loss is not the only thing it affects end you can't ignore the side effects like you could do with an inmate.
That is a gross oversimplification. Countless people, including myself, on ketogenic diets can attest to that.
The average American diet has changed dramatically in the last century with the growth of the restaurant and food processing industry. Exercise participation has actually increased substantially in the last 20 years (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/2015/057.pdf) in the same time period obesity has soared.
Energy balance being responsible for weight gain is too readily used by the food processing industry in an effort to shift away blame for this epidemic.
A few instances: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/12/obesity-exercise... http://www.cbsnews.com/news/good-news-pepsicos-indra-nooyi-s... http://blogs.plos.org/speakingofmedicine/2012/07/05/is-obesi... https://therussells.crossfit.com/2015/09/23/transparency-coc...
IMO it's not so much about education as about how to help people shape their habits. People already know that candy-bars and french-fries correlate to obesity, after all.
> that simple
Or at least, so close to being that simple that there's no point confusing people with erroneous details.
It's literally the first law of thermodynamics.
Everyone tries to over complicate things, but the reality is if you eat more calories than you burn, you will become fat.
The fact is that different calories affect our brains differently. Some cause us to crave more food, some cause us to feel satiated, etc. I hate this modern trend of saying "calories in vs calories out" as if it's a magic cure.
It's actually very helpful advice but only if you are able to realize that's the only way you can predictably get rich through.
Most people choose to rather belive that they are spending not more than they believe they should or must and will not always look for new job that pays more, and instead believe that they can get rich by using tricks or will surely have some lucky break.
Same with weight loss. Calories in, calories out is a magic cure for many people but only if they are grounded enough in reality of what they can be sure about, to accept it.
Of course some people are more addicted to food than others, some eat more healthy than others. But the solution nevertheless is the same.
Calories in - calories out = fat accumulation. It is literally that simple.