That's an unfortunate alignment, because those foods that are packaged and marked with calorie counts are the very ones that are more likely to leave you wanting to eat more calories than you need.

Whole foods are harder to get an accurate count for, but seem to leave me feeling full after consuming a more reasonable number of calories.

Seconded. When I used to cut weight for HS and college wrestling it was considerably easier to plan around fast food and pre-packaged options. Those aren't always awesome choices, but they're highly consistent and I can get accurate counts as to how much calories/protein/fiber/fat/carbs I've had.

Doesn't mean I was eating it 3 meals a day, mind you; still mostly brown rice, broc, and chicken breasts. But I could plan around a lunch at Wendy's, while the local steak house was a crapshoot.

You don’t need extreme precision when counting calories. The trick is to A develop a reasonable baseline for breaking even at your weight and activity level. Then B make a significant reduction sufficient to lose weight in a reasonable timeframe. You can call them calories or magic beans, as long as the energy ratio is about right that’s plenty.

Really, the difference between say 2,500 calories a day and 1,800 is about the magnitude you want and not that hard to differentiate.