Maintaining a calorie deficit causes weight loss, but the question is whether it causes sustainable weight loss. If you lose weight, but are constantly hungry, irritable, suffer from headaches and lightheadedness, will you really succeed at keeping the weight off?

I'd argue that most people are more interested in sustainable weight loss (some exceptions, e.g. losing weight to fit into an outfit for a professionally photographed lifecycle event).

There is caloric deficit and there is starvation. If you're getting headaches and lightheadedness you're short too many calories, or have some serious blood sugar issues.

This.

I am currently in the process of loosing weight and the only thing I've bothered with is calories. No foods are off limits. I allow my self to eat more in accordance to the amount of exercise I do (which naturally incentivises me to exercise, but doesn't depend on it).

I wrote up some formulas to estimate my weight loss before committing to the diet. It's been three months and so far it has been accurate to the pound (accounting for natural dailyvfluxuations in weight).

I'm sure there is some value in monitoring carbs, starch, fats, sugars, and other things, but I can confirm that the simple calorie diet works very well. If all you're interested in is weight loss, I strongly recommend it.

IANANutritionist, but here's some extra tips I've found very useful:

- !ntx searches nutritionix.com for nutrition data on Duck Duck Go.

- Drinking a lot of zero calorie beverages helps aleviate hunger (I like Propel, Sprite Zero, and Dr. Zevia).

- Don't frett over being super accurate with your counting. Just don't cheat yourself and it will even out over time.

- If you're like me, a big portion of your diet is covered by a relatively small selection of meals. If you figure out the calories in those, it becomes much easier to plan meals and alter plans on the fly.

- If you breakdown a meal, it's often possible to make a small modification that significantly reduces its calorie count.

- Don't focus on eating traditional diet foods (eg salads and "superfoods"). If you focus on having a perfect diet, you might burn yourself out.

“Calorie counting doesn’t work for you because you’re not good enough at counting calories” frames the problem in a way impossible to disprove. Maybe people aren’t arguing that they’re breaking the laws of physics, but that they’re having trouble with estimating the caloric surplus in the first place.

I've used calorie counting before, and I don't think it's hard to do - just a bit inconvenient. Having a little digital scale helps a lot. Measuring out the calories in a recipe can be a pain, but people tend to repeat the same recipes. It's inconvenient in the beginning, but gets better once you've already calculated most of your standard recipes. There are apps that will help you track it. Pack a lunch or buy something with a known number of calories.

If you only rarely go out to restaurants, just give the meal your best estimate and don't worry about it too much. If you eat out every day, it'll be hard to estimate. Fast food chains are often (ironically?) helpful here because many of them list the calories in their meals.

You don't really need to estimate your calorie expenditure. Just keep your activity level roughly even, count calorie intake, and track your weight. If your weight doesn't decrease after a couple weeks, subtract a couple hundred calories from your intake. Eventually, you'll get a deficit and your weight will decrease.

Maybe, but that’s more of an excuse than a true reason. It means their methodology for determining caloric content is flawed and they aren’t turning the right knobs to find accuracy. At which point they should work with a nutritionist.