The goal is changing weight. The immediate means is to change calorie intake. The hard problem is that doing so requires changing hunger, and we don't have a good (safe, cheap, widely available) way to do so.

CICO is necessary to understanding, but is not sufficient. Any proposed solution that doesn't address hunger is bound to fail.

Of course meal plans are more complicated than just counting calories.

It is scientism and not a science.

I do think there’s a difference, though, between processed and unprocessed foods. My guess is that your body can extract more of the calories from highly processed foods than it can from unprocessed foods, or that extracting the calories from unprocessed foods takes more work, burning calories in itself.

But regardless of the efficiency, if you overfill the tank and the fuel starts to spill on the pavement, that is not going into the milage but straight into the pollution bracket.

The idea that intake is irrelevant is just as ridiculous as the idea that everyone's metabolism is an exact clone.

Regardless of how many calories I burn with exercise, I am also training my metabolism.

My metabolism includes feelings of hunger and satiation, as well as cravings for particular foods. It is plenty capable of going out of whack for all kinds of reasons, but my best tool for bringing my metabolism back to a healthy place is a spate of vigorous exercise, and I've relied on that.

If my metabolism were conditioned to be in an unhealthy place over a long period of time then I would have an uphill battle ahead of me to correct it, and I believe many people are stuck in such a situation.

One observation is a growing class divide between the fat and the fit that saw a sharp uptick over the pandemic. Our culture unfortunately is very poor at accommodating healthy activity and getting poorer. Conversely, the national parks the last 2 years summers were mobbed with people who found healthier lifestyle practices during their downtime and were out to challenge themselves.