So what? It’s still calories in, calories out. Whether you feel full or not is another discussion.

Yes, in a universe where people easily ignore their basics instincts it doesn’t matter.

It does matter even there. You energy spending goes down too automatically.

Says who?

I'd rather say that the cause of weight gain is excess calories, the cause of weight loss is a calorie deficit. To achieve a change in weight requires a change in calorie intake. How one can achieve that calorie intake is obviously more complicated than just changing calorie intake, because hunger is extremely difficult to ignore.

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.

Laws of physics aren't rewritten because people are hungry when they eat way too much sugar.

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

Obvious answer to this is that if you create overly simple model of human body so that you can apply the easiest law available without thinking, then you are not trying to deduce off laws of physics.

It is scientism and not a science.

The question is whether it is because it’s processed food by itself or missing micro/macro nutrients.

Some people are hungry all the time regardless, so it doesn’t matter that much whether you’re hungry after you ate healthy unprocessed foods, or hungry after you ate sugary junk food.

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.