> Being hungry does not cause you to eat
Yes, it does. That's why people eat: to alleviate hunger. You may will power your way to a caloric deficit for some months, maybe a couple of years, but eventually hunger will win and you will eat until satiety.
Metabolically healthy people aren't slim by being hungry all the time. They eat to satiety, and they are lucky enough that their satiety signalling is still working well enough. If you make them chronically hyperinsulinemic, they will be hungrier and they will gain weight -- it happens in humans and in animal models when allowed to eat ad libitum.
> At the most basic levels, food choice doesn’t even really matter (specifically for weight loss, not general health), but choosing satiating foods with low calories is going to help with implementation
As long as you are hyperinsulinemic, you will store a portion of the energy you consume in your adipose tissue, because that is one of the major effects of insulin in the body. The remaining energy left in you will not be sufficient to supply the energy needs of your body, and as a result you will be cold, tired and hungry.*
If this is the premise of your argument, it is flawed.
You have no idea if “eventually” happens to everyone. You’re making a wildly strange assumption.
Have you tried? Are you willing to try? How many people do you know that intentionally remain hungry every day for more than a couple of years, while otherwise having free access to food?
Any weight loss advice that does not adequately address hunger and satiety is naive to the point of ridicule. And any person who advises others to address their weight by telling them to be hungry in perpetuity hasn't given much thought to what they are asking for.
> Yes, it does.
Nearly 1:10 people in the world are chronically hungry. Being hungry has no impact on their ability to eat. Likewise, those with access to food eat when not hungry and (believe it or not) may not eat when hungry.
I really think you’re missing the point, though. We have a host of signals in our body that can misfire due to various conditions and people cope with them. Hunger is no different and many of us have spent months ignoring it to our own benefit (and some to their own peril).
Caloric intake in excess of expense causes weight gain. What factors lead to that excess do not.
There are certainly those with a variety of issues that make caloric deficit difficult. Fortunately, that’s not most people.
There definitely is the issue of how to reliably maintain a caloric deficit when your body is screaming at you to eat more, but the underlying mechanism is much simpler.
At the most basic levels, food choice doesn’t even really matter (specifically for weight loss, not general health), but choosing satiating foods with low calories is going to help with implementation. Eating 2,000 calories of oranges (45) is going to be a lot harder than 2,000 calories of fast food hamburgers (2).