Of course. I was responding to the time spent (out of ones day), opposed to calendar days of not eating.

That said, people can make pretty rapid weight loss without eating. skip eating 1 day a week and that is 30 lbs a year for an average obese man. skip 2 days/week and that is 60 lbs/year.

Those numbers are assuming someone who skips a day of eating doesn’t increase their calorie consumption on other days to compensate

A lot of people assume humans are mechanistic, unfeeling CICO convertors and exclude psychological and physiological realities of losing weight. I've grown used to it. It took several tries for me to drop 50lbs and most of it was psychological and good habit formation. it took about 3 years to complete that journey.

I think the point is rather to communicate that there is no trick to around cico.

Instead, they are reinforcing that the path is clear, and the the barriers Are entirely psychological. Effort to build habits, effort to exert self control, effort to find solutions when you stumble.

If people are looking and waiting for a strategy that makes weight loss easier than inaction, they are bound for disappointment.

Some rare people find a passion that makes the process of getting healthy and fit more fun and easy than getting fatter, but that is exceedingly rare.

Exactly; when I fast for 24 hours, I feel a compulsion to consume every single calorie within a 3 block radius afterwards.

People who do this regularly tell me it gets a lot easier after a while.

And keep track of the calories in the meals they do eat to make sure they are not compensating is going to take nonzero time.

Yep. You can't eat your way to weight loss. There there isn't any easy trick to beat the laws of physics.

Just eat less and burn more calories.

"just" is doing a lot of work here.

    > people can make pretty rapid weight loss without eating

Your suggestion is not sustainable. A staggering 90+% of people regain all weight loss a year after their diet ends. Seriously, who is not going to eat for two days per week? Your mental health would be a wreck. Can you do it? I cannot.

90% of people regain weight because they go back to eating like they have a death wish.

I think conflating between mental health and eating is at the heart of the obesity epidemic. Nobody will die if they skip a few meals. They will suffer some moderate discomfort depending on how much they fixate on it.

I can go a week without eating and a few days is trivial. The longest a human has gone without food is 381 days and they lost 275 lbs

Please do not assume your experience is universal. You simply cannot know how it feels for other people to be hungry, it might be a completely different feeling than what you get.

This. Exactly. It took many, many years as an adult to realise that I was blessed with incredible genes that allowed me to reduce calorie intake without many negative consequences (insane hunger cravings, etc.). My point: I didn't do anything to "earn" this -- it was granted to me by birth. It gave me extra empathy for people who don't have it, who are trying to control their weight. It is a brutal battle. I always have so much respect for people who stuggle with weight gain, but beat the demons and lose weight long term. They really are someone special!