> However, the "calories out" portion of that equation is actually quite complicated The "calories in" part is more complicated than people like to admit too,

> However, the "calories out" portion of that equation is actually quite complicated The "calories in" part is more complicated than people like to admit too, and probably more important for weight loss. The way our body handles hunger and its relative primacy in our mental state makes it unnecessarily difficult to calorie restrict and then maintain, when eating certain diets. It's like telling an alcoholic "just stop drinking, duh" or an insomniac "just relax and sleep, simple as that". Just because something is in our brain doesn't mean we have full control over it, and I'm not sure why food is treated like something that everyone magically has complete self-control over, in contrast to _literally everything else_. I'm really really fortunate to have grown up in a good food culture, and worked on it a little more in college. Meeting CICO goals and losing weight when I want to is really not that difficult for me, but I don't think this has much to do with self-control or my genetics. The way I eat just makes hunger less of a factor in my life: I rarely get hungry, skipping meals is never a problem, I get satiated quickly, etc etc.