> We have a century of evidence that calorie restriction is not a diet people can stay on. We do? Last I checked we had a century of people being told that fat

> We have a century of evidence that calorie restriction is not a diet people can stay on. We do? Last I checked we had a century of people being told that fat is bad and they should eat the fat-free high-sugar yogurt. CICO is still a hotly debated concept in many circles. Such as this thread. Calorie restriction doesn't tell you what you should or should not be eating. That is the beauty of it. It doesn't tell you what you do. It doesn't resign you to eating spinach for the rest of your life. It doesn't say you can never have ice cream. > Calorie restriction alone while eating fast food, soda, cake, etc is a diet of chronic hunger/deprivation, and "become a monk with an iron will until your death"... Is a strawman nobody suggested. Any diet that it seems you would prefer, that is more detailed/restrictive in its advice is nonetheless still a calorie restriction diet because nothing else would actually work. Calorie restriction and counting is a request for introspection. If it gets you to simply realize that big macs are really calorie dense, and that you'd break your daily limit with 3 of them, it has done its job. It's up to you to figure out if you have enough willpower to still include big macs in your diet. Mostly overweight people just have no idea how much they're actually eating.