> What is also true is that most people do not properly estimate the number of calories they consume each day. I don't have a reference handy, but I have read

> What is also true is that most people do not properly estimate the number of calories they consume each day. I don't have a reference handy, but I have read studies that show that when people self-report calorie consumption from memory they tend to underestimate by a large margin, reporting in the vicinity of 50-70% of actual consumption. You can't get closer than 10% accuracy given that nutritional labels can be off by that much, and you aren't getting that unless you are making all your own food and weighing everything with a food scale. A restaurant meal can vary by hundreds of calories based on how much dense fat like oil or butter is in it, and look identical each time.