It was an exaggeration to make the point. Sorry, thought that was obvious. For your example: If you had eaten a low-carb diet, you'd probably need to have eate

It was an exaggeration to make the point. Sorry, thought that was obvious. For your example: If you had eaten a low-carb diet, you'd probably need to have eaten 50% more food in terms of quantity in order to meet the caloric intake you were getting on the "whatever" diet. That's my point. If you simply focused on the caloric intake and kept it at 18,000 a week (which seems high for someone lying in bed, to be honest) and still ate whatever you wanted, you would't have put on 18 pounds.