Anecdotal but I've lost 10kg (from a healthy starting weight), across 3 months, with CICO. Sure it's not completely precise, but if you round down your energy e

Anecdotal but I've lost 10kg (from a healthy starting weight), across 3 months, with CICO. Sure it's not completely precise, but if you round down your energy expenditure estimates and round up your calorie intake estimates, it works. The act of consistently observing one's own weight, what one eats, and what exercise one does, is a viable dating strategy, much more so than Paleo, Keto or some other named diet which can push book sales and courses. To drop 100g of weight requires around a 700 calorie deficit (or 7000cal for 1kg). If you're rounding up your energy intake, rounding down your exercise/BMR estimates, and still staying clear 700 calories or more a day, you'll shift the weight. I think the issue comes when people try to use CICO with precision, thinking that 50cal here, 100cal, 7cal there etc. will add up and help them lose weight. It's not big enough deficits and like you stated, they're probably actually in surplus from bad measuring/inaccurate figures at that point, so they'll likely maintain/gain weight. Completely agree on the restaurant / self-prepared food. That's why you round it up. I round up everything to the next 50/100, even if the packaging states a figure.