You have your quotes switched.
#1 agrees with me!
Their entire theory is that different macro balances lead people to eat less because they're more satiating. Which is true but doesn't contradict the point that the actual thing that matters is CICO. Certain diets may make it easier or harder in terms of willpower but it doesn't change the underlying forces.
#2 agrees with me too! That abstract is criminally misleading.
> We conclude that a calorie is a calorie. From a purely thermodynamic point of view, this is clear because the human body or, indeed, any living organism cannot create or destroy energy but can only convert energy from one form to another. In comparing energy balance between dietary treatments, however, it must be remembered that the units of dietary energy are metabolizable energy and not gross energy. This is perhaps unfortunate because metabolizable energy is much more difficult to determine than is gross energy.
and
> Of course, the increased energy expenditure associated with increased protein intake also does not violate the laws of thermodynamics, because the energy is conserved. It does, however, come close to the spirit of the argument that a calorie is not a calorie, because feeding diets that induce a difference in energy expenditure can introduce a difference in energy balance and thus a difference in weight loss. Of the macronutrients, only protein has been found to have this effect, but the magnitude of this effect is small and perhaps accounts for a 0.8-kg difference in weight loss between diet treatments over 12 wk
If this is your argument then we're just arguing semantics. The only thing that matters is energy expenditure and total metabolized energy intake (which is CICO!). Like people already understand that our bodies metabolize foods differently (like the meme about celery being negative calories) but broadly following the standard nutrition info is a damn good proxy on average for metabolized energy.
> is true because it's a tautology, but misses the point almost entirely.
I think it's meant to drive home the point is the only thing that actually matters is total energy expenditure and calorie intake. If you're not losing weight you need to eat less and exercise more and vice versa if you want to gain weight. There's really nothing else to it. Every diet just provides some structure that makes the process easier since our bodies don't like it.