"Just less food overall" never works. There are 2 diets that work for weight loss: 1) High-fat, low carb. 2) High-carb, low fat.

Stick to one of those and keep the fat-to-carb ration in a 1:6 or 6:1 ratio based on what you pick (this ration comes from the eg Japanese eating 6x carbs for each 1g fat).

This is why opposing diets like carnivore or the potato diet both work, despite them being on the opposite extremes of the high fat vs high carb spectrum.

But god help you if you mix fats and carbs in the same amount...

The randle cycle is the likely explanation.