> Only because most people who count calories actually don't.

There are two slightly different questions:

- how much weight is lost assuming perfect compliance

- how much weight is lost assuming the compliance of the average people

If I am interested in losing weight, I want to know what will work for me, a measly sack of meat with imperfect discipline, imperfect information and so on.

It’s like saying walking on a tight rope though a canyon is not dangerous - assuming you perfectly go through one edge to another. Sure, it’s trivially true. Not very informative though.