- many people can cut from a diet of 2200 calories per day to 1800 calories per day and pretty quickly and sustainably lose weight. This kind of calorie reduction is very manageable, and anyone who has lost weight this way starts saying “it’s just CICO man, so easy, just do it”
- meanwhile, in order to lose weight, some (probably not huge but very real) amount of people who maintain at 2200 calories need to drop to 1000 calories per day, or even lower, consistently, for months, in order to lose weight at a 0.5 lb/wk. This is miserable, not sustainable, and probably a net negative on your life (damage not worth the weight loss) unless you are morbidly obese.
The people in category 1 yell “you’re just coping, it’s not hard, just CICO” at group 2. Meanwhile they have never had to reduce calories in that way and have no idea how unsustainable it is. They are so sure their experience is universal, that they usually utterly deny the other groups existence, and smugly go about the world assuming people struggling with weight are just weak.