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Your body is a machine that burns calories. Give it less calories and it will burn its calorie stores.

You are right that there are a lot of scams that complicate this fact as much as possible to get money from you.

But rest assured, if you calculate your TDEE (many simple calcs online), and food scale your calories (everything you eat) to a diet -500 under your TDEE, you will lose weight (or you are a perpetual motion machine).

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Yeah but it's meaningless. The struggle with losing weight comes from difficult to overcome hunger pangs.

Advising people about calorie restriction is the same as advising an alcoholic to just stop drinking. It's easy if you can do it but if you can you wouldn't have a problem to begin with. It is missing the problem entirely.

The good thing about calorie counting is that you can dial in the speed at which you want to lose weight. And then it becomes more about discipline than pushing through hunger.

But yeah, no matter what it is going to require mental effort.

Confidently incorrect. Body builds what it thinks it needs. Lifting weights? It will think you need muscles. Living sedentarily? It will think you are conserving evergy and you need fat reserves. Running daily? It will think all the needs are met and you need cognitive strength.

You are just restating what TDEE is.

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