"Sugar/carbs are not something readily available in human history..." This doesn't matter at all.
"...in the vast quantities we eat them today." THIS is what matters.
Net calories are king, regardless of diet macro composition.
"...in the vast quantities we eat them today." THIS is what matters.
Net calories are king, regardless of diet macro composition.
God, I hate hearing this.
Let me guess, you say "weight" as in "gain weight" and "lose weight"?
The problems is that nearly everyone...EVERYONE actually means "lose fat, maintain muscle" or "gain muscle, lose/maintain fat".
No one WANTS to gain fat. And when losing weight, no one wants to lose muscle. So talking about "weight" is stupid. And when you only talk about net calories, the only thing you can talk about is weight.
Macros matter when talking about "losing fat, maintaining muscle", "gaining lean muscle" or "recomposition". And the simple fact is that the ratio of macros greatly effects what you are going to do, regardless of total calories.
If you don't get that, you need to spend more time researching.
And also, for those that are extremely obese?
And what if your goal was to actually lose 50 pounds of fat, but losing muscle+fat you can't achieve your goal for 1+ year, but just targeting fat reduces that to 6-8 months. That gain in time is huge.
And, lastly, chances are that if you say "I don't care about losing muscle as well", you will if you actually achieve your goal of being a certain weight b/c you won't look like you thought (or perform as well in x activity as you would have thought). Muscle is a magical thing.
Calorie counting will probably have you losing weight, but reduction of carbs to protein for example will assist with weight loss better. Also protein is more useful to your body than carbohydrates.