Interesting post, the author can be proud. Not being from the united states, and now living there since one year , here is my 2 cent , I think these are the most important points of the post and my own advices:

- Drink water only, no soda, even diet coke and whatnot.

- Avoid sugars (I'd say especially high corn fructose syrup).

- Eat vegetables, cooked in good olive oil in a pan, it's really good. I don't know about other oils, the Mediterranean lifestyle with olive oil works great, and olive oil tastes better.

- Avoid too salty food (preprocessed food will be too salty.)

- Sleep well, stop watching at screens (TV/computer/ipad) an hour before sleeping. reading a book before going to sleep is great.

Attempting to reduce the problem to : >" it's basically a physics problem (calories_in < calories_out to lose weight)" is completely wrong I think, the "Try eating 2,000 calories of pasta versus 2,000 calories of chicken" comment speaks by itself.

I disagree with the " “listen to your body, and eat when it is hungry, not because it is a certain time” routine. " Stick to regular hours for eating, breakfast, meal and dinner. But the most important is not to eat in between the meals. If you eat good food you won't even feel hungry

Finally, stop trying to measure everything, relax.