Come now. It's a matter of physics that you can't make stuff from nothing, and you can't do things without energy.
That's not to say that body fat is strictly dependent on caloric intake, but to certain extremes, there's no way around that fact.
That's not to say that body fat is strictly dependent on caloric intake, but to certain extremes, there's no way around that fact.
What is calorie? Is is something? No! It is a unity of measuring heat. That's it! Doesn't matter at all.
Anything can become fat on your body, but what decides it is the hormones saying to your body "this will become fat, this will become muscle or blood or etc, and this is pee or poo".
Counting calories is a proxy at most. But people started to treat the proxy as thing in itself, which it isn't.
Over 100 years of hospital-ward, double-blind, clinical trial weight-loss research have ALL shown the exact same thing; Nothing comes remotely close to the effect calorie intake has on weight. The macronutrient content of diet (ie. low-carb, mostly sugar, or high protein) and meal timing has NO significant effect and is completely drowned out by the influence of calorie intake.
But of course that's boring and difficult. What sells books and adverts on Dr. Oz is "calories don't matter".
Okay then eat your recommended calories worth of cocopuffs for breakfast, since it's all about energy. Calorie counting oversimplifies the problem. Sure it might describe what is going on, but it can be a poor guide for a dieter trying to decide what to eat next.
I didn't say its ALL about energy, just that nothing comes close to the contribution of calories in weight-loss. The type of food you eat is completely drowned out by how much food you eat. So you CAN eat only cocopuffs and lose the exact same weight you'd lose eating a "balanced diet" consisting of the same # of calories (which means both diets contain the same amount of energy), although you risk becoming malnourished over time.
If a dieter's goal is to lose weight, the amount of food they eat (or more precisely the amount of food + amount of activity) is most important. This fundamental principle makes it easy to decide what to eat next. However if the goal is long term health, athletic performance, or growing muscle, then we need to modify how we choose. But it's really not that complicated for almost everyone; just eat mostly whole foods.