Comment by dahart

Ah I wish we’d gotten to this earlier, you make some great interesting points we could talk about more. I think I should bite my tongue though, because my narrative isn’t helping you, and all I wanted to do was be helpful, especially for people who are where I used to be. That might not be you, I just want to say this in a way that would have convinced a younger me earlier. The only thing I’ll say here that is that fad diets are fundamentally different from setting a budget, I completely and totally agree that most fad diets are bullshit, especially the ones on Instagram. Keto has a pretty poor long term outcome rate, for example. The whole point of a diet is to avoid setting a budget, which is the main reason they have low success rates.

I like the way you put it, it’s okay that we don’t know everything, and you’ll have to try a bunch of stuff. That really is at the core of what I was trying and failing to say. :) We don’t actually know how gravity works, but we use it anyway. I made an analogy to PID controllers in another comment, maybe that’s a better way to describe calorie I/O; PID controllers know nothing about the thing they control other than it’s output, and yet they are an extremely useful tool.

My wife reminded me of a book that might interest you and might have pointers to some of the research you’re looking for. “The Secret Life of Fat: The Science Behind the Body's Least Understood Organ and What It Means for You“ by Sylvia Tara.