[PeterisP]

Yes, that's the whole point. Advice "Eat less, move more" does not work because people won't follow that advice, so it's ineffective advice and we need something better.

The appropriate measure for effectiveness of public health recommendations is whether the recommendations get results. It doesn't matter if simply eating less and moving more would get results, if advising people "eat less, move more" does not result in them actually eating less and moving more.

It's not useful to compare diet A with diet B, you need to compare the effect of "tell people to follow diet A" versus "tell people to follow diet B", because the likelihood of actually following the advice (influenced by ease, convenience, and compatibility with natural urges) is probably the most important part that determines what results (if any) it will achieve.

If one system or diet is much more difficult to follow than another, if "it takes a LOT of effort and discipline" then that's a serious limitation, a legitimate flaw of that system or diet. It's worthless to evaluate the effect of a process that almost nobody will do.

And this is a key argument in favor of the keto diet - that people who don't manage to achieve a calorie reduction through simply eating less or calorie counting find it easier to get a calorie reduction through this system, because it better aligns with our normal satiety mechanism.