[armchairhacker]

It depends: yes for a 6-foot active male but no for a 5-foot old sedentary woman. Plenty of people feel full on 1200 and lose weight at a reasonable pace, but they are pretty much all short women. “1200 calories is a myth” is the wrong message.

The real issue IMO is that dieting should never leave you perpetually hungry, genuinely fatigued, or exerting tons of willpower. There is this perception that losing weight is hard. And it can be “hard” like setting a routine or taking a class. But it shouldn’t be hard physically. Because 99.9% of humans simply can’t exert that much willpower over a long period of time.

If you’ve tried a diet for a few weeks (because your body might have to adjust) and you don’t think it’s sustainable, it’s not sustainable and you need to try something different. If you’ve tried cutting calories via whole foods, volume eating, high-protein, intermittent fasting, and keto, and nothing feels sustainable, you should get lab work / a thyroid panel and see your doctor for medication. Constant fatigue and apathy, 24/7 hunger (not just before meals), loss of sex drive, and significant decrease in mood stability are all signs of genuine hunger.

[CogitoCogito]

> The real issue IMO is that dieting should never leave you perpetually hungry, genuinely fatigued, or exerting tons of willpower. There is this perception that losing weight is hard. And it can be “hard” like setting a routine or taking a class. But it shouldn’t be hard physically. Because 99.9% of humans simply can’t exert that much willpower over a long period of time.

The success of dieting strategies are extremely specific to the individual. I've personally only had success with low-calorie diets that always leave me hungry. I hit it head on and try to accept the state of hunger instead of avoiding it.

I'm not arguing that this sort of strategy isn't statistically worse than others in general, but that there are many people for which such a strategy is the most effective anyway.