[HyperSane]

People are notorious for underestimating how many calories they are eating. Modern food is so cheap and delicious it isn't hard to eat 1000 calories in a few minutes. I lost weight by only eating food with accurate calorie information available that I could weight to the gram. I then used MyFitnessPal to track it and keep a 1000 calorie/day deficit.

[eyelidlessness]

I’m eating basically the same food, basically the same quantities, and I did start paying attention to the calories. Amusingly I started paying closer attention when I was worried about losing too much weight, and when I found myself frequently craving sweets (which I very seldom have since I was a kid).

[phil21]

The simple act of tracking things - even with no intent to change - typically makes me eat far less, or do the activity far more. Anecdotes with friends makes me believe this is quite common.

There is literally no way to take in more calories than you expend and not gain weight - short of hyper-specific and exceedingly rare medical conditions you'd be quite aware of.

Some people find this easier or harder than others due to a whole host of factors. Physics is physics though, and there is no way to run a calorie deficit and not lose weight. It's why this drug class is so interesting/popular - it lowers the bar for many people, making the effort of taking in less calories than they expend much easier to achieve.

[eyelidlessness]

> The simple act of tracking things - even with no intent to change - typically makes me eat far less, or do the activity far more.

When I started tracking things so closely, I was already concerned that I’d been losing weight and feeling very strong cravings for sweets which I don’t usually care for. The effect wasn’t that I ate less: I started making an effort to eat more, again much like I used to eat. The biggest change is that eating enough has been a concerted effort rather than fairly automatic.