I'm talking specifically about weight loss. During a maintenance phase, I believe that there are certain biological responses that may kick in, that allow individuals to maintain weight while eating fewer calories than usual. Hence the restrictive diet people, who eat 30% fewer calories than their maintenance levels and more or less maintain their weight. Usually this is attributed to a decrease in BMR during off hours so that their bodies conserve energy when no demands are made on it. And it seems to me that over time, those on long term calorie restriction will gradually lose weight until a balance is re-established. Which is why those on this type of diet in the long term are quite, quite slender. It takes time, but I believe it DOES happen. It may also account for weight loss plateaus, which are temporary in nature, during a weight loss process. But if you keep at it, you won't maintain, say, 250lbs on 1200 calories a day forever. So I suspect that if you keep up your routine for, say, a year, you WILL see some weight come off, even in you are at a maintenance level, until you reach a balance. And if you severely restrict your calories as anorexics do, you will eventually die. Again, a result of calories in vs calories out.

And in a maintenance phase, one is trying to find the exact teeter-totter balance between calories in vs calories out, where you are in stasis, the nitty gritty and the details become much more important. I think it might be easier in the weight loss phase because it is quite simple to just get that teeter-totter over to one side. But finding the perfect balance, where you know what goes IN, your personal BMR, the effects of exercise and so on, would be quite difficult. I can tell you, I'm going to find that part of my journey quite challenging! But I can hardly wait to get there!!!

I was only addressing the OPs question about losing weight (is it as simple as calories in vs calories out) and if you have lots to lose, as I did, I believe that it is this simple, and just an observation that the more I obsesses about the minor details during the weight loss phase, the less I was able to focus on losing the weight. And there appears to be an almost inverse relationship between the degree to which one obsesses about the little things and the amount of weight actually lost. Not politically correct to say, I'm sure, but just a personal observation, because I used to be there. And amongst all of my friends in my similar situation, this type of inverse relationship almost always holds true, too.


Kira

I think the calorie differential may be a "tree," but it may be a much larger tree for some people. It actually is possible for someone who has quite a lot of weight to lose, to have difficulty losing on a high-carb diet. On 1800 calories of high carb, I lose less than 1 lb a week - usually much less. On 1800 calories of very low carb, I lose 5 to 6 (but the carb level has to be much lower than I think is healthy, as I also feel a bit dizzy and light headed).

That's more than a small, insignificant difference, it's a pretty big tree. So my solution has been to try to find a compromise, and I'm having such difficulty doing so that I'm rethinking my hesitancy to follow a stricter low carb diet, because I lose consistently on a low carb diet, and do not on a high carb diet (and even sticking religiously to it, find myself unbearably hungry).

It should in theory be impossible for me to maintain my current weight on 2200 calories, but on high-carb food choices, it's happening. I even considered the possibility that I was eating in my sleep and started looking for unexplainable food disappearance. So unless I was driving to McDonald's and hiding the evidence before driving home (all while asleep - and there was no unexplained money absences either), my body has been doing the impossible.

It's a pretty big "tree" when my metabolism shuts down that thoroughly. If it were a matter of losing 2.0 lbs per week on low carb, verses losing 1.5 lbs on high carb - heck if it were a matter of losing 1 lb, vs 1/2 a lb, I wouldn't worry about the difference either. But we're talking about my metabolism slowing by a much more significant factor.

If given the choice between eating 1800 calories and eating 900 calories, I don't think it's a "tree" to choose 1800.

Okay...yes, I certainly see this as a factor. I think that it needs to be said that losing weight is a mental game as well.