“For the vast majority of people, losing weight, and gaining the benefits from doing so, is simply a matter of calories in vs. calories out.”
Sell that to someone who hasn’t been on a lot of diets in his life. I have. And your advice SUCKS.
“The First Law of Thermodynamics” has NOTHING to do with dieting. Or animal bodies. You can making dieting easy and effective, or make it incredibly hard and ineffective. I’ve been there and know the difference.
You REALLY need to understand the difference our hormones make. Hormones control much of how our body processes stuff. Insulin has a huge effect on weight gain and fat storage. Please learn more about how animals work and stop citing a “law” that doesn’t have anything to do with animal bodies.
Maybe it's your diet that sucks. You cannot burn more energy than you consume and gain weight. You may not like the laws of thermodynamics, but that won't change them. You can blame weight gain on hormones, enzymes, insulin, a fat gene or sunspots, but that won't change the fact that you can't get something from nothing.