> Given the observational evidence that it doesn't work
I think you need to be very careful about your language choice here.
Physics says it has to work. Every athlete on earth knows it works. Everyone that has ever been in a prison camp, concentration camp or had their calories restricted outside of their control knows it works.
It absolutely, factually, 100% works. Our entire understand of mammals and energy depends on it working.
What you are saying, is that people are unable to exercise enough self-control to actually consume less calories. If they did, it would work. But they don't.
That's like saying "pointers in C don't work" because when many people try they get seg faults.
I really don't think it's constructive to say "CICO doesn't work" when what you mean is "many people find CICO difficult to implement, because having the self-control/will power/determination/control to do that is hard."
I became heavily involved in weight watchers (which is essentially just CICO - their "points formula" is basically calories/50). Over many years I watched hundreds of people lose hundreds of pounds by being careful about what they ate. It was hard. There were a lot of tears, there were a lot of false starts and plateaus and hard times. The people that stuck with it had incredible transformations and live different lives now. My room mate at the time lost almost 200lbs and became head of the WW in that city and when I saw her after 10 years I did not recognize her at all, and actually refused to believe it was her for 5 minutes.
CICO absolutely works. Like most things worth doing in life, it's hard. And it's worth it.
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