"No one giving honest diet advice should tell people not to worry about the calories they consume if the individual has the goal to increase, lower or maintain their weight."
That's not realistically true. If I watch actual calories, I wind up hungry all the time because I spend so much time thinking about food. On the other hand: I can do things like make sure I eat enough vegetables. Replace some meat with veggies or legumes. With some things, I can use less fat than my mother would have. Eat slightly smaller servings, change the items I eat for food during the day, or wait just a little bit before having the snack so I don't wind up eating two snacks instead of one.
The end result is that I'm changing out higher calorie stuff with lower calorie stuff without actually worrying about the calories I take in. You simply need to know that some things are lower in calories than other, and that's not exactly "worrying" - and it definitely isn't counting. And this was based on honest advice from folks. It also means that this is a way to actually change a diet: Few folks want to count calories for the next few decades of their life, after all.
these arguments aren't at odds. In fact, your strategy is an excellent way to diet with calorie counting. One of the best ways to improve satiety in a hypocaloric setting is by replacing high calorie density foods with low calorie density foods (such as vegetables and fruits, as you mentioned).
You still need to count calories for maximum accuracy and efficiency of weight loss, but it doesn't have to be as painful as eating one big mac and fried a day and starving the rest of the day since you hit your calorie limit
> for maximum accuracy and efficiency of weight loss
That's the point though... "ain't nobody got time for that" is the reason most of us fail at high performance diets. We need the simplest, most minimal first step which can become habit (and which also likely leads to _some_ weight loss, even if not maximum). Once that very significant behavior is changed (choosing better foods), then it can be refined.
That's not realistically true. If I watch actual calories, I wind up hungry all the time because I spend so much time thinking about food. On the other hand: I can do things like make sure I eat enough vegetables. Replace some meat with veggies or legumes. With some things, I can use less fat than my mother would have. Eat slightly smaller servings, change the items I eat for food during the day, or wait just a little bit before having the snack so I don't wind up eating two snacks instead of one.
The end result is that I'm changing out higher calorie stuff with lower calorie stuff without actually worrying about the calories I take in. You simply need to know that some things are lower in calories than other, and that's not exactly "worrying" - and it definitely isn't counting. And this was based on honest advice from folks. It also means that this is a way to actually change a diet: Few folks want to count calories for the next few decades of their life, after all.