I agree it has to be a permanent change.
But, should calorie counting be permanent? What you are recommending is that people turn their lives into one long math problem. That may work for people who are mathematically inclined, but it won’t work for everyone.
Again, when 95% of people fail to accomplish a goal using a specific approach (in this case calorie counting), then the problem is the approach, not the people.
Depends on how they do it. I refused to count calories, I just paid attention to intake quantity and quality while dramatically increasing exercise and burned off 65 pounds in a couple of year. And that’s permanent and I’ve kept it off for the most part (got a little weak last year, burning that back off this year). If my method was calorie counting then that’s what I’d be sticking to. If it was carb counting then I’d stick to that.
95% of people fail regardless of method. All diets have basically identical success rates. People need to find what works for them and understand that it has to be permanent so they REALLY need to find the method that works for them. One of my co-workers burned off twice as much as I did in half the time. We compared notes and I knew I could never do what he did, too much giving up foods I dearly love, WAY too much gym time, I’d have given up in 2 weeks. Drug and alcohol rehab suffers from the same problem, all the various programs have nearly identical sadly small success rates.
I always tell people that the first step in any major life change is “know who you are”, because that’s the ground you have to work with. If you’re not a calorie counter don’t follow a calorie counting diet. If beer and bread are serious sources of life joy for you stay far away from all the Atkins variants. Every person has a method that will work for them, the question is can they find it. I went on my path reading a lot of websites, ignoring stuff that made me groan, remember stuff that I thought I could live with. I basically wound up creating a numberless version of Weight Watchers, which works for me because I can handle life in a fuzzy math world filled with reminding myself that I know better. Other people can’t live in a world where they don’t order onion rings because they love onion rings and won’t stop when they’re sated (yes that’s an actual rule of my diet, I only get onion rings if the rest of the meal will be small or I’m committed to extra exercise, I can leave fries on the plate).