There is only one way of losing weight or fat the natural way and that's having more energy output than input. In short, you need to have an energy difficency. It's essentially basic thermodynamics. There are two parameters that influence this, which are the amount of energy spent and the amount of energy absorbed.
The amount of energy you spend is quite fixed. Men burn about 1500 to 1900 Kcal without doing anything else. Your body is heated, repairs to organs and tissues are being made and food is digested. If you go about your daily business and move about another 300 to 400 Kcal is added to that. This is where the requirements of approximately 1900 to 2300 Kcal a day for a grown man comes from. Most typical sports burn about 400 Kcal an hour if done enthusiastically. This differs from sport to sport, but 400 Kcal an hour seems to be a fairly common figure for active sports. Even if you exercise with quite some vigor for an hour a day every day, you see that it only represents a small fraction of the total energy spent. Moreover, research indicates that people working out compensate their energy burn by eating more. It's a natural impulse, as the body requires repairs and is trying to replenish the energy lost. The conclusion is that even if you dedicate one or more hours a day every day to sports, you will only influence the energy spent versus absorbed balance in a modest way. To quote an article: "Essentially, you’d need to run seven to 10 miles a day to lose one pound a week, says Holly Lofton, M.D., an assistant professor of medicine and director of the weight management program at New York University's Langone Medical Center. The average person can’t keep this up, especially without increasing their caloric intake."
What you say about intake vs expenditure is true, but the human body is far more complex than that. A reduction in intake, partly compensated for by a reduction in basil metabolic rate. The body starts to slow down, reducing its temperature, heart rate etc. to save energy. Exercise helps to counteract the reduction in BMR, as well as burning extra energy.
And what's wrong with losing weight really slowly? Fair enough running the equivalent of 10 miles per day may not be realistic, but 5 miles is and losing 0.5lb per week is a perfectly realistic and healthy. Slower is better, as there's less chance of the body compensating for the energy deficit.
The second part of the equation is the energy intake and that's where things become interesting. What you eat is almost entirely up to you. Of course, starving yourself significantly is unhealthy and causes the body to respond in counterproductive ways if it senses it needs to go into survival mode, but rather than only having a crummy 20% scale to play with, you essentially get 100% of the scale on this side of the equation.
No, you don't have 100% of the scale to play with on the other side of the scale, not to lose weight sustainably and safely. I'd say you probably have even less, than 20%. The body is very sensitive to a reduction in energy intake.
Food is incredibly energy dense, so eating too much quickly leads to an energy surplus. A single slice of pizza or chocolate muffin can offset that hour of vigorously exercising. You can eat a perfectly balanced diet when it comes to nutrients while still overeating on the caloric side. There's simply too much going in for what's going out. Your own reports confirm this: a healthy and balanced diet without intake restriction didn't work. It's not genetic, it's input versus output.
Yes it is genetic. I was eating according to my appetite signal, which is something I do not control and is a product of my genes. I don't monitor how much oxygen my body uses and there's no point in doing the same for food. It just isn't healthy! I've been there, done that and suffered the consequences!
Restricting your food intake is how you achieve a healthy weight, provided you don't overdo the deficit and assure you take in all the essential vitamins, minerals and other stuff your body needs. The minor deficit we're talking about won't lead to cravings or binge eating. It's creating huge and sudden deficiencies that does that, or maybe a complete and total lack of the most basic self-control and discipline. A kilogram of fat represents about 7000 Kcal of energy, so having a daily deficit of a few hundred calories will burn off the excess slowly but surely. Some recommend going as far as 500 Kcal a day. Exercising an hour a day every day takes quite a bit of dedication to pull off, while reducing your energy intake by a similar amount is trivially done.
No, even minor reductions in energy intake results in cravings, in the long term. I've tried to diet down to a healthy weight and it just didn't work, over the long term and it had nothing to do with lack of will power!
500Kcal per day will certainly result in binge eating. Experiments have been conducted in the past which prove this. Lower energy deficits, over longer periods of time, are more tolerable, but do eventually lead to cravings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Starvation_ExperimentYour figures are all correct. Food is energy dense and exercise does result in in increase in energy intake, but the idea that restricting energy intake will result in a healthy weight, long term is flawed. It ignores the psychological and practical aspects of healthy eating. What happens if you've exhausted the number of calories in your food plan, yet you're still hungry? Do you eat a bit more and reduce the figure for the next day or go to bed hungry? Neither options are good.
Finally I want to note that exercising is a very good idea. It is an excellent way of setting yourself up for a longer, healthier and happier life. Losing weight through exercise alone isn't very viable, but it certainly can complement a proper dietary regime.
My personal experience tells me otherwise. I've tried restricting my calories, carbohydrate, fat etc. intake in the past, suffered from disordered eating and it only resulted in further weight gain, long term. Now, I eat intuitively, without restriction and still maintain a healthy weight, because I exercise regularly my body is in good shape. If I need to eat more, my appetite increases. If I need to eat less, my appetite decreases.
It's true body weight, is affected energy intake vs expenditure, but if you have a healthy body, an active lifestyle and eat a balanced diet, your body will manage you energy intake vs expenditure for you. No one counted calories, before the obesity epidemic, yet few people were overweight, so it clearly isn't the solution to the problem.