You’re correct. I wonder what experience the other posters have. They probably think because they were obese and now they’re slightly less obese it means they’ve figured it out. It is not hard to lose weight if you’re fat. They seem to making arguments that while true hypothetically, don’t work in practice.

But when you’re lean and trying to get leaner your body goes apeshit. You’ll sit there freezing. Your body just doesn’t want to do anything. You can’t just function like you would normally on a normal amount of food. You’re thinking of food constantly and you’re not happy.

So yes it’s very easy to eat garbage at a 1000 calorie deficit when you weight 250 and watch the weight fly off. But when you get actually lean you’re gonna have to calibrate your food precisely and find the macronutrient balance that leaves you the least miserable.