Saying that losing weight is about less calories in versus than calories out is like saying that flight is about developing more lift than your weight. Yes, that's the general principle, but it glosses over all the hard parts.
Calorie counting is more than balancing a budget of calories over the length of a day.
It creates an ability to discriminate about foods and portion types - how many calories in an apple, a slice of bread, a cup of milk-coffee or a beer? I know all of these because I have slowly learned them over the course of months. It does make a change when you go shopping and when you pick the size of your portion.
Also, it allows for intelligent management of cravings. For example, you have 500 calories left, and it's 16:00. You could eat a slice of pizza and that would be it. But you could also eat two slices of bread with cheese (250) and in the evening have a moderate snack of 250. You see, that's how you can play chess with your hunger. You can plan ahead, you can use your intelligence in a domain that was governed by blind impulse before.
You don't need to refrain from any type of food - you just have to couny it. Want french fries with steak while on a diet? Want some pizza? It's ok, but it's going to cost you. A beer (0.5l) is 180 calories - maybe some mineral water would be ok instead of the beer? But you can still have the beer, just have to eat less pizza. The fact that you can eat anything makes the regime more humane.
That's just something I deduced from my own experience.
TL;DR In time, better tracking and better planning become internalised and when you do stop counting, you're left with a bunch of good habits about eating that will protect you for the rest of your life.
What you deduce from your own experience does not generalize. Many genetic jackpot winners (eg the people who can eat anything the want, not exercise, and not gain anything) deduce from their experience weight control is a non-issue so fat people must be gluttonous.
I would argue the success you've had is more about altering the food types and less about counting the calories, and, if that's the case, why bother with the calories at all? That question is what TFA's studies are looking at.
> For example, you have 500 calories left, and it's 16:00. You could eat a slice of pizza and that would be it. But you could also eat two slices of bread with cheese (250) and in the evening have a moderate snack of 250.
"Intelligent management of cravings" naturally requires you to go beyond calorie counting to thinking about the impact of different kinds of food on your satiety. For example, instead of two slices of bread (160 calories), and a slice of cheese (90 calories), I'd instead do: 2 oz of lean roast beef or turkey (80-90 calories) wrapped around a slice or two of avocado (~50 calories) wrapped in a slice of cheese (90 calories) + half a cup of steamed veggies (= 25 calories). YMMV, but that would keep me from thinking about food a lot longer.
