I think different things work for different people. When I lived in Melbourne I put on way too much weight and started to lose it when I moved to Cairns. To begin with I tried the balance thing and calorie counting but it just wasn't working.
See; to me even that - unless you are an athlete on a mission for sporting success - is not needed.
In saying that, if you combine calorie counting with a decent variation of some serious exercise programs then you will get there.
You never need to go hungry in your life and can still remain in shape.
Again, I am talking from experience and having known literally thousands of people from obscenely thin, to obscenely fat.
To gain weight represents imbalance - imbalance of quantity, of variety, and exercise...usually a combination of all 3.
For the vast majority of folks the imbalance is usually the variety and exercise. ..poor food selection and not enough exercise.
I have a number of friends who are as fit as fiddles, and eat more food than a blue whale.
In short; they are burning it all off. They are not necessarily eating all the "correct" things either.
One of my mates for example will often eat 3 hamburgers and a chocolate milkshake. Has been known to eat two family sized pizzas in one sitting. And so on - no fat at all, because he is constantly doing something; usually sport related. Very rarely sits around doing nothing.
The average Australian adult goes nowhere near close enough to burning off anything.
But they delude themselves that they are.
No offense girls, but I see a number of "walking club" groups around our place - all women - and for the most part they are overweight by varying degrees. They are merely wandering around at an easy pace, chatting profusely and never raising a sweat. It's quite cute.
If they are out there to lose weight; they are wasting their time. The sad part is they probably think they
will lose weight from it, but I'd wager the diet is still cr@p, and the physical effort is stunningly falling short.
No doubt it is a combo of social interaction as well I would say.
Look at Chrissy Swan on "Get me Outta Here!" she is enormous, and was lamenting early on in the show how her life had gotten so busy with kids and work, etc and had made it hard to keep weight off etc.
Now she is sitting in a camp with literally nothing to do all day every day.
Haven't seen her do a single stroke of exercise in 3 weeks of the show - not one walk, or push-up - nothing.
Conversely; look at a true "power walker" (my wife is one) - usually on their own, or with one other - and going like bats out of hell at almost running pace.
(of course; there is that element of society who are fat who have given up and look for other excuses such as "my genes"
)