> I can say to make money "buy low, sell high" but of course it is not that simple.
It is exactly that simple, it's just not easy.
> Dieting has all sorts of psychological and physical factors that vastly complicated the picture.
They make the task more difficult, they don't make the task more complicated.
I'm not saying that eating less calories than you burn is easy for people with weight issues, but it is a very simple concept to understand and work towards.
The task is complicated, since it asks for a constant choreography of the mind needing to remember to be mindful of what the body eats in a situation that is clouded by suppressed feelings regarding food. Untrained, the mind tries to constantly downplay the positive impact of the diet and tries to focus on the immediate reward of eating food.
Something can only be seen as difficult if you have a clear view of the task at hand. Chopping wood or solving equations might be difficult. Something is complicated when the mind needs many different tactics to solve a problem. Solving equations and the understanding and acting upon multiple feedback loops is difficult.
People suffering from weight problems often cannot comprehend their whole problem. Understanding the products that are eaten will focus on perception, therefor clarifying over time the big picture. It's like asking a gambler to calculate the odds of every bet he makes. Soon, the math becomes more important than the winning, thus freeing the sufferer from the emotions that are attached to food.
Another way of seeing the complications involved with food problems is by understanding that most of the food we eat nowadays is processed. For example, we tend to eat the carbs but not the fibers. This unbalances millions of years of natural evolution and allows for exorbitant high levels of insulin without feeling saturated. Counter-acting these processes that happen partly inside and partly outside our mind is a complicated process that takes years or decades of someones life.
It is exactly that simple, it's just not easy.
> Dieting has all sorts of psychological and physical factors that vastly complicated the picture.
They make the task more difficult, they don't make the task more complicated.
I'm not saying that eating less calories than you burn is easy for people with weight issues, but it is a very simple concept to understand and work towards.