See but I think we’re both actually saying the same thing. The amount of factors that go into calories in vs calories out, essentially makes it unusable. Just looking at calories as a base whole product, not the individual piece of food and the nutrients it provides, is mad. By that rationale you could just live on oranges. They’re calories, or junk food. Calories.

It’s not calculable, how one individual body absorbs, processes, and then manufactures the essential nutrients it needs, from “calories”. It’s essentially saying how much food in vs how much food burning out. But that’s not how fat is turned from fat to energy consumption, by the human body. It has nothing about the essential needs of the body.

It’s a myth perpetuated by diet industry that only keeps you on the hamster wheel of weight loss and, for most people not genetically gifted, never really works. Or only works short term but then your body goes into survival mode, and stacks it all, and more, back on.

Here’s a an article that might help say things better than I am. https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2023/07/05/its-time-to-bust-the-calories-in-calories-out-weight-loss-myth.html