Adipose tissue retains an epigenetic memory of obesity after weight loss

The only true reliable way is to burn more than you eat. Counting calories is a way to keep track of that, but it's only going to be so-so accurate unless you only eat labeled food. I will certainly not measure the weight of a banana I eat, and anything else is just a very rough estimate as a banana can be twice the size of another banana.

In general, when I was losing weight I did not really need to count calories, I just ate less than I did. And this worked because I was always hungry especially initially, until the body adapts. If you're always going to check "can I eat this one more thing dear calculator" I'd say you're not really ready to lose weight because tormenting yourself like this every day you will burn out before you can make a dent.

> I will certainly not measure the weight of a banana I eat, and anything else is just a very rough estimate as a banana can be twice the size of another banana.

This is the wrong way to look at it. Sometimes you'll have a larger banana, sometimes a smaller banana, but overall it'll average out. What you need is consistency to compare to your own previous measurements, not perfect accuracy.

For example: By counting my calories and keeping track of my weight, I've learned that I burn about 2200 calories per day. If I went over my foods and measured them perfectly it probably wouldn't be that number, but because I'm consistent in how I measure it I can know with certainty whether I'm above or below that limit. I've been able to reliably control my weight for a few years now because of this and I'm not even measuring, just eyeballing how much of things I use.