Originally Posted by [Focus]

Hahaha. That's brutal. There's a reason I don't bother arguing with people on the internet. Nobody actually wants to learn anything, they just want to spout their poorly-conceived rhetoric. Both sides think they are objectively correct. Problem is, there is no objective "right".

Having said that, low (under 50g/day) carb diets are effective for a number of purposes. Some people are just as narrow minded in decrying their efficacy as your ignorant friends are at touting it, but the fact remains that calories in vs. calories out is still usually the primary consideration in fat loss.

This does not mean, however, that those women are not seeing results. There's a documented (mostly anecdotal, but meh) auto-regulation of the appetite effect that occurs for many people on a ketogenic diet. (It has to do with the relative absence of insulin and some "dependent" "hunger hormones"). So it is entirely possible that they can eat "as much as they want (because this ends up being less than their maintenance)" and lose fat. Are they seeing optimal results, though? Of course not. Intellectual arrogance has always been the enemy of knowledge.