comment: >
  
  Yes, I can agree that a tasking requiring more willpower may be harder than one that doesn't. However, in my opinion, that doesn't make it an overall hard task.
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  I have a simple caveat [1], as well as some complicated disagreements [2].
  
  The simple caveat is that it depends on your starting point. I've lost 60 lbs so far and am now what most would consider "pretty fit." I'd like to lose another five pounds to really define my abs. Losing that last five pounds has been a bitch. When I was 200+, losing five pounds meant making minor adjustments. There was a lot of room for small errors, like cheat days and whatnot. But going from 155 to 150 requires some very serious dedication, and you can easily lose a week of progress with one poorly balanced meal.
  The complicated disagreement is that more and more science is suggesting that the entire appetite, hunger, metabolic system, etc. are all intertwined in a very complicated, endocrinologically active system. There are hormones and such at play that we still don't understand. The big takeaway for me is that people have vastly different experiences when it comes to this area. There is a fundamental hormonal system that science is just scratching the surface of understanding. So what might seem like "I'm hungry, but I can push through it" for you could easily feel for someone else that their entire body is screaming "we are actually starving to death and you need to eat NOW!!!" Just like some people have severe allergies (their immune system freaking out over something small) while others just get a little sniffle - the body is complicated and we are biased towards our own experiences. >
  
  I agree with you that weight loss can be more difficult the further you progress. !delta awarded
  Regarding your point about new research, that is a fair one. Although, I still think that as long as you eat in a decent deficit (not extreme so as your BMR plummets), you have to lose weight just by the laws of physics. of course, the rate of weight loss may vary based on person to person >
  
  
  as long as you eat in a decent deficit (not extreme so as your BMR plummets), you have to lose weight just by the laws of physics
  
  Thanks for the delta! I agree with you on this point. I edited my second point a few times, but the point I was trying to make is that science is suggesting that the body's reaction to that deficit varies drastically from person to person. Some people might have a harder time maintaining a deficit because their bodies start freaking out, giving them brain fog, hunger pains, etc. and then releasing a shit ton of dopamine and serotonin when they do eat high-calorie foods. So it makes the struggle to maintain a deficit more difficult for those people, compared to someone who's body has a more mild hormonal response. >
  
  thank you for sharing this, I will look more into it. If this is indeed the case, and an individual's neurotransmitter response can vary to even a slight caloric deficit based on their genetic makeup, then weight loss can indeed be quite difficult for some people. another !delta awarded! >
  
  I would encourage you to check out Maintenance Phase. They are a podcast that talks about the health and wellness industry. Their episode on the science/history of calories was super interesting and very educational. >
  
  I've been a bodybuilder well over a decade and while I generally agree with you, weight loss is hard for so many of the reasons you stated.
  At the core, yes losing weight is simply burning more calories than you eat. As easy as that sounds, it usually isn't. It's not just about finding time to exercise or choosing the salad over the burger; it's about making a genuine commitment to your health every day regardless of the ups and downs.
  Because of the degree of complexities, let's just talk diet. Ultimately weight loss is 80% kitchen anyway.
  This is where nuance comes in. If you commit every day to an absolutely perfect diet, you'll lose weight. But that means meal prepping and being extremely conscious of your RMR and daily expenditure.
  Most people who are 9-5 are actually usually working well over that, and while yes, I'd argue that everyone has time for say a 30 minute jog, how about you throw in young children. Now you're getting up to go to work, you have to get home, feed/entertain your kids; if you have the energy to do any sort of exercise after that you're in better shape than me and I lift 5 days a week and run every other day for 40 minutes. 
  More nuance; eating too little will cause muscle loss and slow your metabolism to a crawl. You'll see rapid loss then hit a plateau, as our bodies are literally designed to store as much fat as possible.
  Also every person's metabolism is different, there are different body types that hold/gain weight (and muscle) easier, and those that have trouble gaining weight (or muscle) as well. The principle is the same, but I've trained guys that are significantly smaller than me and I had them eating more than me before they saw any growth.
  The same goes for weight loss; some genetic makeups are just unfortunate in that their body really fights to keep weight.
  Ultimately you're correct. Weight loss isn't hard, but it's almost entirely mental. You need to reprogram your entire lifestyle from activity, to what you put in your body and make it a conscious part of your life. No one is really taught this and "deprogramming" any bad habits is extremely hard. Especially people with an unhealthy relationship with food. Most extremely obese people have a very toxic relationship with food, as bad as any other addiction you could literally make the analogy that they are food alcoholics.
  So while weight loss isn't hard, changing your brain to adapt to a completely new lifestyle is brutal.
  I don't think I've ever met someone who lost a huge amount of weight say it was easy. I've seen people lose 80 lbs+ and it was a battle the entire time. Not with their body, but with their habits, lifestyle and routine; and something that you have to commit to every day. Just brushing it off and saying "they aren't dedicated enough," is a massive oversimplification. Tell that to someone who needs to lose 150 lbs and has been eating a certain way for 20+ years. It's like telling a smoker of 20+ years to stop on the spot.
  Finally the inverse is the same. I always have people come up to me and ask how I got so jacked and "what's my secret." I'm usually about 220 lbs & 7-9% bf year round and "I" find that "easy." The reality? I'm meal prepping every Sunday, I plan my day around food and the gym. But I've been doing it for well over a decade, it's literally as much as part of my lifestyle as anything else. But it took years of commitment and dedication, setting "rules" for cheat days, rarely drinking, etc. Most people would find it obsessive or bizarre, but it's no more bizarre than any other daily ritual. So while I'm on the extreme spectrum, even finding that middle ground can be tough and the bigger someone is, the harder it is to break habits. Working out is harder, eating healthy food can actually make a really obese person with sugar addictions feel sick, etc.
  Weight loss is simple, but it's not easy. >
  
  I wanna amplify this one with an anecdote.
  I lost 70lbs by cutting out all the unnatural sugar(anything that wasn't literally a vegetable), and artificial sweeteners (they made me crave sugar). That took a whole year, and I was HYPER dedicated. I was also miserable, terrible to be around, and frankly a bit angry at all times because my will power was always at zero.
  I had to consciously say no to all the foods I loved on a daily basis for a YEAR. 
  Side note, if you're American, do a little test next time you go to a supermarket, look for food that lacks sugar, and artificial sweeteners. And when you're done in the meat section you'll see how monumental what I chose to do was. It was a fucking struggle, and I hated every second of it. It worked though.
  Until I stopped. I'm back up again, though not nearly as high. I'm doing a significantly less extreme version of what I did before but it's agonizingly slow. 
  Point being, OP is looking for not 1, but 2 different lifestyle changes. One for weight loss, and one for weight maintenance. >
  
  
  Point being, OP is looking for not 1, but 2 different lifestyle changes. One for weight loss, and one for weight maintenance
  
  And weight maintenance is the hardest part.
  A lot of people do crash diets, (keto, fasting, etc) and the problem with every one of those is it isn't sustainable. I know Reddit is a huge fan of keto, but it's not something you can (or should) do indefinitely, and the problem I've seen time and time again; people will lose the weight they want, start introducing carbs again then quickly gain back 50% only to repeat it endlessly.
  Losing weight and keeping it off, is committing forever to simply eating healthier and making an effort to be as active as possible. For most folks this is really fucking hard and takes years to form those habits to where it's second nature. To your point, everything is loaded with sugar. The trick for me is that I basically eat the same meals every day. But again, I view food very abnormally. I enjoy it, but most people would get dead tired of eating egg whites/Oates for breakfast, chicken/rice for lunch, and some sort of protein/vegetable/complex carb for dinner. Every. Single. Day.
  I'm making assumptions but my guess is OP is young and probably never struggled with weight and/or has the time/resources that "make it easy," so he's making the assumption "it's easy for me, why shouldn't it be easy for everyone?"
  I'm in my mid thirties and keeping weight off is like a part time job; rather I have to dedicate hours on Sunday to cooking meals for the week, then run 40 minutes on my treadmill before work, then lift 1-2 hours M-F; while my goals are different, (extreme) I can say that's going to be extremely difficult for 90% of the population. It's also basically a hobby as much as playing video games every night or whatever. I sacrifice a lot of my free time "to my hobby," but I'm single without kids and have a fairly regular career that allows me the time.
  But your average folks who are just getting by, working themselves to death, even committing to a balanced, clean meals day in and day out is quite difficult. >
  
  You described my issues perfectly.
  Though to be clear, when I did my crash diet, keto hadn't yet made it into the mainstream, it was the Atkins diet that I modeled mine after.
  It was a nightmare for me because I LOVE to explore new foods. I legitimately love trying new cuisine, and restriction is hard on you mentally when you're like that.
  It's not that I CAN'T lose weight, cause I currently am, it's just that it's constant.
  I'd give you a !delta but I'm not sure the rules let me do that when we agree lol >
  
  Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/SpoonyDinosaur (2∆).
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  I feel like there's something weird about how this is phrased. Given your caveats, you say:
  
  I feel that too many people just don't have proper dedication and drive, and end up either not making any progress or gaining weight back (after losing it) due to these reasons.
  
  But, given how many people "don't have proper dedication and drive", I feel like your title leads to a weird semantic question about what makes something "easy". If something takes more dedication and drive than a large chunk of the population has, why would we call that "easy" or "easier than people make it seem"? If a person doesn't have strong willpower, doesn't that make it hard? Is there actually a factual claim people are making that you think is wrong, or are we just arguing about the definition of "easier"? >
  
  I think the whole argument about "I don't have enough willpower" is a cop out answer. How much willpower does it take to eat 200 calories less than maintenance? There are much more harder things in life. >
  
  I dunno, for a lot of people, it seems to take a lot of willpower. There being "harder things in life" is certainly true, but seems kind of irrelevant. Can we at least agree that given two tasks, all else being equal the one that requires more willpower is harder?
  FWIW, it's extremely easy for me. But my experience is pretty clearly not the same experience that others have.