As long as your calories out => calories in, it shouldn't matter. Should it?

Yes. Food isn't only calories. If it was, we'd be able to live off of nothing but sugar water.

Food brings in not only calories, but various other nutrients that your body needs to keep itself in good condition. It can also bring in things that the body works hard to get rid of, and still do damage while they're being removed.

there are people that do live off sugar water! People in hospitals, people doing the master cleanse.

You really only need calories. It's a terrible life, and no fun, but you could live off sugar water + a multi-vitamin.

Well, not entirely, although I'm fairly sympathetic to this way of looking at things.

For balance you should be ideally looking at calories absorbed = calories burned.

Why use different words? Well, firstly we absorb calories differently for different food types - we certainly do not absorb the full 100% of all calories available in any food. So measuring 'calories in' becomes 'caloric intake * %absorbtion'. It'll actually be some sort of integral of this products for each foodtype that you consume.

And then there is the question of calories burned. If you really want to stay slim, the best way to do so is to burn more energy when at rest. Of course, the easiest way to achieve this is by training your body to burn energy by doing exercise. But it is important to note that the calories burned just to keep you alive generally exceed the amount you burn during exercise by a decent factor.

But all of this is really nit-picking. Your basic premise remains true, you just can't beat physics. Anyone that is depending on this sort of information to optimise their weight-loss program has missed the point. Your lifestyle should not be so close to making you gain weight that these factors play an important role.

I don't think it's quite fair that you're being modded down. Actually, yes, that's the main thing.

However, as you age, your calorie expense goes down dramatically at one point... for some it's around 25. Others it's around 35. Others, it never happens! But most people find that at some point they have to seriously decrease their intake of food (without changing their lifestyle otherwise) or else they get a spare tire pretty quickly!

Well actually I did have a slow down at around 23, but when I noticed it, I just increased my work out regiment w/o changing my diet.

To me, I'd rather enjoy my food and then just spend an extra 15 minutes at the gym to balance it out instead of sustaining myself with horrible tasting lumpy green goo

Junk food has a lot of calories. Are you sure you're burning those off?

well I'm 5'11 and weigh 170, so I would have to say yes?