[planetguy]

Yes as and no. Fundamentally weight gain/loss really is a matter of calories in vs calories out; if you're burning more calories than you're consuming then you're gonna be losing weight. It's akin to saying that all you need to do to win at golf is to hit the ball really hard towards the hole -- true, but not necessarily good advice.

The reason sometimes we put too much emphasis on the basic-thermodynamics side of things is that we're busy fighting a war against dumb fad diets.

But once you acknowledge the basic calories in vs calories out principle, you can start thinking about what foods make it easiest to maintain a caloric deficit. Even the most 'traditional' of health authorities acknowledge that this is a factor, which is why they won't say "Hey, whatever, eat three slices of chocolate cake a day and nothing else". The first factor is making sure you get sufficient nutrition along with your calories, the second is making sure you feel full while maintaining a caloric deficit. There's a growing acknowledgement that low-carb diets can help with both of these.

This study suggests a third factor: that eating a low-carb diet can actually boost your base metabolic rate. How? Not sure. It would be interesting to see whether it gets replicated in a larger scale study.

[rprasad]

Other studies have explained/tried to explain how the low-carb diet (i.e., Atkins) work. The basis gist of those studies is that the body burns fat reserves instead of carbs. Burning fat requires more energy than burning carbs, which increases the body's BMR.