In my experience (former personal trainer at a big box gym in NYC, and current 3rd year medical student) tracking calories is by far the worst possible way to convince someone to lose weight. Let me explain why:

And here come the people literally proving my point.

“Your [genes are] going to determine what your muscle looks like,”

You know, that’s actually a really good point. I guess I was thinking of people like me that may have been sedentary/lightly active, but were otherwise proportional and healthy without any serious imbalances.