When people say, "Dieting doesn't work," they almost never describe their dieting approach. How can all dieting be the same? In the majority of cases, people crash diet; they run an 800–1,000 kcal deficit, lose some weight early on, experience hair shedding and anxiety, weakness etc..., become irritable and miserable, and give up after a few weeks or a month or two. Then they blame dieting.
They don't say, "My dieting approach failed," but "Dieting doesn't work." It's like scoring 10/100 on a math exam and saying, "Math doesn't work." Brother what? Everyday math is being by people with lot of success. Dieting is being used by MMA pros for weight cuts, natural bodybuillders, actors, models, 100s of thousands of ordinary people on fitness subs like r/caloriedefict r/naturalbodybuilding r/CICO
Very few people accept that maybe there is a flaw in their dieting. There are experienced people who study this stuff for years; how can I, as a newbie, learn all this in a short period of time, fail, and claim that dieting doesn't work?