I was 210, and lost 70 lbs by restricting my caloric intake (by eating vegan). I ate sugar during this time. I ate carbs.
Every single person I know who's overweight simply eats too much. They also are the first to tell you that its not as simple as eating too much. It is.
Sure, personal responsibility and all. That doesn't imply that a drug-pusher/dealer isn't an asshole.
The self-satisfied responses to your N=1 sample size study, just because it validates the commonly accepted nutritional orthodoxy is what makes me fear for the public policies that come out of this debate.
Now, I think those secondary considerations have a small impact on overall calorie consumption. For just about any food, a calorie measured by a bomb calorimeter is probably just about a calorie available to move the body, maintain the body, or stored in fat for later.
The body is a tough thing to study objectively.
The high variance is really besides the point, which is that if you are gaining weight, you are consuming too much for your current situation. You can either work to expend more, or reduce your intake, both of which are perfectly reasonable options.
There is no objective measure for eating too much, but it's also trivially easy to find out if you're eating too much for you.
Perhaps I should be more clear: Your body has mechanisms for defeating your ability to work to expend more (fatigue), and driving you to eat (cravings, hunger pangs). I'm not arguing with your basic premise: you must consume less then you expend. I'm arguing with your "calorie is a calorie" dogma. For insulin insensitive people (read: overweight people), 1 calorie of fat will satisfy you more (turning on the satiety mechanism) better then 1 calorie of sugar will.
Actually it's not. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolism