Adding calories doesn't necessarily add weight

"When I started, the formula seemed simple to me. True, take more than you need, you gain weight. But I'm afraid it may be a bit more complicated than that, as data suggests. In my always humble opinion, anyone believing that the underlying problem of obesity is resolved by 'calorie restriction' is likely to be deceived, sooner or later."

I completely agree.  In order to agree with your observations, I've had to turn my brain around about 180 degrees from McDougall and Ornish after neither of those worked for problems I had.  In fact, I gained weight on both and on what traditional wisdom says is a healthy diet.  

Am reading "How I Gave Up My Low-Fat Diet and Lost 40 Pounds" which is very well researched and presents the myth of a low-fat, high carbohydrate diet.  (Egyptian mummies tell us that they had significant arthrosclerosis eating what is now recommended as a heart healthy diet.  And they didn't have white bread, sugar, or corn sweeteners either.)  Time and again in the research that the author presents, obesity and over weight has little to do with caloric restriction, it has to do with what and what combinations you eat.  I myself have lost over 40 pounds on a close to no carbohydrate diet, and I haven't been as careful as I should about fats either.  My blood work is the best its ever been with a cholesterol count of 179, HDL up, and LDL way down.

If you think that adding calories adds weight, then read this excerpt for the above book (which I also posted earlier in this thread):

"....I found many old nutrition texts advocating low carb.  For instance, Calories Don't Count, by Dr. Herman Taller, was fascinating.  It was published in 1962.  Dr. Taller got interested in low carb when one of his colleagues at the hospital suggested he try drinking polyunsaturated oil to lower his cholesterol.  He started dutifully gulping six ounces of vegetable oil a day.  Not only did his cholesterol drop - so did his weight!  And he'd added an extra 1,600 calories a day of pure fat!  Where does that fit into a low-fat diet?"