If your goal is only to reduce weight, reducing calorie intake works. Losing weight is a giant red herring anyway, though. A lot of people that say that want to lose weight really just want to be more healthy and fit. They don't want to be lugging around a sack of fat all day long.

In any case, I've found it far easier to manage my calorie intake when I have an extra 1000 calories/day to work with. For people who just eat because they have to, that might work. But I love food, and I think most people do as well.