jesus.... only count calories? that's even dumber. if anything that is how dumb teenage girls diet...
if you build muscle you need protein. you cant build any physique eating only potatochips
what you eat reflects your bodycomposition.
A calorie deficit does work. A couple springs ago I stuck with a net of 900cal. I had 2in on a dress zipper that wouldn't close. In a month I fit into the dress. This means that if I slipped up and ate 5 Oreos, I would spend an hour plus doing cardio.
It was miserable, but I reached my goal.
The problem with this was that I was still eating carbs and sweets and since I was a slave to the calories, I wanted to do cardio and no weights since I needed to meet a daily goal.
Now when I diet hard enough to hate myself (<800cal TOTAL, not net. Galeniko style), I see 2x better results. When I diet "responsibly" (variety of foods, low carb, <1100cal total) I'm only hungry for a couple hours before I go to bed.
So yes, a cal is a cal to lose weight. But fullness, bloatedness, those both make a huge difference in how you feel and look.