Addressing the naysayers.
This article should quiet them. They're wrong to attack low carb. If the beef is long term weight management, that applies to every type of diet. In the late 50s a heavily cited study concluded 95% of all dieters gain back the weight. This was long before Dr. Atkins came along. The news has barely been more encouraging over the past half century, but there's some research with up to 20% maintaining significant results. How the weight was lost wasn't significant to who maintained the loss. Long-term weight management studies are rare.
Afaik, only two long have been published in the half decade or so since I've cared.
Here's one, a four year follow up. While the results may not be exciting, the low carb dieters did sustain the most successful long term weight loss. Their health markers were improved as much as the balanced dieters and better than the low fat dieters. The other study (out of England, but I can't find it this morning) had almost identical results, again the low carb group had the most long term success. The results are not significant beyond noting low carb dieters do not face greater long term challenges or health risks.
Back to anecdotes. All you have to do is peruse the many giant diet forums online to find tons of low carb success stories. It's probable there's more low carb success than other methods because of popularity. There's no reason to bag on someone going this route. As long as the goal isn't life long ketosis and the person isn't becoming a carbo-phobic dolt, the trolling is pretty ######. Someone's trying to improve. For me, low carb is key in maintaining a 100 pound loss for several years. When my weight creeps near 210, I go ketogenic for a couple weeks. Having experience and comfort with massive food elimination (carbs) has taught me discipline. I think that's an advantage for low carbers long term. We have this keto tool and know how to use it, much like professional fighters use it to make weight. Of course, I drink beer, eat pizza, had pie this week, and apples, bananas and potatoes. Still 197 this morning.
Weight loss
is easier for many with carb restriction. If my first link didn't convince you, you're fooling yourself. Weight maintenance is about calorie restriction regardless of macros and regardless of how the weight was lost.
I could easily start cherry picking experts and bag on calorie counting (MFP). It didn't work for me. I'm just not the type to plug everything into some calculator. It felt ocd. I'm not that organized. I think I have an internal counter from being fat and fighting it for so long before finally succeeding. But MFP works for a lot of people, so that makes it awesome, imo. All weight loss attempts experience more failure than success, so they're all easy to criticize.