What I think is a dark horse that is more impactful than any of these factors in weight loss is what I’ve seen loosely referred to as a “metabolic set point”
I don’t have nearly the info or credentials to define it better but my own layman definition is a combination of things keeping your body “used to” and expecting a particular ratio of fat to muscle
Losing weight is so significantly less miserable when given enough time for the body to generate a new metabolic set point as homeostasis. When that happens, all of a sudden eating too much will make the body suggest eating less, while eating too little will bring a reasonable level of hunger. Not the ravenous, hollow, holy shit I can’t function I’m so hungry level of hungry which happens as the fat is being lost but before the body can settle into a new metabolic set point
I have felt this personally myself when I was able to shift to having consistently less fat than before and keep it long enough, but it took what felt like months
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=