Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since it's relatively easy to eat 4000 kcal a day without trying (in fact, just by not trying to not do so), I can only imagine how much you must be eating. 6000 kcal? 8000?
It's relatively easy to eat 4000 without trying? How many meals do you consume a day and what do they consist of? When I did weight resistance training in tandem with intense cardio training five days a week it was still difficult to reach my needed caloric content (which hovered more or less around 4000). I mean, I'm not saying you're lying, but how is it easy for you?
To some degree, it takes acts of deliberate control several times a day, for years, for people who are biochemically prone to overeating, to eat a normal amount given a Western diet... on top of their actual psychological habits.
Aside from this, an obese person deals with larger caloric maintenance requirements in the first place, and views the world through the same hunger-tinted glasses that everyone else does when eating below these requirements in order to lose weight.
A Chipotle burrito with guac & sour cream, and a side of chips, with a 32oz root beer (& 1 refill), will run you about 2400 calories, and represents the approximate amount that in a past era, I was able to eat before getting a subtle, non-painful signal to slow down. Alternately: a normal bag of double stuff Oreos, 2100 calories, 2500 with a decent amount of milk. Nacho Cheese Doritos Family Size: 2400 calories, or 3200 with a 2L of Coke. Digiorno Rising Crust Pizza: 2100 calories, or 2900 with a 2L of coke.
I'm way below my peak weight, but somewhat horrified that this kind of binging isn't out of the question, in the heat of the moment. I'm taking it one day at a time, counting calories, trying to eat small portions, and I've completely removed 'snack foods' and soda & fruit juice from my diet... but it's not easy, and if I don't focus on how much I'm eating, a single meal can destroy a week's worth of dieting.
And for a person who is genuinely hungry? The fastest I've ever lost weight was three weeks in my teens where I had a very controlled diet, and a strenuous 12hr/day backpacking activity. I shed 40lbs in 20 days and had significant related medical problems by the end of my term, so I feel this represents a reasonable approximation of 'starving' (although still at a relatively healthy weight). Midway through, a resupply opened up our food rations for return or immediate consumption. It turns out, 5lbs of cheddar cheese (9000 calories) goes down very easy; I was snacking on granola not an hour later. Stories of Holocaust survivors dying the day after rescue of GI problems aren't particularly surprising in light of a reality like that.
I've never been competitive about eating. I enjoy food, but I'm hardly that unusual: even at my peak weight, a solid 2% of the country had a higher BMI. The pathology is a function of our modern food system's emphasis on fat, sugar, and salt, our culture's value-for-money proposition of ever-increasing serving sizes, and differing physical susceptibility to these things on a personal level, not solely individual psychology. What's an absurd amount for you is the result of absentminded snacking for someone else.