While it IS as simple as 'cals in vs cals out' it's also much more complicated than that. Can't go through the day making your calories up with tablespoons of sugar, butter, and whey protein can we? Don't think it would work the greatest.
It was this part that lost me:
Here is a before and after of 1.5 months following my apparently terrible unbalanced diet of brown rice or steamed veggies w/ chicken mince, egg whites and bacon, and occasional steak or protein shake. If I'm doing it wrong, then wrong works for me. For the record, I continued to gain strength during this period, just slower than beforehand.
Forgive the shit photos, they don't quite do anything at all justice.