I know there's a alot of discussion about whether calories matter while low carbing. This morning, I weighed 143. Over the next couple of days I will be eating whatever I want (low carb) as I will be going to tons of BBQs (love those burgers and Nathan's dogs). I normally get about 1750 cals per day and am expecting to eat almost 2500 these 3 or four days. I will reweigh on Wednesday to see the results. Wish me luck!

Good Luck!! I did basically the same thing over the past 2 days. My calorie consuption went way up while still keeping my carb count well under 20 (gotta love those bunless cheese burgers) Tomorrow I will weigh myself to note any differences. Hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised!!

As goal weight is approached, calories do matter. I can easily maintain my weight at 1800 or fewer calories a day while in ketosis every day. The only way I can lose is by increasing my exercise, cutting back on carbs (I maintain right now at 50-60 g), and cutting calories all at the same time.


Good luck with your experiment.

Gee, King B, Did you really grow an inch?? One of your stats says you're 5' 10", and the other says 5' 11". Sure wish I could do that, at only 5' 0" it would be wonderful for me.
Let us know how you make out with the calories, it's something I've been wondering about, since I started. Being this short, I don't dare eat anywhere near what most of you get away with, and believe me, I'm jealous!!
Happy 4th, Everyone. ~Penny

Of course calories matter when you're trying to lose weight. Calories always matter when you're losing weight.

The good thing about the low carb approach is that you're so satiated from eating high fat and high protein foods that you decrease the amount of calories you eat while still feeling satisfied.

Watch the sodium in the Hotdogs. We all know what sodium does & part of what you gain could be water weight.

That's why I'm going to weight 2 days after the last BBQ. I did grow an inch as I started LCing when I was 16 and am now 17. You're actually supposed to gain about 7 pounds for each inch grown, so the fact that I got taller and lost weight is pretty good. Also, for the record, at 5'11", 143 I am no longer trying to lose, just maintain. As is, I am in the 40th percentile for weight, so I don't want to lose any more.

I regularly change my calorie intake. I do gain weight when calories are high, even if carbs are very low (20 ish). Thankfully even though weight goes up... I don't gain much fat (But I DO gain some). When I used to go high cal on a high carb diet, I gained more fat.
But when I do this I'm basically forcing myself to eat. If a person only ate when they were hungry... this might not happen.

i have known ppl who have maintained higher calories and lost. good luck to you king b

Well Like I said in an earlier thread, I totally upped my calories this weekend while keepig my carbs under 20, and guess what? I still lost 1/2 a pound. Now that is slower than it has been but hey it wasn't a gain right?

I have found that the closer I get to goal the more calories matter. As your BMI lowers your body needs less to maintain it's weight. Exercise helps in two ways, burning calories (carbs first then fat) and building muscle which requires more energy than fat does.

keep in mind how caloric intake is a big math problem, based on cycles.

cycle 1:
if you've been eating 1700 cals a day for 30 days that's great. but, if that number is anything less than your BMR, you're basically "saving" those calories. you loose weight faster because you've "saved" more space calorie wise.

cycle 2:
when you eat more over the next 30 days (2500 cals a day), you'll use up the caloric space you "saved" the month before. if you don't use up all the "space" you saved, you'll still loose weight.

your body reflects calories based on long-term consumption/expenditure cycles.

This appears to be my experience. Losses shortly after over-eating do not reflect the binge session, they reflect the lack of calories from the previous days. It is also worth mentioning that a binge session is often a result of fat loss, not a cause - your body has a way of making you ravenous when you are losing weight (especially while close to your set point). Often times I will desire to eat gross amounts of food, which I do... only to notice I've "whooshed" the next morning. It's tempting to say binging caused the whoosh, but IMO the fat loss caused the binge. It just so happens that the fat-loss related whoosh came right around the fat-loss induced binge did.

I have hunger cycles. For awhile I'll eat practically nothing, enough to lose weight, fairly naturally (I'll be a bit peckish but not extremely hungry). This will result in noticeable fat loss which I can observe via loss fitting clothes/tape measures (although not always on the scale). Shortly after a cycle of non-hunger, I will suddenly be hit by a desire to eat that feels like a mack truck .
My maintenance calories appear to be somewhere around 1600. During my non-hunger fat loss phase I'll generally stay around 1150-1250. During my hunger phase I stay just under maintenance (but barely), around 1250-1450. Sometimes I can go much higher than that (yesterday I ate about 1700 cals!).

It all balances out in the end, though, and over a long term trend I eat less than I burn. This, naturally, results in fat loss.

King, take a look at this thread in the TDC. It's an experiment with calories that you might be interested in trying. The goal is to spend one week taking a baseline of your average calorie defict (calories burned minus calories spent), then spend one week trying to hit a higher specific calorie deficit to see if you can lose more than you normally do.

It sounds like you are testing the opposite idea... seeing if you gain with an increase in calories. I thought about that, but I've still got too much weight to lose, so didn't want to chance it. You could do this in reverse, though. It would be interesting to see the results.

Obviously, this little experiment isn't scientific, but I definitely proved to myself that calories make a difference. You really have to watch sodium levels too with doing something like this in a short time frame. It can really throw you off (as I experienced).

The hardest part in watching calories, is really knowing how many calories your activities burn.

Good luck with your test!

I tend to think looking at one week at a time is too short of a period. My weight loss, even on the same number of calories, varies dramatically! It has to do with hormones, water retention and god knows what else. I don't think you can draw conclusions based on doing something different for a week or a few days.

In fact, in the 15 months I've been low carbing, the only conclusions I've been able to draw is that I can't eat unlimited calories and lose. I have to watch it a bit.