Calories are definitely a factor. How important of a factor it is will vary by person.

What I do think is most important is to track the calories - but you need to track everything else you can as well.

It can become all too easy to discredit and ignore calories as long as everything is in a stable position. By stable, I mean if you are in loss mode then you are losing, and if you are in maintenance mode then you are maintaining.

When something goes wrong (and it usually does at some point) the only way to know if it might be a calorie issue is to know what you'd need to do to vary that number so you can discredit it as the underlying factor. The only way to really do that is if you've been tracking it all along.

I love losing via LC, but not convinced I can deny myself of things that I love to eat being a real foodie at heart. That's why this time I am planning to transition into a JUDDD thing as I get closer to goal. But I am having a feeling those DD's will be LC motivated - as in a cup of that BPC really does kill the appetite so I'll be on the hunt for simple things like that to make the down day more tolerable. But don't really want to go too far into that at the moment as I'm still in my new discovery phase of that WOE and need way more info before committing.

And that (JUDDD) might or might not work out for me. What I do know is tracking the calories (as well as everything else) is going to be crucial for a good analysis of what is working and what is not.

My observation is that there is a world of difference between people, their goals, and their approach to incorporating low-calorie. Take, say, a woman in her 40s or 50s, who has been struggling for years or even decades. She knows she feels better and is healthier on a low carb diet, but just can't kick the last 20 pounds. Watching calories could make all the difference. Then you might have a 25 year old who is impatient to drop bikini weight, and thinks "hey, if low carb is good, I'll do it on under 1000 calories a day!" America is rather impaitent after all. We are talking about a population that decided to amp up their cocaine for crying out loud, and ended up with the first wave of crack addiction. Faster, more extreme or expedited in any way is always better. Right?

Anyway, both are utilizing low carb and calorie counting. But only one is being intelligent about it and trying to do what is best for their body. In my opinion anyway. Not that it's my business.

I keep calorie counting in my arsenal of things to do if I hit a stall. I know one can lose weight counting calories - I've done it, as have thousands of others. It's not fun, but it works. So, while for the time being, calories aren't a big deal to me, at some point they may factor into the equation. Even then, however, I don't plan on severe calorie restriction.

My husband went gangbusters for his first three months on a low-carb paleo diet. He lost 30 pounds. Then he stopped completely. But - I understand why. He eats HUGE portions. He claims eating any smaller portions will leave him starved. He has developed a huge portion habit, and at this time he is unwilling to break that habit to continue losing. He's also maintaining with what I can only imagine is about 4,000 calories per day. Plus, he's eating a little bit of fruit. His weight hasn't budged in either direction.

He understands what he needs to do to move forward: cut out the fruit first to see what happens, and then scale back portions a bit to see if he can get movement on the scale. The thing is, when he scales back portions, he's also scaling back carbs because I do cook with lots of veggies. So is it the calories, the carbs, or both that will help him move?

In my opinion, it's a pretty complex issue because it really depends on all of the metabolic factors of the individual. I don't think there's a magic bullet solution. I think we all have to figure out what works for us.

I first did Atkins about 14 years ago, and only counted carbs and it worked very well: I lost 120 pounds and kept it off for 3 years. Then, gradually I slipped off it. Now that I am back on a very low carb, WOL, the tracker that I use counts, carbs, fiber, protein, fat and calories, both in absolute terms and percentages of total calories. There are days when my food intake is lower and days when it is higher. I am always surprised that I lose weight even on the days that my calorie intake was higher.
As everyone has different metabolic issues, I can only tell you what works for me.

Number 1

Learn when you are satiated and do not eat beyond that. I am learning the difference between feeling full and wanting more food for a host of other reasons.

Number 2

Stick to the macro ratios and absolute numbers that work best for you. You will discover this over time. For me this is less than 30 total carbs, 80 grams if protein and the remainder AT LEAST 75% fat. I observe, but am not very concerned about my calorie intake at this stage. This seems to be working for me.

Number 3

If you have type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome like me, it is good to check your blood sugar and ketone levels if you can afford it. It can be expensive, but over time, you will require fewer meds, and you can budget your monitoring expenses against the lower cost of your prescriptions.

Number 4

Change your perspective. This is not a weight loss diet. When you go off a diet, you will most likely regain most of your weight.

This must be a sustainable WAY OF LIFE. Just as recovered alcoholics must always refrain from alchohol, those of us who are sensitive to carbs, must always restrict carbs. We can at best describe ourselves as recovering carboholics.

It is best to develop sustainable eating habits right from the beginning. The details may be tweeked over time, but the principles remain the same. This is a WOL or WAY OF LIFE.

Number 5

Getting back to the calories, from my experience, if you only eat until you are satiated, and do not eat again until you are hungry, the calories will usually take care of themselves. The trick is to learn what it feels like to be satiated and what it feels like to be genuinely hungry.

I hope this helps.

I'm new here but I want to ask a question about this topic and its participants because I'm very curious about it. I don't care for calorie counting but I feel like it is necessary to some degree simply because I could eat 1900 calories (for example) on a LC (atkins induction to be specific) and if my body is only using 1800 calories then what happens to the extra 100?

I honestly can't even begin to guess what my metabolism burns because I was sick in bed from 2012 till 2015 and am now recovered enough to get out of bed but I'm still sedentary barring days when I go for a walk (1-2.5 miles). Likely that messed with my metabolism but I have no way of knowing. I just look at the lowest estimate I can get from cronometer and go with that - basal metabolic rate only unless I exercise. This puts me at 1600 calories as a norm. Now if I eat 1800 where do those 200 calories go? On induction they will likely be fat or protein which as I understand it protein can convert to glycogen or glucose (I'm not sure which but I remember reading something like that) which means that would be a gain, wouldn't it? Even if I am burning fat and in ketosis, which I am, what happens with extra calories?

Logic tells me that if I eat more than I use regardless of if I am burning fat or not, it will be a surplus. I've been taught that whatever is a surplus become extra weight. So the only way to avoid that is to eat less than you need whether or not you are in ketosis unless there is something about ketosis that I do not understand. It seems that I might be burning fat but if there is something left over then in the end, I still am going to have those extra calories in my system. To my knowledge, ketosis doesn't mean that you just burn it all away unless I am misunderstanding something about ketosis. As I understand it, it means I am burning my reserves of fat and fat from my diet after those 20 carbs and the protein is gone (if it is used first). This leaves me really wondering about this debate because it really would become a matter of if I am losing inches/pounds or not if I am not consuming less that I use or maybe I just do not understand ketosis well enough or have too much of the counting calorie way of thinking to really comprehend it.

I'm a little confused here. Can anyone help me to understand this better? Do calories matter or not? Will too many keep you from losing or cause you to gain because it seems logical to me that they would but that might be high carb logic. I don't know.

Hey, Starlite. You're way over-thinking this, and you'll drive yourself crazy. For starters, on Atkins, just relax and count carbs. Educate yourself on the allowed foods list, and make sure you know how many carbohydrate grams you are eating from day to day.

Pay close attention to your hunger signals and "full" signals. Learn to eat just enough to be comfortable at the table, and not hungry at other times. Not feeling hungry is one of the Atkins benefits while you learn what and how much to eat.

Most of us can 't know exactly how many calories our bodies use, whether for activity, growth and repair, or simple function. There's no way to fine tune your calorie intake to match such an uncertainty. Gary Taubes discusses this rather well in his books like Why We Get Fat.

As others have said, following Atkins will in time help adjust your appetite and your calories "automatically." Yes, calories do count, but not in the old way we've all thought. The quality of the food you eat comes first. Quantity decisions will follow along.

Best wishes.

Yes calories matter. If you are eating more food than you are using to fuel your body, the excess will be stored as fat. It is entirely possible to maintain or even gain weight while in ketosis. However, because carbohydrates are uniquely fattening (meaning the body quickly turns them to stored fat) you may find you can eat somewhat more calories on a LCHF diet than you would on a high carb diet without gaining weight. Those calories could mean the difference between maintaining and losing.

It's a very personal thing whether you need to count calories. Can you eat to meet hunger and lose weight? Then why bother counting calories? If you find you have trouble gauging when you are hungry and when you are full, you might find it helpful to track calories, find your weight loss/maintenance threshold and stay below it.

I can maintain pretty easily without counting calories, but when I am actively losing (which I do cyclically), I find it very helpful to track everything. That way when I find a pattern that results in losing, I can replicate it.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm not worried about it. I know I'll find my way once my body adapts to LC eating. Right now I am just in a weird place where I'd been having a larger appetite due to stress and carbs which makes it a little confusing for me about my appetite. Honestly, I'm not hungry but I have an appetite where I could eat. So that brings me to calories. I guess that the appetite in large part is due to carbs. I'm on day six so I feel like I'm not far enough along with getting this carb need out of my system and it's like my body is giving me an appetite because it wants carbs. That's how it feels. I'm not hungry because I've been eating well but still with the appetite which is why I look to the calories to keep me in check. If I don't use that as a guide then it's just two more weeks of overeating even if it is low carb. It's no different than if it wasn't except when it's done I will be in a better place having gotten the carb need out of my system if that makes sense.

Thanks for the feedback.

That makes sense to me because you're in the adapting period. Your machinery to run on fat, is not in place yet.
Result, a hungry appetite.

I think of it as you're not getting energy.
Not from carbs because you're not eating carbs.
And not from fat because you haven't built up enzymes and fat-burning machinery.

That's why it's important to eat enough fat in the beginning.
It makes you build up a fat-burning machine faster!!!

Oh and calories - yes there are calories burned for activity, and burned as heat, and stored as bones and muscle, and stored as fat, but if we can't measure them, what good is it? Here's what you would have to know personally, to measure it.
- Your resting metabolic rate (they have machines to measure this)
- What your TDEE is, also measured
- your heart rate and poundage while exercising
- the error rate for you and the equations - the equations can be off as much as 30% for any one person, although it averages out for a huge group

I figure, the only people for whom the published calorie numbers work, are the people closest to the population that they measured to get the calculators in the first place. College age healthy people, because they're easy to find around research universities. The farther you are from the that kind of person, the more the calculators might be off.

Feh! much more fun and faster to just take notes in two week bunches. What did I eat, and then: how did I feel, what did I weigh, and did inches change around waist, hips, whatever. rinse and repeat.

People get confused because they think it works like a spreadsheet. But it doesn't.

When my carbs are low, I burn more calories. I've tracked, on and off, for years, and that is how it works for me.

It also explains how, when I used to diet on 1200 calories a day, I'd lose maybe 10 pounds... and come to a dead stop. Because I was going for volume, avoiding meat and fat, and it was mostly carbs.

If my carbs are high, I would have to drastically cut calories to lose. I'm sure we are all familiar with that!

Same here. I've used DietPower software for 12 years and one of the things it does is track/adjust your metabolic rate using food and exercise from the past 30 days (and you can have it project future weights using your customized data or standard rates for a "normal person" eating a chosen level of calories). When and only when I keep my net carbs below 30g, my metabolism is very close to that of a "normal" person and I can eat 1700-1900 calories per day and vary the calories a bit or a lot from day to day. When I eat SAD foods full of carbs, my metabolic rate drops to ~75% of a normal person's.

WOW.

That's dramatic evidence. In one of my tracking periods, I ate an average of 1800 calories, 32 carbs, and maintained. When I went to 1850 calories, and 22 carbs, I lost.

I thought I'd not have to 'stagger' my calories during maintaining my loss.. but I was wrong... lol. If I stagger my calories (like, 1200 one day my lowest, and then having 1650 as my highest and staggering in between) then I maintain almost without having to track as long as the carbs are below 20. It's all about the carbs for me... and then the fat %. It's totally different then when I was losing though and it changes slightly as I age of course.

I've had the same experience. Several times I tried to go up the Atkins carb ladder. I'd be fine on 30g but on 35g of carbs, even if I didn't gain, I became obsessed with food and started having cravings and had to meticulously track everything and white-knuckle it through the hunger and cravings, just like all the other diets I had failed on. Dropping back 5g got me in control again and not feeling like I'm dieting. The extra 5g aren't worth it to me! When not tracking or away from home I find it easier and more freeing to just aim for Atkins'72 Induction foods (20g); that way if a tiny bit of ? sauce or extra coffee & cream are consumed, I'm still within the 30g.

I know some people that eat really high fat and some that follow new atkins to the letter. For me eventually it was increase protein and decrease fat somewhat. Still get 1/4 cup of alive oil a day and 6 servings of cheese but no bullet proof coffee for me.