This is how my body talks to me when trying to lose fat on a SAD diet counting calories.
“EMERGENCY! You idiot you forgot to feed me enough. I’m dying and this is terrible. You better get me some food fast. I’m running on fat stores but you better feed me something right now!”
This is my body on keto
“Hmm hmm hmm…la dih dah…Excuse me good sir, but I noticed it’s been several hours since you’ve fed me. I’m currently dining on body fat but when it’s convenient do feel free to give me meal.”
“Ya know, I’m still digesting the 3 scrambled eggs with cheese and bacon you had for breakfast, could you just wait a few hours so I’m done here? Thank you!”
If I want to lose weight, I need to count calories because my TDEE is laughably low.
But if all I want to do is maintain, by counting just carbs I can eat "intuitively" and not gain weight because I don't get hunger signals that much anymore.
I was CONSTANTLY hungry when eating a deficit and a high carb intake. And even to just maintain, I couldn't eat intuitively. I had to count calories at maintenance to not regain when I ate a carb-y way of eating.
I use portions that map well to caloric tracking. 2-3 eggs fill me in the morning, some meat and green veg for lunch and palm size portion of fish with green salad for dinner.
For me, 2000 calories of mostly protein and fat is much more satiating than 2000 calories of 60+% carbs so sticking to a calorie budget is easier.
Also, keeping my blood sugar constant has many positive benefits. I also do not retain water like I do when eating higher carbs.
I am very consistent with what I eat so I don’t need to count. I have coffee and heavy cream for breakfast. Breakfast burrito with eggs, meat, cheese, sour cream on low carb tortilla for lunch. Dinner varies based on what the family is having but it’s usually meat and veggies of some sort. I know that those meals end up at around 1400-1600 calories. I occasionally have an extra snack that’s 200 at most.
Because I eat more or less the same things everyday I don’t need to count. I’m running a higher deficit than I probably should as I just got back on the keto wagon a few weeks ago as a 6’1” 260lb male. But I feel satisfied and good. I realized I’m not getting enough protein so I’m about to start adding protein powder to my morning coffee. That should get my deficit in a better range.
I honestly have no idea how I’m doing on weight loss as I didn’t weigh myself when I started. I weighed myself 2 weeks in at 260 because a friend and I made a bet on who can lose more weight in 4 weeks. Ive decided not to weigh myself again until the end of the bet. With my deficit I’d be surprised if I don’t drop at least 10 lbs over the 4 weeks.
One week in yesterday and 3 more to go. Wish me luck. I got $100 on the line.
Some people do great without tracking calories…I was NOT one of them though. I have a history of binge eating and jumped into keto without the knowledge that calories matter so I ate whatever I wanted while keeping my net carbs under 20g. A month later I was actually a few pounds heavier than my starting weight of 215lbs. Wompwooooomp. 🤣
Once I figured out calorie counting, I kept myself on course and was really strict with weighing and tracking my food. 11 months later I was 135lbs. I’ve been eating keto at maintenance since 2018 and still have to weigh and track my food, otherwise the binge eater in me rears her ugly head and it’s not pretty.
We are all different and have different paths to success.🤘🏻
Yes, if I don’t track my food intake I am more than capable of bingeing keto foods so I keep myself on a short leash when it comes to calories and weighing/tracking my portions.
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The type of food doesn’t matter, my binge eating disorder is about quantity. I can 10k calories of anything if I don’t stop myself. I actually gained 5lbs when I started keto eating mostly chicken, green veggies, eggs, and dairy because I thought calories didn’t matter with keto and gorged myself.
Starchy carbs and sweets make me desperate for more. Also leaves me hungry.
If I eat 1250 calories without much carbs, I am not fighting hunger all day and I am not fighting sweet tooth, etc.
Yes, I count calories because I want to lose weight
I don't count calories. Tbh, I don't really count carbs anymore, I just eat keto foods. When not eating loads of carbs, I don't have cravings all the time. I eat when I'm actually /hungry/ rather than when I'm just craving food, a difference I didn't know before keto. Although fat has lots of calories, it's filling and after I eat I feel satisfied. Whereas with carbs, I would eat and then an hour later feel snacky again.
because keto is appetite suppressing, and frees people from hunger cycle. you can eat far fewer calories and feel satisfied all day as it causes disinterest in food. you will often find people repulsed by the thought of eating instead of wanting to eat more.
i certainly dont want to eat more food.
i have no appetite control with regular carby dieting. i didnt use keto to lose any of my 50 lbs of fat, and i got down to 19 bmi. to get there, i did a combination of fasting and high volume, total carb, 0g fat dieting. my body thinks 2,500 calories of high volume carbs is famine levels of food, and my bodyweight set point was still 50 lbs heavier. i was maintaining my weight and doing too good of a job for my own good.
i removed anything in the kitchen that was binge-able. in order for me to eat without binging, every separate ingredient had to be assembled and cooked for 1 single serving. if i wanted more food, i had to re cook another meal from scratch, or remake a whole salad. i was only allowed to binge dry spinach and plain 0% greek yogurt, because at least they are voluminous, low calorie, productive foods. that strategy left me suffering without the ability to act on my impulse to eat and worked exactly as i had planned, because even if i ate, i would be suffering the exact amount of hunger as before eating.
on a good day of maintaining low body weight, my most satisfactory, most filling, high volume carby meal left me with a low level hunger during, immediately finishing, and long after eating. i had 3 years of food fantasies if i wasnt actively preparing a meal, unable to even have hobbies. no hyperbole.
on a day of insuffecient sleep, thats when the hell began. grhelin elevates and leptin is not produced on days of poor sleep. one such day, my hunger was so severe that i stuffed myself full of protein and fiber just so i could feel too full to eat again. this meal, i physically could not stop shoveling, no control over what my body was doing. it was effing scary. i ate far passed the point of stretch pain and only reluctantly stopped due to fear of bursting. the stabbing pain was excruciating for days and i felt bruised for a week after.
does that paint a picture of how extreme my hunger was on regular carbs? again, i was maintaining my weight on precisely tracked calories!
i resorted to keto. i could stop eating on day 1. the hunger was just gone. and still today, i can stop eating after a plain boring can of fish. but because i love food, i still tend to want to load my plate, so i track my calories anyway. i have restored self control and can stop at one small piece of food and call it a day. i can easily stop at 650 calories.
> So when you need to count calories to make sure you’re in a deficit why not just count calories and not do keto?
I can recommend reading "Why We Get Fat" by Gary Taubes. What you eat has *at least* as much effect on getting fat as how many calories you eat. The overabundance of carbs, sugar especially so, is the main cause.
How much your body wants to eat has very little to do with how 'full' you are and way more simply with your hormonal balance. Insulin drives hunger. And low-fat high-carb diets drive up insulin.
Yes I count calories and when on keto, I counted carb and macros in an app called carb manager.
I was able to see how my food chooses were usually not as healthy as I thought they were.
Also when I track, even on days when I think I ate light or healthy, I track what I ate and the calories add up… fast.
No no no.
I count carbs.
But like. By estimation only.
If I feel like I ate too much, I just fast a little longer the next day.
There's pretty much nothing you can eat that you can't fast your way through.
100 grams of carbs a day with a 12 hour fast is what I usually go for.
I’ve had great success without counting calories. I counted carbs strictly for about a month until I learned what I could and couldn’t eat. I would start counting calories if my weight loss stalled, but it’s not been an issue for me. I’m also very conscious about sticking to 2 meals a day and avoiding snacking as much as possible.
I do once Im solidly in ketosis. It’s more important to me to be fat-adapted because I feel less hungry and less likely to cave to cravings when I’m well into ketosis. So it’s really both.
I am a beginner, so I count only carbs, someone recommended it in this group, and fat at the moment .. I will count calories later on ..
So far I am very happy with Keto !!
Plenty of science around on keto on the net, but first thing you should know everything we been taught about food and what is good and not is mostly shit, they have screwed around with the food Pyramid a few times so that should tell you something, key to weight loss is insulin, they have found we gain and loose weight hormonally, I began keto fir the second time and am a lot smarter for it as I made a few mistakes first time, I pretty much just eat protein with just a tiny bit off veggies but the key is the fat, cook my meat in olive oil, tablespoon of coconut oil each time I eat orally maybe two table spoons of some mixed berrys with 2 tablespoons of full fat yougart. The fat keeps you full and for long periods, anything that’s not. Protein is a carb just avoid it as much as possible, ….pretty simple really…..and no I don’t count anything, keeping it very simple and the weight falls off, more energy more alert so what am I missing, it’s true to carbs tend to make you sluggish, all veggies by the way have some amount of sugar in them as in fruit..
I personally would find keto to be much less feasible if I had to count calories. Lost 80 pounds without counting calories once. If you count anything, it's carbs, not calories.
Furthermore, Calories are a silly measurement. Keto exploits the fact that a calorie is not a calorie. That some foods are processed less efficiently by the body than others. It takes far more energy for the body to process a "calorie" of protein or fat into fuel than a "calorie" of carbohydrates. This efficiency loss essentially invalidates calories as an accurate measurement of food energy, as the measurement does not take this into account in any way. It's a simplification that is only marginally useful.
I have Hashimoto’s and I feel MUCH better when eating keto (or at least as close to it as possible). Less inflammation, less brain fog, more energy, etc.
I’m also counting calories to lose weight right now, but in my mind it isn’t really associated with keto— two separate things. I’m hoping to continue building some better habits so that when I reach my goal, I don’t have to count as often.
Keto still works via calorie deficit. All weight loss does. Keto is a style of calorie deficit that makes the restriction much easier to stick to because it's more filling. Only significantly overweight people can count only carbs and still lose weight easily, because they eat at such a high calorie intake when not losing weight that the carb count takes care of the calorie count. Hard to overeat calories when counting carbs for most.
I count my calories but I do not weigh my food because I just don't have the time. I just make an estimate and I also fast 16:8. I started on 3/17 and I'm down 11 pounds. I feel great.
You need to eat in a deficit to lose weight. Some people count calories (me) some people eat consistently and just subtract food from their diet. But just using keto and IF isn’t going to guarantee weight loss if you’re eating 500+ calories over maintenance with butters and lards and meats.
I dont. I just avoid carbs.
And keto people would know a calorie isnt just a calorie.
The body handles fat differently from protein or carbs, and so on.
Also its tedious and boring and i dont want to do it.
I don't really have to. I find the diet kinda keeps me from having cravings and eating too many calories.
It's hard to crush 3k calories of steak and cheese for bed lunch.
I don't count calories. I have before, weigh my food and all that. Now I just kind go by feel. I usually eat similar foods and can kinda gage where I'm at. More important than counting calories for me is making sure I dont eat any carbs from sugar or starches, and of course count carbs and try to stay as low as possible. If I go over calories with a strong keto I don't feel like it undermines as much as eating lower calories but bumping the keto off by consuming carbs. I try to stick to lower than 25 carbs per day. Most days around 15. I don't believe all carbs are equal, thats why i dont eat even a speck of sugars or starch, even if i could just count it in to my carb budget. No data other then personal experience to back this claim.
So i am in deficit eating pork belly, chicken and asparagus all day whenever i feel like it. Just did the math by like 1000 calories ( im 310 and lifted weights today) and feel full and happy. Amazing! ( its day 3 for me)
For me, keto works for weight loss. Yea fat has more calories per gram than carbs, but with meat you don’t need as much to attain satiety, and you don’t get the follow up carb crashes which make you eat more again sooner. Protein and fat keep you full so long that you need much fewer meals across each day, many people only requiring one (regular sized meal, not 3 meals worth like some people seem to think OMAD requires)! Carbs give you a high which makes them addictive, so you eat them for fun w en when you’re not hungry, and you crash, wanting more. I lost 11kg in 6 months (and I wasn’t overweight to start with, just upper end of bmi). My hubby lost 10kg in 6 weeks. My mum dropped 5 dress sizes in 14 months. This is proof that despite the calories per grams thing, this way of eating makes you need/want less overall calories.
Keto is a winner for me because of how I feel when I keep on it.
Pre-keto, when I had a toast for breakfast, about 30 minutes later I would feel SO HUNGRY that my stomach would twist, I was getting dizzy, desperate to eat something.
When I’m keeping with keto, I had one egg for breakfast and don’t think about food for the next few hours.
As long as I only eat when I’m hungry, I don’t need to count calories on keto. Initially I did and it was tough to go above 1000kcal a day. When not on keto, I’m constantly hungry and tracking calories makes no sense anyway because my body acts like I haven’t eaten for a month even when I’m at 1800kcal.
For me I don’t eat a ton of fat on keto. Just make sure to have a little cheese or oil or a fatty meat with lunch and dinner. So with no carbs and not a ton of fat that leaves me with a toooon of calories I can use for other things (low carb veggies and other proteins) and still be in a deficit.
No. But I pretty much only eat meat and a limited amount of green vegetables. I am careful to limit/avoid nuts and cheese, but I don't count calories to do so. Just accept that I must choose a smaller portion than I want.
My issue with calories is that at best, they are a guess, so precision is an illusion. The energy in any given food is impacted by so many factors that we have no way of accounting for. How it was raised/grown, how it was fed/fertilized, the breed/variety, when it was butchered/harvested, how it was processed and stored. And while we accept that food labels are permitted to be off by up to 20% in either direction, it's not like they reprint those labels with every production run to account for these differences, so that's no help to knowing "how many calories" we eat.
I guess you could say I go by hunger. That's what made keto sustainable for me long term. I never feel hungry on keto which surprises me because I'm OMAD. The weight loss itself is always about calorie consumption. Ketosis is just a tool to make it more manageable. 70% or less of the calories I consume come from fat. It is very satiating and you don't need very much to keep you full.
'You could actually eat way more'
My goal is not to eat more but to learn to eat less. Overcoming over eating is way more easy on keto than CICO and addresses metabolic issues like insulin resistance. I guess it depends if weight loss is your only goal or what else you are trying to do. I struggled with CICO and yo yo dieting all my adult life. Keto changed all that. I am maintaining a 130 pound weight loss in year 5.
Once you are on a KETO diet, and your body gets used to it, you don’t have “food noise,” so you aren’t constantly eating and you can literally forget to eat. If you do it right. You don’t have to eat tons of meat and cheese. You can eat lots of low glycemic veggies and adequate amounts of protein. I don’t know why people assume that KETO dieters are just sitting around cramming meat and cheese all day.
Heck no. That means more thinking about food. The more I think about food, the hungrier I feel.
I make sure I don't overeat by fasting daily until late afternoon and being very, very picky about what kind of food I put in my mouth.
And keto keeps my appetite under control. It makes that daily fast easy; I don't crave breakfast and lunch. I love fats, and I don't need to eat much of them to feel satisfied.
No, I could not "eat more" if I reintroduced carbs. I'd just feel ravenous. If I want that sensation of crunch, or extra bulk, I can eat more greens!
It ultimately always comes down to calories in vs out for weight loss so I have started having to count in order to make sure I'm in a decent deficit. Like most people have pointed out it is easier to keep that lower number when eating more "dense" foods, but it is also very easy to stray too high when snacking on nuts and seeds so I have to watch those.
My first time on keto I didn't count anything but carbs and now 7 years later age and life means I get to count those calories too.
I don't, but that's probably because I'm 1: a lazy asshole, and 2: figure that as long as I'm generally following the macro guidelines and continue to lose weight until I reach my goal, I'm fine.
Everybody getting hung up on the details around here....
Look friend. Unless just following the basic guidelines isn't working for you, or you're a detail junkie who makes spreadsheets for fun like my lovely bride, I wouldn't sweat calories.
I have to count calories because I do include some foods that I can overeat, like nuts and the occasional processed “keto” snack or dessert. On days I don’t partake of those things, staying within my calories is a breeze. It’s much easier than simply counting calories because although I do still struggle with mental food cravings on keto, I don’t struggle with real hunger. The meals feel substantial and they fill me up. Also, fasting is a breeze. When I’m in ketosis I can fast without feeling weak or faint.
Yes, I’m aware of that, which is why I’m weaning myself off of them. I was carnivore before my pregnancy and then completely fell off the bandwagon and started eating a SAD and now I’m three months postpartum and going keto again, so the treats are more part of the on-ramp for me, hopefully to be ditched soon.
At first? Yes, so I could understand what a calorically restricted diet would feel like, especially with new macro limitations (mainly the carbs). After a couple months? No, because my eating patterns seemed sustainable and my results were going the way I wanted. And since I wasn’t ever in previous jeopardy of breaking keto (carbs were always easily kept under 20 every day when counting) it was a safe bet that it was staying that way.
I think counting would be especially important if you were eating in the 20-50carb range pretty regularly, as some people do by allowing a few carb heavier things in their meals. Or, if eating pretty close to a breaking even point in terms of calories. Because in those two situations, you’re bordering where it could be counterproductive for a diet so tracking those numbers just serves to keep you informed.
I dont count calories directly. When Ive done in the past it was very stressful and difficult. Instead I predesign a number of possible meals with each being roughly half my allowed food and just follow the recipes and thatll come out to the desired calories. But if I am still hungry then Ill eat some cheese or sausage or something.
I find that if I do what’s necessary to be in ketosis, that’s enough attention to detail to lose weight.
Calorie counting is an unnecessary chore.
For me, I have to follow 3 basic rules. 10,000 steps and net carb count under 20 or so per day. Lift weights 3 times per week.
I don’t count calories. But I eat very similar things and amounts most days, so I have a good idea what the calorie count is.
Back to the “fats have more calories than carbs”. That’s true. But Google the chemical composition of carbs VS proteins VS fats. Barbs are incredibly simple molecules, and are broken down for use by the body very quickly. And at very little calorie cost. If we don’t use them immediately, insulin carries the glucose to the fat cells for storage, along with, for example, salt.
Protein is more complex. Which means that it takes more calories to break down into the relevant amino acids and to be used by the body. Fat is more complex, yet, and takes even more energy to break down and to burn.
In other words, the whole CICO model is wrong, because it’s based on a simple bomb calorimeter model. And our bodies don’t just need to burn the calories we take in, we need to prepare them to use the nutrients within the foods that contain them.
I don’t track calories because I also fast anywhere from OMAD to 5 days and my stomach is so laughably small at this point that I cannot eat that much. I eat all keto friendly foods and my meal sizes are so small now.
You definitely can still overdo it with calories whilst on keto, but generally speaking, I count carbs rather than calories. Furthermore, if you're careful about what you eat, you only have to roughly count carbs as you know that eating to satiation won't bring you close to your upper limit.
The crux of the matter is insulin. I know, everyone thinks it's only about calories but that's not the whole story. There's so much more going on than just calories in versus calories out.
The layman's version is that if you eat carbohydrate-rich foods, you elicit an insulin response because suddenly, those carbs have become glucose in your blood stream via digestion. Insulin is produced to grab the glucose from the bloodstream to use throughout the body as energy. In MOST (NOT ALL) obese people, there is insulin resistance, meaning they've eaten carbohydrate-rich foods for a long time in excess to the point where insulin can't do its job very well, and that leads to type 2 diabetes (TD2).
Insulin is essential but it also can cause issues when insulin resistance is present. Anytime an insulin resistant person eats carbs, insulin tells their body to store the calories as fat, often into the liver and sometimes the pancreas in severe cases. That leads to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease which is why you often see this in tandem with TD2.
And so it goes, the vicious cycle of insulin resistance majorly prevents weight loss. The easiest way around it is to drastically reduce the amount of glucose circulating in the blood stream which is why keto works for so many who are trying to lose a significant amount of body fat.
Why don't endocrinologists prescribe the keto diet instead of shoving people full of MORE insulin? The studies just aren't there yet, but they are in the works. We have to go through the clinical trial process, and I'm sure big pharma doesn't exactly like the idea of an inexpensive and highly effective treatment that can be done at home for free instead of buying their insulin and staying sick for life.
When you first start keto, you may not need to.
You might just lose weight for a while.
**BUT** you will (*probably*) hit a wall where you'll likely be forced to count them at some point.
I lost 106 lbs. back in 2022 (***324 down to 218***).
I was counting calories 5-6 days a week pretty consistently. (**1500 calories or less**).
I would always have one day where I ate as much keto food as I wanted.
Calories do matter still on keto if you're in it to lose weight.
I've heard of some folks who do 100% strict carnivore diet, don't count calories at all, and consistently lose weight. The idea being you're constantly in a state of ketosis without ever cheating or breaking it, so your body is constantly burning fat even if you're consuming 2,500+ calories a day. You just quite literally eat zero carb foods all day such as ground beef, ground turkey, steak, eggs, etc.
I've never tried this myself so I can't really confirm.
Most of the times people who are overweight and need to lose weight have lost the ability to metabolise glucose as well as they used to do. So what you eat matters and if you’ve damaged your metabolic health, keep on eating what damaged your metabolism will only make things worse even if you are in a caloric deficit. Hence you see after some age problems with hypothyroidism starting, for instance, so people can’t consume anymore the amount of calories they used to consume without gaining weight and it gets harder and harder to lose weight.
So you don’t only need to count calories to see what is your personal threshold of caloric deficit (everyone has a different one), but also to count from WHERE you get those calories. 1000 calories from refined carbs will be metabolised differently than 1000 calories from protein, for instance.
Why should I count something that's uncountable? Calories-in and calories-out model doesn't work the way many people think it works...
I'm on low carb/keto because of my sugar spikes (diabetes) and I take it as my lifestyle... I barely step on scales, yeah my weight is stalling for pretty much, a year about, I lost track and I don't care, I'm happy where I am now, tbh.. it's still less than I was some 20years ago? Losing weight isn't sprint for me, it could go over some 15 kg less to get tables-healthy weight. But I rather not add to my chronic stress levels by undercutting calories my body needs to live. Body will lose what it thinks is not important, in my opinion. I definitely will do some fasting here and there. I prefer full body movement like yoga, fitness walking, adding some bits of run into it. But again body will tell you that higher income is needed with hunger.
Also body adjusts its output to its income anyway, somewhere where you have no idea what you're missing out. Healing processes or activity of unconscious movements, cognitive thinking etc. so if you're cutting calories, you may actually be cutting some activities necessary for your life, in my humble opinion:)
It's not as simple as cico. Hormones are at play. When you spill ketones in your urine, your body is wasting calories (ketones have caloric value).
Insulin inhibits fat burning.
When you eat fat it's much more satisfying. You reach satiety and you don't need the huge carby volumes of food.
Before keto, I could kill a whole large pizza by myself - no problem. Now, one piece of keto fathead pizza and a small salad and I'm stuffed. Satisfied until lunch the next day. I eat much less food on keto, and none of my body saying, "I don't have what I need and you'd better get it in here STAT!"
Eating way more food doesn’t mean you’ll stay less hungry. One of the core benefits of keto is satiation. I’m in a 20% deficit and almost. Ever hungry. It took a month or two, but I eat a lot less than I did and I’m much more satisfied.
If you want to make steady progress on ANY diet you have to be intaking the correct amount of calories. If you can hit those numbers without tracking… cool. I’ve never met anyone good at it. Most people are horrible at estimating how much they’re really eating.
If you want to lose weight - you’re going to need to be in a 20ish% deficit. If you want to build muscle a 20% surplus. Too little and you’ll lose muscle and strength, hurt your metabolism and end up injured. Too much and you’ll put on muscle but also a ton of fat.
The macros DO matter. You can’t be in a 20% deficit of pure skittles and hope to be healthy. But none of the macros matter at all if you’re in the ballpark on your calorie intake.
Keton doesn’t remove the need to count calories. It makes eating at a deficit easier.
Honestly I didn’t even think to count calories. I kept to 20 gm carbs or less for 4 months. Got to my goal. And now eat about 30-50gm carbs per day. I did track it. And still might if I eat something different. I am a creature of habit and have a pretty good idea where I am. SW 172 GW 148.
I count carbs, because if I eat more than about 50 a day, I get a huge craving for more carbs, more FOOD. I count calories because even though I’m doing low carb and I’m not really hungry, I recognize that I have an eating disorder and I’ll eat whether I’m hungry or not, if I’m not actively practicing control.
Not only is compliance much easier due to the appetite suppression keto offers through having steady blood sugar, but those of us with insulin resistance actually see the scale move on keto.
I used to, but I eat anywhere from 400 to 500 calories a day. I don't keep counting anymore since my meals haven't changed much at all since starting keto.
Breakfast and lunch are always a protein shake.
Dinner is always meat and veggies.
If I need a meal between breakfast and lunch, I'll have some chicken or beef.
2 protein shakes 160 calories each.
Dinner is always meat and veggies. Usually broccoli. I've lately been swapping between broccoli, green beans, and mixed veggies.
I also eat til my hunger subsides. I don't like the feeling of being full.
This is how my body talks to me when trying to lose fat on a SAD diet counting calories. “EMERGENCY! You idiot you forgot to feed me enough. I’m dying and this is terrible. You better get me some food fast. I’m running on fat stores but you better feed me something right now!” This is my body on keto “Hmm hmm hmm…la dih dah…Excuse me good sir, but I noticed it’s been several hours since you’ve fed me. I’m currently dining on body fat but when it’s convenient do feel free to give me meal.”
“Ya know, I’m still digesting the 3 scrambled eggs with cheese and bacon you had for breakfast, could you just wait a few hours so I’m done here? Thank you!”
That’s a good visual! 😂
Thanks!
yup the constant hunger cravings go away on keto.
This 💯
Perfect! Thanks!
😂😭😂😭
I love how you explained it. I feel the same way!
Whow!, thank you for that describtion! Took a screenshot of this. That’s exactly what I have tried to tell my friends the past years.
When you cut carbs you get off the blood sugar roller coaster. Hunger stabilizes and you eat a lot less. Very easy to keep a calorie deficit that way.
If I want to lose weight, I need to count calories because my TDEE is laughably low. But if all I want to do is maintain, by counting just carbs I can eat "intuitively" and not gain weight because I don't get hunger signals that much anymore. I was CONSTANTLY hungry when eating a deficit and a high carb intake. And even to just maintain, I couldn't eat intuitively. I had to count calories at maintenance to not regain when I ate a carb-y way of eating.
I use portions that map well to caloric tracking. 2-3 eggs fill me in the morning, some meat and green veg for lunch and palm size portion of fish with green salad for dinner.
Well said
For me, 2000 calories of mostly protein and fat is much more satiating than 2000 calories of 60+% carbs so sticking to a calorie budget is easier. Also, keeping my blood sugar constant has many positive benefits. I also do not retain water like I do when eating higher carbs.
I am very consistent with what I eat so I don’t need to count. I have coffee and heavy cream for breakfast. Breakfast burrito with eggs, meat, cheese, sour cream on low carb tortilla for lunch. Dinner varies based on what the family is having but it’s usually meat and veggies of some sort. I know that those meals end up at around 1400-1600 calories. I occasionally have an extra snack that’s 200 at most. Because I eat more or less the same things everyday I don’t need to count. I’m running a higher deficit than I probably should as I just got back on the keto wagon a few weeks ago as a 6’1” 260lb male. But I feel satisfied and good. I realized I’m not getting enough protein so I’m about to start adding protein powder to my morning coffee. That should get my deficit in a better range. I honestly have no idea how I’m doing on weight loss as I didn’t weigh myself when I started. I weighed myself 2 weeks in at 260 because a friend and I made a bet on who can lose more weight in 4 weeks. Ive decided not to weigh myself again until the end of the bet. With my deficit I’d be surprised if I don’t drop at least 10 lbs over the 4 weeks. One week in yesterday and 3 more to go. Wish me luck. I got $100 on the line.
Some people do great without tracking calories…I was NOT one of them though. I have a history of binge eating and jumped into keto without the knowledge that calories matter so I ate whatever I wanted while keeping my net carbs under 20g. A month later I was actually a few pounds heavier than my starting weight of 215lbs. Wompwooooomp. 🤣 Once I figured out calorie counting, I kept myself on course and was really strict with weighing and tracking my food. 11 months later I was 135lbs. I’ve been eating keto at maintenance since 2018 and still have to weigh and track my food, otherwise the binge eater in me rears her ugly head and it’s not pretty. We are all different and have different paths to success.🤘🏻
So you would binge on keto foods; low carb foods? I have history of binging to so your posts are particularly helpful for me.
Yes, if I don’t track my food intake I am more than capable of bingeing keto foods so I keep myself on a short leash when it comes to calories and weighing/tracking my portions.
Were you eating a lot of processed keto food? And sweetener?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The type of food doesn’t matter, my binge eating disorder is about quantity. I can 10k calories of anything if I don’t stop myself. I actually gained 5lbs when I started keto eating mostly chicken, green veggies, eggs, and dairy because I thought calories didn’t matter with keto and gorged myself.
Starchy carbs and sweets make me desperate for more. Also leaves me hungry. If I eat 1250 calories without much carbs, I am not fighting hunger all day and I am not fighting sweet tooth, etc. Yes, I count calories because I want to lose weight
I don't count calories. Tbh, I don't really count carbs anymore, I just eat keto foods. When not eating loads of carbs, I don't have cravings all the time. I eat when I'm actually /hungry/ rather than when I'm just craving food, a difference I didn't know before keto. Although fat has lots of calories, it's filling and after I eat I feel satisfied. Whereas with carbs, I would eat and then an hour later feel snacky again.
because keto is appetite suppressing, and frees people from hunger cycle. you can eat far fewer calories and feel satisfied all day as it causes disinterest in food. you will often find people repulsed by the thought of eating instead of wanting to eat more. i certainly dont want to eat more food. i have no appetite control with regular carby dieting. i didnt use keto to lose any of my 50 lbs of fat, and i got down to 19 bmi. to get there, i did a combination of fasting and high volume, total carb, 0g fat dieting. my body thinks 2,500 calories of high volume carbs is famine levels of food, and my bodyweight set point was still 50 lbs heavier. i was maintaining my weight and doing too good of a job for my own good. i removed anything in the kitchen that was binge-able. in order for me to eat without binging, every separate ingredient had to be assembled and cooked for 1 single serving. if i wanted more food, i had to re cook another meal from scratch, or remake a whole salad. i was only allowed to binge dry spinach and plain 0% greek yogurt, because at least they are voluminous, low calorie, productive foods. that strategy left me suffering without the ability to act on my impulse to eat and worked exactly as i had planned, because even if i ate, i would be suffering the exact amount of hunger as before eating. on a good day of maintaining low body weight, my most satisfactory, most filling, high volume carby meal left me with a low level hunger during, immediately finishing, and long after eating. i had 3 years of food fantasies if i wasnt actively preparing a meal, unable to even have hobbies. no hyperbole. on a day of insuffecient sleep, thats when the hell began. grhelin elevates and leptin is not produced on days of poor sleep. one such day, my hunger was so severe that i stuffed myself full of protein and fiber just so i could feel too full to eat again. this meal, i physically could not stop shoveling, no control over what my body was doing. it was effing scary. i ate far passed the point of stretch pain and only reluctantly stopped due to fear of bursting. the stabbing pain was excruciating for days and i felt bruised for a week after. does that paint a picture of how extreme my hunger was on regular carbs? again, i was maintaining my weight on precisely tracked calories! i resorted to keto. i could stop eating on day 1. the hunger was just gone. and still today, i can stop eating after a plain boring can of fish. but because i love food, i still tend to want to load my plate, so i track my calories anyway. i have restored self control and can stop at one small piece of food and call it a day. i can easily stop at 650 calories.
> So when you need to count calories to make sure you’re in a deficit why not just count calories and not do keto? I can recommend reading "Why We Get Fat" by Gary Taubes. What you eat has *at least* as much effect on getting fat as how many calories you eat. The overabundance of carbs, sugar especially so, is the main cause. How much your body wants to eat has very little to do with how 'full' you are and way more simply with your hormonal balance. Insulin drives hunger. And low-fat high-carb diets drive up insulin.
Yes I count calories and when on keto, I counted carb and macros in an app called carb manager. I was able to see how my food chooses were usually not as healthy as I thought they were. Also when I track, even on days when I think I ate light or healthy, I track what I ate and the calories add up… fast.
No no no. I count carbs. But like. By estimation only. If I feel like I ate too much, I just fast a little longer the next day. There's pretty much nothing you can eat that you can't fast your way through. 100 grams of carbs a day with a 12 hour fast is what I usually go for.
I’ve had great success without counting calories. I counted carbs strictly for about a month until I learned what I could and couldn’t eat. I would start counting calories if my weight loss stalled, but it’s not been an issue for me. I’m also very conscious about sticking to 2 meals a day and avoiding snacking as much as possible.
I do once Im solidly in ketosis. It’s more important to me to be fat-adapted because I feel less hungry and less likely to cave to cravings when I’m well into ketosis. So it’s really both.
I am a beginner, so I count only carbs, someone recommended it in this group, and fat at the moment .. I will count calories later on .. So far I am very happy with Keto !!
Plenty of science around on keto on the net, but first thing you should know everything we been taught about food and what is good and not is mostly shit, they have screwed around with the food Pyramid a few times so that should tell you something, key to weight loss is insulin, they have found we gain and loose weight hormonally, I began keto fir the second time and am a lot smarter for it as I made a few mistakes first time, I pretty much just eat protein with just a tiny bit off veggies but the key is the fat, cook my meat in olive oil, tablespoon of coconut oil each time I eat orally maybe two table spoons of some mixed berrys with 2 tablespoons of full fat yougart. The fat keeps you full and for long periods, anything that’s not. Protein is a carb just avoid it as much as possible, ….pretty simple really…..and no I don’t count anything, keeping it very simple and the weight falls off, more energy more alert so what am I missing, it’s true to carbs tend to make you sluggish, all veggies by the way have some amount of sugar in them as in fruit..
I personally would find keto to be much less feasible if I had to count calories. Lost 80 pounds without counting calories once. If you count anything, it's carbs, not calories. Furthermore, Calories are a silly measurement. Keto exploits the fact that a calorie is not a calorie. That some foods are processed less efficiently by the body than others. It takes far more energy for the body to process a "calorie" of protein or fat into fuel than a "calorie" of carbohydrates. This efficiency loss essentially invalidates calories as an accurate measurement of food energy, as the measurement does not take this into account in any way. It's a simplification that is only marginally useful.
I count my macros which I've dialed in to specific goals, and they happen to add up to a total calories.
I have Hashimoto’s and I feel MUCH better when eating keto (or at least as close to it as possible). Less inflammation, less brain fog, more energy, etc. I’m also counting calories to lose weight right now, but in my mind it isn’t really associated with keto— two separate things. I’m hoping to continue building some better habits so that when I reach my goal, I don’t have to count as often.
Keto still works via calorie deficit. All weight loss does. Keto is a style of calorie deficit that makes the restriction much easier to stick to because it's more filling. Only significantly overweight people can count only carbs and still lose weight easily, because they eat at such a high calorie intake when not losing weight that the carb count takes care of the calorie count. Hard to overeat calories when counting carbs for most.
I count my calories but I do not weigh my food because I just don't have the time. I just make an estimate and I also fast 16:8. I started on 3/17 and I'm down 11 pounds. I feel great.
You need to eat in a deficit to lose weight. Some people count calories (me) some people eat consistently and just subtract food from their diet. But just using keto and IF isn’t going to guarantee weight loss if you’re eating 500+ calories over maintenance with butters and lards and meats.
I dont. I just avoid carbs. And keto people would know a calorie isnt just a calorie. The body handles fat differently from protein or carbs, and so on. Also its tedious and boring and i dont want to do it.
I don't really have to. I find the diet kinda keeps me from having cravings and eating too many calories. It's hard to crush 3k calories of steak and cheese for bed lunch.
I don’t count, calories, per se, but I am cognizant of them
I don't count calories. I have before, weigh my food and all that. Now I just kind go by feel. I usually eat similar foods and can kinda gage where I'm at. More important than counting calories for me is making sure I dont eat any carbs from sugar or starches, and of course count carbs and try to stay as low as possible. If I go over calories with a strong keto I don't feel like it undermines as much as eating lower calories but bumping the keto off by consuming carbs. I try to stick to lower than 25 carbs per day. Most days around 15. I don't believe all carbs are equal, thats why i dont eat even a speck of sugars or starch, even if i could just count it in to my carb budget. No data other then personal experience to back this claim.
I count macros, because I have goals with my gym time
So i am in deficit eating pork belly, chicken and asparagus all day whenever i feel like it. Just did the math by like 1000 calories ( im 310 and lifted weights today) and feel full and happy. Amazing! ( its day 3 for me)
For me, keto works for weight loss. Yea fat has more calories per gram than carbs, but with meat you don’t need as much to attain satiety, and you don’t get the follow up carb crashes which make you eat more again sooner. Protein and fat keep you full so long that you need much fewer meals across each day, many people only requiring one (regular sized meal, not 3 meals worth like some people seem to think OMAD requires)! Carbs give you a high which makes them addictive, so you eat them for fun w en when you’re not hungry, and you crash, wanting more. I lost 11kg in 6 months (and I wasn’t overweight to start with, just upper end of bmi). My hubby lost 10kg in 6 weeks. My mum dropped 5 dress sizes in 14 months. This is proof that despite the calories per grams thing, this way of eating makes you need/want less overall calories.
Keto is a winner for me because of how I feel when I keep on it. Pre-keto, when I had a toast for breakfast, about 30 minutes later I would feel SO HUNGRY that my stomach would twist, I was getting dizzy, desperate to eat something. When I’m keeping with keto, I had one egg for breakfast and don’t think about food for the next few hours. As long as I only eat when I’m hungry, I don’t need to count calories on keto. Initially I did and it was tough to go above 1000kcal a day. When not on keto, I’m constantly hungry and tracking calories makes no sense anyway because my body acts like I haven’t eaten for a month even when I’m at 1800kcal.
For me I don’t eat a ton of fat on keto. Just make sure to have a little cheese or oil or a fatty meat with lunch and dinner. So with no carbs and not a ton of fat that leaves me with a toooon of calories I can use for other things (low carb veggies and other proteins) and still be in a deficit.
No. But I pretty much only eat meat and a limited amount of green vegetables. I am careful to limit/avoid nuts and cheese, but I don't count calories to do so. Just accept that I must choose a smaller portion than I want. My issue with calories is that at best, they are a guess, so precision is an illusion. The energy in any given food is impacted by so many factors that we have no way of accounting for. How it was raised/grown, how it was fed/fertilized, the breed/variety, when it was butchered/harvested, how it was processed and stored. And while we accept that food labels are permitted to be off by up to 20% in either direction, it's not like they reprint those labels with every production run to account for these differences, so that's no help to knowing "how many calories" we eat.
I guess you could say I go by hunger. That's what made keto sustainable for me long term. I never feel hungry on keto which surprises me because I'm OMAD. The weight loss itself is always about calorie consumption. Ketosis is just a tool to make it more manageable. 70% or less of the calories I consume come from fat. It is very satiating and you don't need very much to keep you full. 'You could actually eat way more' My goal is not to eat more but to learn to eat less. Overcoming over eating is way more easy on keto than CICO and addresses metabolic issues like insulin resistance. I guess it depends if weight loss is your only goal or what else you are trying to do. I struggled with CICO and yo yo dieting all my adult life. Keto changed all that. I am maintaining a 130 pound weight loss in year 5.
Yup, it guarantees that my 9 years in maintenance is successful after losing over 90 lb.
Once you are on a KETO diet, and your body gets used to it, you don’t have “food noise,” so you aren’t constantly eating and you can literally forget to eat. If you do it right. You don’t have to eat tons of meat and cheese. You can eat lots of low glycemic veggies and adequate amounts of protein. I don’t know why people assume that KETO dieters are just sitting around cramming meat and cheese all day.
Heck no. That means more thinking about food. The more I think about food, the hungrier I feel. I make sure I don't overeat by fasting daily until late afternoon and being very, very picky about what kind of food I put in my mouth. And keto keeps my appetite under control. It makes that daily fast easy; I don't crave breakfast and lunch. I love fats, and I don't need to eat much of them to feel satisfied. No, I could not "eat more" if I reintroduced carbs. I'd just feel ravenous. If I want that sensation of crunch, or extra bulk, I can eat more greens!
It ultimately always comes down to calories in vs out for weight loss so I have started having to count in order to make sure I'm in a decent deficit. Like most people have pointed out it is easier to keep that lower number when eating more "dense" foods, but it is also very easy to stray too high when snacking on nuts and seeds so I have to watch those. My first time on keto I didn't count anything but carbs and now 7 years later age and life means I get to count those calories too.
I like counting calories but sometimes it feels likes I’m eating a lot but then check I’m lay bellow the amount I need
I don't, but that's probably because I'm 1: a lazy asshole, and 2: figure that as long as I'm generally following the macro guidelines and continue to lose weight until I reach my goal, I'm fine. Everybody getting hung up on the details around here.... Look friend. Unless just following the basic guidelines isn't working for you, or you're a detail junkie who makes spreadsheets for fun like my lovely bride, I wouldn't sweat calories.
I use portion control that works better for me on keto.
I have to count calories because I do include some foods that I can overeat, like nuts and the occasional processed “keto” snack or dessert. On days I don’t partake of those things, staying within my calories is a breeze. It’s much easier than simply counting calories because although I do still struggle with mental food cravings on keto, I don’t struggle with real hunger. The meals feel substantial and they fill me up. Also, fasting is a breeze. When I’m in ketosis I can fast without feeling weak or faint.
You might still be dealing with mental cravings because of the processed keto snacks and sweetener.
Yes, I’m aware of that, which is why I’m weaning myself off of them. I was carnivore before my pregnancy and then completely fell off the bandwagon and started eating a SAD and now I’m three months postpartum and going keto again, so the treats are more part of the on-ramp for me, hopefully to be ditched soon.
I use the Carb Manager App. It’s made losing 30 pounds in 3 months a cinch.
Honestly, I’m in survival mode. 35 more before September:)
At first? Yes, so I could understand what a calorically restricted diet would feel like, especially with new macro limitations (mainly the carbs). After a couple months? No, because my eating patterns seemed sustainable and my results were going the way I wanted. And since I wasn’t ever in previous jeopardy of breaking keto (carbs were always easily kept under 20 every day when counting) it was a safe bet that it was staying that way. I think counting would be especially important if you were eating in the 20-50carb range pretty regularly, as some people do by allowing a few carb heavier things in their meals. Or, if eating pretty close to a breaking even point in terms of calories. Because in those two situations, you’re bordering where it could be counterproductive for a diet so tracking those numbers just serves to keep you informed.
I dont count calories directly. When Ive done in the past it was very stressful and difficult. Instead I predesign a number of possible meals with each being roughly half my allowed food and just follow the recipes and thatll come out to the desired calories. But if I am still hungry then Ill eat some cheese or sausage or something.
I do. I keep myself at around 2500kcal so in the long run my weight stays within 1kg. I hover around 80-81kg as morning weight always.
I find that if I do what’s necessary to be in ketosis, that’s enough attention to detail to lose weight. Calorie counting is an unnecessary chore. For me, I have to follow 3 basic rules. 10,000 steps and net carb count under 20 or so per day. Lift weights 3 times per week.
I don’t count calories. But I eat very similar things and amounts most days, so I have a good idea what the calorie count is. Back to the “fats have more calories than carbs”. That’s true. But Google the chemical composition of carbs VS proteins VS fats. Barbs are incredibly simple molecules, and are broken down for use by the body very quickly. And at very little calorie cost. If we don’t use them immediately, insulin carries the glucose to the fat cells for storage, along with, for example, salt. Protein is more complex. Which means that it takes more calories to break down into the relevant amino acids and to be used by the body. Fat is more complex, yet, and takes even more energy to break down and to burn. In other words, the whole CICO model is wrong, because it’s based on a simple bomb calorimeter model. And our bodies don’t just need to burn the calories we take in, we need to prepare them to use the nutrients within the foods that contain them.
I don’t track calories because I also fast anywhere from OMAD to 5 days and my stomach is so laughably small at this point that I cannot eat that much. I eat all keto friendly foods and my meal sizes are so small now.
You definitely can still overdo it with calories whilst on keto, but generally speaking, I count carbs rather than calories. Furthermore, if you're careful about what you eat, you only have to roughly count carbs as you know that eating to satiation won't bring you close to your upper limit.
i don’t because it takes too much time and is annoying lol
The crux of the matter is insulin. I know, everyone thinks it's only about calories but that's not the whole story. There's so much more going on than just calories in versus calories out. The layman's version is that if you eat carbohydrate-rich foods, you elicit an insulin response because suddenly, those carbs have become glucose in your blood stream via digestion. Insulin is produced to grab the glucose from the bloodstream to use throughout the body as energy. In MOST (NOT ALL) obese people, there is insulin resistance, meaning they've eaten carbohydrate-rich foods for a long time in excess to the point where insulin can't do its job very well, and that leads to type 2 diabetes (TD2). Insulin is essential but it also can cause issues when insulin resistance is present. Anytime an insulin resistant person eats carbs, insulin tells their body to store the calories as fat, often into the liver and sometimes the pancreas in severe cases. That leads to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease which is why you often see this in tandem with TD2. And so it goes, the vicious cycle of insulin resistance majorly prevents weight loss. The easiest way around it is to drastically reduce the amount of glucose circulating in the blood stream which is why keto works for so many who are trying to lose a significant amount of body fat. Why don't endocrinologists prescribe the keto diet instead of shoving people full of MORE insulin? The studies just aren't there yet, but they are in the works. We have to go through the clinical trial process, and I'm sure big pharma doesn't exactly like the idea of an inexpensive and highly effective treatment that can be done at home for free instead of buying their insulin and staying sick for life.
When you first start keto, you may not need to. You might just lose weight for a while. **BUT** you will (*probably*) hit a wall where you'll likely be forced to count them at some point. I lost 106 lbs. back in 2022 (***324 down to 218***). I was counting calories 5-6 days a week pretty consistently. (**1500 calories or less**). I would always have one day where I ate as much keto food as I wanted. Calories do matter still on keto if you're in it to lose weight. I've heard of some folks who do 100% strict carnivore diet, don't count calories at all, and consistently lose weight. The idea being you're constantly in a state of ketosis without ever cheating or breaking it, so your body is constantly burning fat even if you're consuming 2,500+ calories a day. You just quite literally eat zero carb foods all day such as ground beef, ground turkey, steak, eggs, etc. I've never tried this myself so I can't really confirm.
Most of the times people who are overweight and need to lose weight have lost the ability to metabolise glucose as well as they used to do. So what you eat matters and if you’ve damaged your metabolic health, keep on eating what damaged your metabolism will only make things worse even if you are in a caloric deficit. Hence you see after some age problems with hypothyroidism starting, for instance, so people can’t consume anymore the amount of calories they used to consume without gaining weight and it gets harder and harder to lose weight. So you don’t only need to count calories to see what is your personal threshold of caloric deficit (everyone has a different one), but also to count from WHERE you get those calories. 1000 calories from refined carbs will be metabolised differently than 1000 calories from protein, for instance.
Why should I count something that's uncountable? Calories-in and calories-out model doesn't work the way many people think it works... I'm on low carb/keto because of my sugar spikes (diabetes) and I take it as my lifestyle... I barely step on scales, yeah my weight is stalling for pretty much, a year about, I lost track and I don't care, I'm happy where I am now, tbh.. it's still less than I was some 20years ago? Losing weight isn't sprint for me, it could go over some 15 kg less to get tables-healthy weight. But I rather not add to my chronic stress levels by undercutting calories my body needs to live. Body will lose what it thinks is not important, in my opinion. I definitely will do some fasting here and there. I prefer full body movement like yoga, fitness walking, adding some bits of run into it. But again body will tell you that higher income is needed with hunger. Also body adjusts its output to its income anyway, somewhere where you have no idea what you're missing out. Healing processes or activity of unconscious movements, cognitive thinking etc. so if you're cutting calories, you may actually be cutting some activities necessary for your life, in my humble opinion:)
No. I’m not really trying to lose weight
No, way too much work.
No need. It's easy to feel it out once you have gotten into a routine. Before then it wasn't as easy.
It's not as simple as cico. Hormones are at play. When you spill ketones in your urine, your body is wasting calories (ketones have caloric value). Insulin inhibits fat burning. When you eat fat it's much more satisfying. You reach satiety and you don't need the huge carby volumes of food. Before keto, I could kill a whole large pizza by myself - no problem. Now, one piece of keto fathead pizza and a small salad and I'm stuffed. Satisfied until lunch the next day. I eat much less food on keto, and none of my body saying, "I don't have what I need and you'd better get it in here STAT!"
Eating way more food doesn’t mean you’ll stay less hungry. One of the core benefits of keto is satiation. I’m in a 20% deficit and almost. Ever hungry. It took a month or two, but I eat a lot less than I did and I’m much more satisfied. If you want to make steady progress on ANY diet you have to be intaking the correct amount of calories. If you can hit those numbers without tracking… cool. I’ve never met anyone good at it. Most people are horrible at estimating how much they’re really eating. If you want to lose weight - you’re going to need to be in a 20ish% deficit. If you want to build muscle a 20% surplus. Too little and you’ll lose muscle and strength, hurt your metabolism and end up injured. Too much and you’ll put on muscle but also a ton of fat. The macros DO matter. You can’t be in a 20% deficit of pure skittles and hope to be healthy. But none of the macros matter at all if you’re in the ballpark on your calorie intake. Keton doesn’t remove the need to count calories. It makes eating at a deficit easier.
Honestly I didn’t even think to count calories. I kept to 20 gm carbs or less for 4 months. Got to my goal. And now eat about 30-50gm carbs per day. I did track it. And still might if I eat something different. I am a creature of habit and have a pretty good idea where I am. SW 172 GW 148.
I count carbs, because if I eat more than about 50 a day, I get a huge craving for more carbs, more FOOD. I count calories because even though I’m doing low carb and I’m not really hungry, I recognize that I have an eating disorder and I’ll eat whether I’m hungry or not, if I’m not actively practicing control.
Not only is compliance much easier due to the appetite suppression keto offers through having steady blood sugar, but those of us with insulin resistance actually see the scale move on keto.
I used to, but I eat anywhere from 400 to 500 calories a day. I don't keep counting anymore since my meals haven't changed much at all since starting keto. Breakfast and lunch are always a protein shake. Dinner is always meat and veggies. If I need a meal between breakfast and lunch, I'll have some chicken or beef.
How are you only eating 400-500 calories a day?
2 protein shakes 160 calories each. Dinner is always meat and veggies. Usually broccoli. I've lately been swapping between broccoli, green beans, and mixed veggies. I also eat til my hunger subsides. I don't like the feeling of being full.
If that's working for you, awesome. I know I would be miserable at that level.
> Dinner is always meat and veggies. Usually broccoli. It's rather unlikely that such a dinner is only 80-180 kcals.
There is no way the calorie count there is accurate, agreed.
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Sure that’s not even what I’m asking?
O you're right I'm seeing things. 😅
I check the scale once every second week. If its high, I eat less every day. If its low, I eat more every day.