why do calories not count on low carb?
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I am so glad that I was finally able to catch up reading on this post. There is SO much food for thought here.
I particularly loved @FIT_Goat's and @Dragonwolf's phrasing about how if this isn't working for you, something is wrong - you're eating something wrong or in the wrong combinations to heal and nourish your body.
Overall, I've been doing pretty well with the whole not counting, listening to your body stuff. What I have discovered, though, is what one of them mentioned - once sweeteners and such enter the picture, my body turns of it's internal logic centers and allows me to eat emotionally and strictly on a cravings basis...
Definitely time to go back to the drawing board on this one.
Thank you to every single person who took the time to read, post, and share here... This is honestly one of the best posts I think I've EVER seen within this group. So much good stuff about how to get to the roots of it all....
Thank you.2 -
I agree. This is a great read.
I'm still new to keto and eating at a deficit but I am loving how easy it is to ignore a hunger cue when it comes up. They are so small and insubstantial now... I get a real kick out of waiting an hour for the next meal, with ease, instead of opening a bottle of coke or something.
Hunger isn't than common now either. I feel like I am eating enough even though I am losing. To be honest, I am nervous about adding more calories on in a few months when I reach my goal. An extra few hundred calories a day almost seems like it will be too much. LOL
Ketosis is also great for handling stress. We had some company and I had a kiddie birthday party the other day for a dozen kids. I was tired and slightly stressed as I iced a cake with butter cream icing. Normally, that is a recipe for disaster for me but I didn't eat any. I didn't even lick a spoon. Instead I ate a couple of pepperoni sticks. Pepperoni sticks has become my new confort food. Yeah!
Thanks all. Your honesty is really helpful to a newbie like me! 0 -
KnitOrMiss wrote: »I am so glad that I was finally able to catch up reading on this post. There is SO much food for thought here.
I particularly loved @FIT_Goat's and @Dragonwolf's phrasing about how if this isn't working for you, something is wrong - you're eating something wrong or in the wrong combinations to heal and nourish your body.
Overall, I've been doing pretty well with the whole not counting, listening to your body stuff. What I have discovered, though, is what one of them mentioned - once sweeteners and such enter the picture, my body turns of it's internal logic centers and allows me to eat emotionally and strictly on a cravings basis...
Definitely time to go back to the drawing board on this one.
Thank you to every single person who took the time to read, post, and share here... This is honestly one of the best posts I think I've EVER seen within this group. So much good stuff about how to get to the roots of it all....
Thank you.
I'm finding the same thing. It's summer and so I've made low carb ice cream, and other snacks, plus cool alcoholic treats with lime and mint and so forth, and I've been seeing the benefits of my previous 5 months start to slip away. I had just gotten my stomach nice and flat, too! So I need to resist the urge to keep making things with sweeteners, and that Tito's vodka gets pricey anyway. Maybe my husband will decide I don't even need to make the sweet things for him if I'm not going to eat it with him (we are very much a herd mentality pair so the risk is if he does eat it, I'll end up joining him). Last night we skipped our evening decaf coffee to see if he could sleep better, and he did, so maybe we'll start cutting out that (purely emotionally driven) treat.
The highest I've managed to go in a day was around 2900 calories. And I don't usually see negative side effects of that. I tried cutting back on calories in the last week, and I went up almost two pounds. So back to not stressing the calories. I know, for me, I need to focus on not going for the sweet treats.. like KnitOrMiss says, it turns off my ability to hear my hunger signals. I haven't been above 35g carbs in a day (that's total, not net) since February, but the effect seems to be very similar to having my burgers on a pretzel roll with large steak fries.0 -
I can't say it's everyone's experience, but for me as I aged it became harder and harder to ignore the connection between good and my health. It's obvious (painfully at times) how foods affect me and that forces a reckoning to deal with food.1
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This post reminds us that many out there think that simply because we don't count calories, we believe they don't matter. The bulk of the mythology around controlled carb eating (whatever that means to each of us) revolves around the notion that we stuff ourselves with sausages etc. It's propaganda, but it's pervasive.0
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Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »This post reminds us that many out there think that simply because we don't count calories, we believe they don't matter. The bulk of the mythology around controlled carb eating (whatever that means to each of us) revolves around the notion that we stuff ourselves with sausages etc. It's propaganda, but it's pervasive.
Yep. Gotta love stupid fallacies.0 -
I do think I am starting to care too much. I never used to but since logging daily that banner at the top (cals eaten, cals left) is seeping into my brain. As does the note when I finish my day. I think I'm going to set my cal to 3000 just so it doesn't matter as much!!0
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JessicaLCHF wrote: »I do think I am starting to care too much. I never used to but since logging daily that banner at the top (cals eaten, cals left) is seeping into my brain. As does the note when I finish my day. I think I'm going to set my cal to 3000 just so it doesn't matter as much!!
If it were me I wouldn't, I'd continue losing the weight.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
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<<I'm finding the same thing. It's summer and so I've made low carb ice cream, and other snacks, plus cool alcoholic treats with lime and mint and so forth, and I've been seeing the benefits of my previous 5 months start to slip away. I had just gotten my stomach nice and flat, too! So I need to resist the urge to keep making things with sweeteners, and that Tito's vodka gets pricey anyway. Maybe my husband will decide I don't even need to make the sweet things for him if I'm not going to eat it with him (we are very much a herd mentality pair so the risk is if he does eat it, I'll end up joining him). Last night we skipped our evening decaf coffee to see if he could sleep better, and he did, so maybe we'll start cutting out that (purely emotionally driven) treat.>>
There's something about recipes that my body doesn't love. I can't figure out why because if the ingredients are keto friendly, and i am calculating the recipe correctly, and measuring the portions...ingredients don't magically become more fattening becuase they are mixed together. but in my case, they kinda seem to. i have come to accept these need to be "treats" (yes even though they are "diet") and my body prefers SIMPLE food choices, but i cannot say why it matters. Perplexing. Perhaps it is the overall effect of hunger signals and generally eating "more" outside the recipe itself.
Jen
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KenSmith108 wrote: »JessicaLCHF wrote: »I do think I am starting to care too much. I never used to but since logging daily that banner at the top (cals eaten, cals left) is seeping into my brain. As does the note when I finish my day. I think I'm going to set my cal to 3000 just so it doesn't matter as much!!
If it were me I wouldn't, I'd continue losing the weight.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Yeah. I have been having good success but I hate fixating on cals. Reminds me too much of my past and doctors screaming at me I was a liar cause I wasn't loosing on their low fat diets.0 -
There as to be some counting of the carbs at least for me to stay in ketosis. If I over do the fat calories I do not lose weight but seem to just maintain. As my health improves so does the calories burned. Calories do count but in my case when the carbs are missing I do not seem to gain weight like when a carb burner.
I weight the results of what I eat because I refuse to lose weight using foods and methods that are different than I plan to use the rest of my life. I must stop the yo yo weight like for the past 40 years. If I eat after 5 PM I seem to maintain OK but I will not lose weight. <50 grams of carbs is now my eating lifestyle for life.1 -
JessicaLCHF wrote: »KenSmith108 wrote: »JessicaLCHF wrote: »I do think I am starting to care too much. I never used to but since logging daily that banner at the top (cals eaten, cals left) is seeping into my brain. As does the note when I finish my day. I think I'm going to set my cal to 3000 just so it doesn't matter as much!!
If it were me I wouldn't, I'd continue losing the weight.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Yeah. I have been having good success but I hate fixating on cals. Reminds me too much of my past and doctors screaming at me I was a liar cause I wasn't loosing on their low fat diets.
We watched an interesting youtube video about diets, the doc called them "Will power diets" He said a person has a finite amount of will power. When its gone, the diet will fail.
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I like the muscle building aspect of low carb.
We can slowly drop fat and add muscle
The perfect WOE for body recomp.
Plus I like a slice of boars head turkey breast rolled with a slice of Swiss cheese as a snack
And that fits my LC strategy!0 -
KenSmith108 wrote: »JessicaLCHF wrote: »KenSmith108 wrote: »JessicaLCHF wrote: »I do think I am starting to care too much. I never used to but since logging daily that banner at the top (cals eaten, cals left) is seeping into my brain. As does the note when I finish my day. I think I'm going to set my cal to 3000 just so it doesn't matter as much!!
If it were me I wouldn't, I'd continue losing the weight.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Yeah. I have been having good success but I hate fixating on cals. Reminds me too much of my past and doctors screaming at me I was a liar cause I wasn't loosing on their low fat diets.
We watched an interesting youtube video about diets, the doc called them "Will power diets" He said a person has a finite amount of will power. When its gone, the diet will fail.
Except the reason it works isn't willpower. It's type of food. Eating till satisfied is the key. It took months to learn, but that's really the key IMO. Learning not to eat mindlessly or because you're bored. For me eating every meal and not skipping. All these things play into my success. Not counting calories in the least. I've been low carb for months but only in the last week or so have I noticed myself starting to notice calories. And I'm pretty sure it's an unnecessary stress. I want to eat until satisfied, and eat 45 carbs a day. That's what I want to focus exclusively on. A personal goal, I know it's not everyone's.
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I did CICO for a year..... Counting calories got ingrained. I was doing 1200 a day, more if I worked out. Now I've set it to 1500, but I still can't stand seeing me go over. It's a psychological twitch I'm working on, /shrugs.
Funny thing is, most days I eat less than 1200 with no hunger. On CICO, I would have been starving eating that little each day. I'm rarely hungry now in fact. I have to remind myself to eat.
I've also decided I want a body like Ronda Rousey, so I'm about to start on the weights. Protein FTW!0 -
chaoticdreams wrote: »...Funny thing is, most days I eat less than 1200 with no hunger. On CICO, I would have been starving eating that little each day. I'm rarely hungry now in fact. I have to remind myself to eat....
!
Exactly.
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JessicaLCHF wrote: »KenSmith108 wrote: »JessicaLCHF wrote: »KenSmith108 wrote: »JessicaLCHF wrote: »I do think I am starting to care too much. I never used to but since logging daily that banner at the top (cals eaten, cals left) is seeping into my brain. As does the note when I finish my day. I think I'm going to set my cal to 3000 just so it doesn't matter as much!!
If it were me I wouldn't, I'd continue losing the weight.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Yeah. I have been having good success but I hate fixating on cals. Reminds me too much of my past and doctors screaming at me I was a liar cause I wasn't loosing on their low fat diets.
We watched an interesting youtube video about diets, the doc called them "Will power diets" He said a person has a finite amount of will power. When its gone, the diet will fail.
Except the reason it works isn't willpower. It's type of food. Eating till satisfied is the key. It took months to learn, but that's really the key IMO. Learning not to eat mindlessly or because you're bored. For me eating every meal and not skipping. All these things play into my success. Not counting calories in the least. I've been low carb for months but only in the last week or so have I noticed myself starting to notice calories. And I'm pretty sure it's an unnecessary stress. I want to eat until satisfied, and eat 45 carbs a day. That's what I want to focus exclusively on. A personal goal, I know it's not everyone's.
Please reread my post, the "will power diets" referred to low fat diets, not LCHF.
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KenSmith108 wrote: »
Please reread my post, the "will power diets" referred to low fat diets, not LCHF.
Ok, gotcha. TY0 -
There's something about recipes that my body doesn't love. I can't figure out why because if the ingredients are keto friendly, and i am calculating the recipe correctly, and measuring the portions...ingredients don't magically become more fattening becuase they are mixed together. but in my case, they kinda seem to. i have come to accept these need to be "treats" (yes even though they are "diet") and my body prefers SIMPLE food choices, but i cannot say why it matters. Perplexing. Perhaps it is the overall effect of hunger signals and generally eating "more" outside the recipe itself.
Yep this is pretty much what I'm trying to do. "Sometimes Foods" that contain artificial sweeteners have to be far less frequent. Just because it's hot for a solid week is not a good reason to end the day with keto ice cream for a solid week.
As of this morning I'm back to animal products + 2 coffees max, per day. I already feel better.0 -
KenSmith108 wrote: »JessicaLCHF wrote: »KenSmith108 wrote: »JessicaLCHF wrote: »I do think I am starting to care too much. I never used to but since logging daily that banner at the top (cals eaten, cals left) is seeping into my brain. As does the note when I finish my day. I think I'm going to set my cal to 3000 just so it doesn't matter as much!!
If it were me I wouldn't, I'd continue losing the weight.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Yeah. I have been having good success but I hate fixating on cals. Reminds me too much of my past and doctors screaming at me I was a liar cause I wasn't loosing on their low fat diets.
We watched an interesting youtube video about diets, the doc called them "Will power diets" He said a person has a finite amount of will power. When its gone, the diet will fail.
I downloaded an audio book from my library yesterday (I think anything using the app/site OverDrive should be able to access it somewhere). I think the title is "Change Anything." It talked about the Willpower Trap and how we blame it all on not having the willpower, when that can be something some are born with, but being taught coping strategies and workarounds can actually increase a non-strong-"willed" person to have incredible "willpower." I printed some worksheets to work through this weekend, because there are some definite areas I want to change and improve in my personal and professional life!0
