NOT counting calories?

dowhatrightis

Okay, so I joined a thread on here during my first efforts at keto. I did well, I was counting and limiting my carbs. I wasn't really counting single carbs, like in say, cheese, but otherwise I did. Also wasn't doing net carbs. But I wasn't counting my calories too strictly, and I lost about 5 lbs in ten days. (The thread I joined being "just give me ten days".) This was NOT water weight. I am down a pant size, and I'm severely obese, about 245- now 240- pounds, so yeah, I can easily burn through that many calories in ten days by getting a ton of cardio. But this time, I've been counting my calories and I have barely budged, in spite of doing harder workouts. I'm starting to wonder if counting calories isn't actually making me eat more, because the first ten days, I would just grab myself some cream and make a tea with cream, and eat until I felt satiated on some other nice keto food. I would estimate how much I ate, and chuckle at how few calories it took to feel full when eating enough fat. Then not eat again for hours and hours.

But as I'm trying to limit myself now, and count meticulously, suddenly the 5 lbs drop is nothin'. I've had a couple of days where I ended up binge eating. And I'm not getting that satiety anymore, because I feel afraid of eating enough. Has anyone here had MORE success when not counting their calories? Because I think I'm going to go back to not counting calories. Stopping myself at a meal arbitrarily because I've had 600 calories already, makes me feel neurotic and like I'm going to binge. But this scares me some. I want a log of some kind. I wanna know if I have done well or not. I don't know what to do here.

tcunbeliever

I count calories most days, but I do like to eat them all in one or two big meals...I totally understand that feeling of being satisfied and how nice it is. So, maybe try not stopping at 600 calories just because it's 600 calories and eat until you feel satisfied, then don't eat again until you are actually hungry. If you are combining meals and snacks into one sitting, then you can have more than 600 calories and stay within goal, right?

rsclause

I don't count calories and limit my eating to meals only without snacking. I try to keep my fats high and carbs below 50g. After the new year I plan on mixing some fasting in. Be patient and just let a stall happen for a while before making radical changes. As you tinker with macros and calories it is important to be able to see what is driving a change so you become aware of what works for you.

Larkspur94

I felt that way too a while back. Asked about it on other non keto forum and got scolded.
Basically, didn't track calories for over a month or so, was losing 2 pounds a week. Started tracking and trying to keep above 1000, only 1 pound loss a week. Asked whether I should go back to what I was doing, eating till satisfied at roughly 700 cals average estimate. I felt good, full of energy, not hungry before; but no didn't matter to them.
So yeah, after being scolded and told importance of eating enough, I've just forced myself to eat past that 1000. Even if I'm not hungry, I'll make sure to get up there. But I still question whether I should. Some days I feel way too full. Just don't want to screw my metabolism.

qweck3

Another way to approach this is over a 7 day period. Some days I'm just not hungry and I'm just not going to stuff food down just to hit my calorie number for the day. 2 days later when I'm sitting at the bar downing some wings I'm not going to stress over the number of calories as its going to balance out regardless. I shoot for 18,200 calories a week consumed to stay in maintenance rather than saying I must hit 2600 a day etc. The same goes for fat. What I look at daily are my protein numbers especially on lifting days as well as how many carbs per meal I take in being diabetic.