Fat Burning Insight from 1 year of tracking

On July 7th I completed 1 year of tracking my diet using MyFitnessPal. Last night I downloaded the data to see if I could derive any insights from it. The lesson: Weight loss is NOT just calories in vs. calories out. For example the month with my largest calorie deficit (44K+ calories) I should have lost over 12 lbs. but only lost 4.5. In the month with my most weight loss I lost nearly 9 more lbs. then my deficit would suggest.
In the 3 months I lost the most weight (nearly 40 lbs. in all) I decreased my carb intake and increased the amount of calories coming from fat and protein. The most interesting insight is that the months I lost the most weight I ate the most fat. One month I ate a lot of protein (via protein shakes) which came with a lot of carbs and lost nothing. The next month I switched to eating natural sources of protein that came with fat (aka meat) and the fire was stoked.
The theory? The carbs I did eat (typically 900 calories or less) were rapidly burned up via my daily exercise routine (average 530 calories per day running, hiking, walking.) Protein was synthesized to repair and re-build my lean muscle mass (my lean body weight has increased 6+ lbs in the past 6 months.) What’s left was fat which was burned along with other fat that was coming out of storage.
You recognize when you have become a fat / keto adapted burning machine. Rather than chasing hunger every 3-5 hours when you run out of sugar, it’s smooth sailing throughout the day. For example I did a 16 mile hike with zero carbs. This month I have increased my carb intake to about 1300 calories per day and have not only felt crappy but also gained some weight. For the record my current resting metabolic rate is about 2400 calories per day and my average daily calories per day consumed over the past year was 2267.
Armed with this data I confidently stopped tracking calories on July 7th (1 full year) and will stick to a diet of primarily vegetables and meat with fruit when I have been active.