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Want to argue that counting is important? Go here and let me have it.
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One of the original goals, when we cleaned up the group, was to define the place of calories and calorie counting in regards to low-carb. Given that this is MFP, you'll find a lot of people stress counting calories. It's the nature of the beast. If you wish to count calories or believe that not counting will/does not work for you, then continue to count them. Certainly counting calories doesn't stop low-carb from working. When people ask for help setting their macros, even I ask what their calorie goals are.

With that said, I am going to go the path of "Low Carb Bigotry" and state that counting calories is not part of a low carb diet. You do not need to track anything except carbs. If you keep the carbs low, your calories will take care of themselves.

I openly discourage counting calories and tracking (except where tracking helps you discover the cumulative amount of carbs you're really eating). I tell new people this all the time. I know most ignore it and won't give it a couple months to see for themselves. But, I wish they would. What's the worst that will happen? You might not lose weight for those months? You might gain a little weight? How much will it really set you back? You can always go back to counting calories if it doesn't work for you. It's hard, once you have trained yourself to worry about the calories, to go the other way and start ignoring them.

Switching to low-carb is hard enough on your body without providing it with all the fuel it asks for. Trust your body. Let it adapt before you try and put another stress (calorie restriction) on it. Chances are that it will automatically reduce your calories when it is ready, because you have so much excess stored in body fat.

I find that, for many people, counting calories works as a gris-gris. They may not even care so much about the end number. But, they believe that not counting them will lead to some type of disaster and/or that counting them will prevent bad things from happening. If you find that you need that structure, you can count to your heart's content.

First, here's a very good video:
http://youtu.be/e5ewexMZ1-o

You'll note, he stresses that calories do count. He even says you could gain weight on a high-fat, no carb diet (drinking 10k calories of liquid butter a day). Although, no one would ever do that. And, really that's the whole point. You're not going to want to eat more than your body is able to use. Low Carb is not a denial of the existence of calories. They're there and you'll need to burn off the excess ones you have stored to lose fat.

I have ranted on this several times in the past:

Calories matter, but you don't [shouldn't] need to count or restrict calories. Hydration also matters, but you don't need to count or restrict water intake. Your body, when operating correctly, will take care of caloric balance without conscious intervention on your own part. Are there possible complicating factors which may prevent your body from operating correctly? Sure. You already found one of them. In the presence of carbs, many people's hormones and metabolic signals get messed up and your body fails to operate correctly. Some medications, medical conditions, and other factors could also hinder proper functioning.

If you eat more calories than your body needs, your body will deal with those calories in some way. They will be stored as fat or burned off (there are many ways they can be used up). You don't really get to choose which one happens. You can decide to exercise more, but if you don't it won't prevent your body from burning them in other ways.

Frankly, I ignore all calorie calculations and advice. I've tracked them all, and found the resultant data to be so full of error as to be useless. Years ago, when I lost weight by restricting, I weighed more and was younger. I was also working out. By all accounts, I should have had a higher TDEE (daily calorie burn). But, if I ate 1,700-1,800 calories a day, I would gain weight. It drove me crazy. These days, I am lighter and older than I was. I rarely work out. I have the same job as before. By all accounts, I should have a lower TDEE. All the calculations say my current TDEE should be about 350 calories a day fewer than before. Instead, I am eating ~2,400-2,500 calories a day and still losing weight.

That's right. I have a lower [estimated] TDEE... I am eating ~700 calories more... by all accounts, if the numbers made sense, I should be gaining more than two pounds a week now or I should have been losing more than two pounds a week then.

Truth is, before I had deprived myself to the point where my body metabolically adapted to the amount I had been eating and it had adapted to the exercise level I was doing. Now, it's almost the opposite.

Anyway, long story short... calories matter, but a lot of things you don't need to control matter. We could say that weight loss was simply a matter of carbon balance. If you lose more carbon each day than you take in, you will lose weight (this is true, btw... the fat you burn becomes carbon-dioxide and water). Good luck trying to count the carbon molecules you consume through food and compare them to the amount you lose through the many ways it leaves your body. Calories are the same basic thing. You may have one easy way they come in, but there are many possible things that can happen to them after that and not all of those are under your conscious control.

I found a large component of low carb was retraining myself to eat the correct amount. I actually had minimum calorie goals, that I would hit, and no maximum calorie goals. Before I hit maintenance, I would eat at least 1,900 calories a day (on average). Below that was only acceptable if the day before had been well over and I truly wasn't hungry. Usually, I would hit a little more than that.

Will you see some weight fluctuations right at the start? I did. You'll have to give your body time to settle and trust that it will.

For me, calories matter much less than carbs. When I add nuts, tons of veggies (particularly non-green ones), fruit, most dairy, sugar-alcohols, artificial sweeteners, etc. I find my calories rise. I can avoid that by tracking every item I eat, which is just not how I choose to live. The other option, for me, is to just avoid them on a general basis. It may be similar for you, except that you want to include a certain amount of calories that aren't filling to get you up to the range you need to eat to stop losing weight.

There are several books you can read:

1. "Good Calories Bad Calories" By Taubes
2. "Why We Get Fat" By Taubes
3. "The Calorie Myth" By Bailor

Off the top of my head, this is all I've got. I may add more later. Eventually, I intend to link to this from the launchpad... unless the other group leaders adamantly refuse to allow such heresy to be part of that.