initial weight loss will be water weight , in the end if weight loss is your goal it is always calories eaten should be a bit less than calories required to maintain weight. but the main advantage of low carb is you inherently dont feel that hungry and you know when you are full due to dietary fat consumed. i.e It is very easy NOT to overeat unlike while eating carbs .

Same here. I have to restrict both carbs AND calories in order to lose. Right now I'm doing a limit of 50 g. carbs and 1300 calories daily, with 30 minutes of exercise most days. Losing at a steady rate with this combination so far.

that is odd because my calorie count is lower on LCHF. i am full with fewer cals.

2DUNNY wrote: »

that is odd because my calorie count is lower on LCHF. i am full with fewer cals.

This is why people say you don't have to count calories on LCHF. It's not because they don't matter, it's because it's common to naturally eat less food because your body is satisfied more easily and also is able to finally access the onboard pantry on our bodies between meals.

I didn't actually count calories when I moved to LCHF but the weight came off at a much higher rate than it ever did when I was on the standard MFP calorie reduction diet. There is no way that I'd have been losing at that rate with the calories being eaten on a higher carb diet. It was quite disconcerting, after a few years of calorie counting.
I started low carbing around April and have shed enough weight to easily pass my target, and it's been so much easier than calorie counting. It didn't seem "right" to me at first: after so many years of struggling with my weight to adopt this style of eating but the scales don't lie.

Amen to that!

I find that if I start thinking I've finally gotten my portion-size guesstimator refined to within 0.001%, then >FAIL!< I'm underestimating by, well, waaayyy too much.

Calories matter to me. While many of the experts (books, videos, articles, podcasts) dance around calories and talk about the shortfalls of calorie counting, I have yet to hear any of them say calories DON'T matter and have heard most say that calories DO matter.

I counted calories all through weight loss and it was effective. I counted calories all through keto during maintenance and personally found weighing and measuring food necessary (for me) due to the high calories in fat, a macro that I was not accustomed to eating a high volume of-pre keto.

Now, my 4th year into maintenance, I still monitor calories and macros since I still eat LCHF. Cups, spoons and food scales are far more accurate and consistent than my "internal monitors and estimators" will ever be in regards to portions. Today, I don't weigh and measure every single item that I eat but I also don't "eyeball" everything either. My hunger cues aren't all that great either when I have too much time on my hand and/or am procrastinating...