Keto vs calorie counting
jondy2017
Posts: 3 Member
I know many say both keto and calorie counting are one in the same, as someone will lose weight due to having a calorie deficit. The first month on keto people lose a large amout of water weight, but I'm seeing people each month lose 10-20 pounds a month vs calorie counting people are barely loosing 4-8 pounds a month. So wouldn't keto be a better weight loss option?
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I think they lose so much weight b/c the limited diet = less calories overall (and eating high fat makes you less hungry, IMO)
But I've never tried it (successfully - it's hard to eat that much fat!)
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It can be hard to wrap ones head around the weight loss while doing Keto because of all the hype content out there. However, they literally only lose weight because they’re in a calorie deficit. That’s physics. Just because they didn’t count doesn’t mean it’s not a fact. There are plenty of people on the flip side of that coin that gain, and yet don’t know why. It all boils down to whether the food you eat satiated you and keeps you consisentently in a deficit.
Not to mention protein carries less water than carbs. The minute you introduce that back into your diet, you’ll think carbs made you gain all this weight back. No, it was only water in the first place. They are literally losing at the same ratio as anyone else.17 -
I know many say both keto and calorie counting are one in the same, as someone will lose weight due to having a calorie deficit. The first month on keto people lose a large amout of water weight, but I'm seeing people each month lose 10-20 pounds a month vs calorie counting people are barely loosing 4-8 pounds a month. So wouldn't keto be a better weight loss option?
How much weight you can lose in a week or month depends on how much weight you need to lose to get into the healthy weight range. I honestly have no idea where you are looking to get that kind of a consistent breakdown of who's losing how much. But if someone is losing 10-20 lbs a month, they sure as heck better have 100+ lbs to lose, or they are burning through a tragic amount of muscle in the process.
Fast weight loss is almost never better, unless you have a health condition that's going to do permanent damage right now without immediate weight loss. 4-8 lbs per month is kind of perfect. 10-20 lbs per month sounds to me like someone trying to sell you something.
Pick a way of eating you can enjoy at the right calorie level, and win
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I know many say both keto and calorie counting are one in the same, as someone will lose weight due to having a calorie deficit. The first month on keto people lose a large amout of water weight, but I'm seeing people each month lose 10-20 pounds a month vs calorie counting people are barely loosing 4-8 pounds a month. So wouldn't keto be a better weight loss option?
10-20lbs a month, after the initial water weight loss, is not smart for all sorts of reasons. 4-8lbs a month is a healthy rate of loss for most people. As you get down to a lower weight and closer to your goal weight range, then you'll also want to adjust your weekly goal to .5lb a week.
If someone is consistently losing 10-20lbs a month (while not under strict medical supervision), then that raises all sorts of red flags. Or, they're lying
eta: edit13 -
But if someone is losing 10-20 lbs a month, they sure as heck better have 100+ lbs to lose, or they are burning through a tragic amount of muscle in the process.
Fast weight loss is almost never better, unless you have a health condition that's going to do permanent damage right now without immediate weight loss. 4-8 lbs per month is kind of perfect. 10-20 lbs per month sounds to me like someone trying to sell you something.
More gold from @kimny72. It's very tempting to want to lose weight as fast as possible. The problem is that when you lose weight at a faster rate than you can metabolize fat (which is limited), you get into "burning a tragic amount of muscle".
Resist that temptation, with the exception of the overriding health condition, if that exists.
As popular as keto is, it's still not, and never will be magic.12 -
I don't believe one is better than the other. I believe that one is better for a specific person than the other. I do great with keto, always stick to my diet to a T because I feel like i have to and its all mental for me. When I try to do calorie counting, somehow I'm always cheating and eating crap I shouldn't be because I have the calories for it. I know its a science, and a deficit is a deficit but I feel like that stuff stops any progress, for me at least. Try both and see what works better for you 7
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I know a guy who's doing keto and losing weight very quickly, but he comes in around 300+ Lbs. He's also only eating around 800-100 calories which is a really bad idea and no male should be eating that low without being medically supervised (he's not), but some people are stupid and don't listen. Eventually it will catch up to him and it won't be pretty.
ETA: 1-2 Lbs per week is a healthy rate of loss. Losing 20 Lbs per month isn't healthy at all; that said, someone losing 20 Lbs in a month is probably very obese and they're going to be able to drop weight faster initially...but it will still slow down to a normal rate of loss provided they aren't starving themselves.14 -
No matter how a diet is packaged and sold, weight loss is always eating less calories than your body burns. Someone is figuring out the calorie deficit. You ALWAYS have to eat less calories than your body burns to lose weight.9
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it's not vs really
keto works to lose weight at a calorie deficit. the restriction can create a deficit without counting calories
however, it is possible to gain weight eating keto. there are threads every day (maybe hyperbole) "help, i'm eating keto but gaining weight" "gaining weight but eating keto" "why am i gaining weight (keto)"10 -
Here's the truth. There's not a lot of money to make out there from Calorie Counting, especially with MFP controlling the market. So people who want to tap into the many billions of dollars that people are willing to spend on health and dieting, they need to come up with something else to sell people on. So they over complicate things. They say "actually, if you xyz, it will cause your body to do (insert scientific sounding thing here), and you'll lose way more weight faster". This goes for Keto or many of the other ways people try to sell weight loss out there.
And sometimes it works for people, but as others have mentioned, it's because the things they do also happen to put their body in a calorie deficit. And you know what? If the foods a particular type of diet focuses on are foods you like and you have an easy time following it because it fits you, that's great. But it's not some sort of magic pill. There is just many people out there who will make a lot of money trying to convince people that it is.11 -
Just curious, if we as humans are only able to metabolize a certain amount of fat per day, as stated above, then how come obese people can lose fat at a higher rate than those with less body fat?
Edited to change the word weight to fat3 -
39flavours wrote: »Just curious, if we as humans are only able to metabolize a certain amount of fat per day, as stated above, then how come obese people can lose fat at a higher rate than those with less body fat?
Edited to change the word weight to fat
The amount you can metabolize is based off how much you have overall.13 -
There's been study after study that shows after a year or more, overall weight loss from keto diets and non-keto diets is identical. Everyone wants to take off weight fast fast fast. People on chemotherapy lose weight quickly. Not a good reason to use that as an option.I know many say both keto and calorie counting are one in the same, as someone will lose weight due to having a calorie deficit. The first month on keto people lose a large amout of water weight, but I'm seeing people each month lose 10-20 pounds a month vs calorie counting people are barely loosing 4-8 pounds a month. So wouldn't keto be a better weight loss option?
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39flavours wrote: »Just curious, if we as humans are only able to metabolize a certain amount of fat per day, as stated above, then how come obese people can lose fat at a higher rate than those with less body fat?
Edited to change the word weight to fat
I've seen it defined as a %, so the more excess fat you have on your body, the more fat your body can burn or mobilize or whatever at a time. That's why the suggestion is to have a general upper limit of losing no more than 1% of your body weight per week. So if you're 300 lbs, you might be able to get away with 3 lbs per week, but if you're 150 lbs and you lose 3 lbs per week, you are probably burning a lot more than just fat.
This is just my amateur understanding, mind you 13 -
39flavours wrote: »Just curious, if we as humans are only able to metabolize a certain amount of fat per day, as stated above, then how come obese people can lose fat at a higher rate than those with less body fat?
Edited to change the word weight to fat
Good question. Maybe the limit the limit is based on the amount of fat in the body (Just guessing). I'd be interested in seeing studies about this.1 -
39flavours wrote: »Just curious, if we as humans are only able to metabolize a certain amount of fat per day, as stated above, then how come obese people can lose fat at a higher rate than those with less body fat?
Edited to change the word weight to fat
For the same reason that a tanker can burn dozens of gallons of gas much more readily than a standard economy sedan. Larger bodies of mass require more energy to maintain their state. Biologically, we are supposed to slow down energy expenditure as we lean out otherwise we'd die much faster, so metabolizing "a certain amount of fat per day" is not quite accurate. The human body is designed to burn a certain amount of fat given the current size of the individual, which can be accelerated or decelerated depending on energy intake and expenditure.
And keto results in fat loss due to a caloric deficit. After dumping glycogen stores and the initial water weight gets peed/pood out, the body then regulates itself to expend energy at the same rate as anyone else. And like anyone else on any other type of diet, your results vary depending on total calorie intake, protein intake, and type of activity.
To add: keto is NOT lbm sparing (lbm includes water/glycogen/muscle/poo/anything not fat), so more protein is suggested to reduce the rate of muscle wasting, and a well programmed strength training routine further reduces it, if not halts it. You know who lost weight without lifting and those who did lift. Choose the aesthetic you prefer, but a more muscular body is better prepared to combat the effects of dietary mistakes than those who don't lift.6 -
That's interesting, so at some point your body says 'no, that's about all the body fat % I'm willing to spare today, time to start consuming muscles' I wonder what the evolutionary logic is behind that.1
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39flavours wrote: »That's interesting, so at some point your body says 'no, that's about all the body fat % I'm willing to spare today, time to start consuming muscles' I wonder what the evolutionary logic is behind that.
Without actual biology/physiology expertise in any way (
), I suspect it's more about the chemistry - that your physical system is only capable of biologically converting X amount of fat per pound of fat per day into energy, so when it exceeds that, it goes shopping for other energy sources in the body.
As far as "evolutionary logic" . . . at some level of intake, humans starve, and natural selection seems perfectly willing to let them. Physics won't let you keep running on empty, so how your body adapts is shaped by natural selection, not logic.
Pure speculation, though.39flavours wrote: »Just curious, if we as humans are only able to metabolize a certain amount of fat per day, as stated above, then how come obese people can lose fat at a higher rate than those with less body fat?
Edited to change the word weight to fat
Good question. Maybe the limit the limit is based on the amount of fat in the body (Just guessing). I'd be interested in seeing studies about this.
I can't find a cite quickly right now, but IMU the estimate is that we can burn roughly X amount of calories per pound of fat per day, and that that value (X) was inferred (by experts) via calculation, not experimentation. If memory serves (something mine rarely does ), the value of X is argued about, but is estimated to be in the 20s or at most 30s of calories per pound of fat.
The "maximum loss of 1% of body weight a week" is on the conservative side, because (1) it's a rule of thumb and one size doesn't actually fit all, and (2) losing too slowly is frustrating, but losing too fast is dangerous and unhealthy.2 -
39flavours wrote: »That's interesting, so at some point your body says 'no, that's about all the body fat % I'm willing to spare today, time to start consuming muscles' I wonder what the evolutionary logic is behind that.
Without actual biology/physiology expertise in any way ( ), I suspect it's more about the chemistry - that your physical system is only capable of biologically converting X amount of fat per pound of fat per day into energy, so when it exceeds that, it goes shopping for other energy sources in the body.
As far as "evolutionary logic" . . . at some level of intake, humans starve, and natural selection seems perfectly willing to let them. Physics won't let you keep running on empty, so how your body adapts is shaped by natural selection, not logic.
Pure speculation, though.39flavours wrote: »Just curious, if we as humans are only able to metabolize a certain amount of fat per day, as stated above, then how come obese people can lose fat at a higher rate than those with less body fat?
Edited to change the word weight to fat
Good question. Maybe the limit the limit is based on the amount of fat in the body (Just guessing). I'd be interested in seeing studies about this.
I can't find a cite quickly right now, but IMU the estimate is that we can burn roughly X amount of calories per pound of fat per day, and that that value (X) was inferred (by experts) via calculation, not experimentation. If memory serves (something mine rarely does ), the value of X is argued about, but is estimated to be in the 20s or at most 30s of calories per pound of fat.
The "maximum loss of 1% of body weight a week" is on the conservative side, because (1) it's a rule of thumb and one size doesn't actually fit all, and (2) losing too slowly is frustrating, but losing too fast is dangerous and unhealthy.
Different studies give different amounts but the rage is 25-31 calories per day per lb of fat before going catabolic. So, your estimates above are good.5 -
Keto people are losing that much because they are also losing muscle as well, or they are significantly overweight and have a lot to lose. It will slow down for them too.5
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