Yeah, you can drop your BG low enough to get the benefits you need if you’re trying to deal with diabetes, just by dropping your carbs. But if your main goal is weight loss, there’s a good chance you’re going to need to track more than carbs at some point–especially if you’re female and over 40. And you’ll probably need to have a good understanding of portion sizes and how much protein and fat you’re eating–which might mean weighing your food until you are practiced enough to eyeball it. After the first weeks, it’s rarely as simple as cut carbs, eat whatever. And if you’re needing to keep carbs rigidly low for a disease treatment or eat a medically ketogenic diet, you’ll probably need to do more measuring, weighing of your food and tracking.
Keto without logging data?
This is me exactly. I know where you are coming from and I did a thread on this a couple months ago when I stopped logging. Everything got so much better after I quit. I could no longer justify cheating since I didn’t know exactly where my carb count was which made it easier to make better choices. The stress melted away and I felt happier and free. I have always been blessed to have very successful progress, but when I quit logging my GKI jumped leaps and bounds. I learned to listen to what my body needs.
Now a days I’m thrilled I didn’t have to give up my spinach dip of all things. 
Spinach dip I never tried. Maybe I will make it one day just because you made it sounds so great.
I am also prone to dip sauces, but after keto I use fatty sour cream or creme fraiche also the fatty one. Great for dipping. I dunk everything. Bacon, salmon, mackerel, chicken, pork belly, avocado, broccoli and asparges. Hm I think I just described my entire nutritional intake the past month 
I do however have a thing for green pea pure alongside any fish dish. But when I do fish for dinner, I mix avocado and creme fraiche with salt and pepper and that seems to let me forget the green pea pure. And of course I also do some sour creme on the side just for flavoring, to keep dunkin’.
This worked and the scales moved but I’ve been stuck again at 134 lbs. I was 132lbs a few days ago but back to 134lbs now. I’m eating more, around 1350 cals a day give or take and although I’m not logging, fat approx 110g and protein approx 90g. Carbs always under 20g. What should I do/change to get the scales moving again (or inches preferably) or should I just hang in there?
Have you tried short fasts?
Sometimes when you only have a little bit to go it can be slow
When I first started I had three or four binders full of logs, threw them in the shredder, because it is useless data and simpler than I thought because losing body fat simply is not natural but gaining weight is natural, I was just eating to dam much even on keto, it truly is about portion size for me and I simply measure by sight and mind not with technology!
Yes, I’ve done 2 48hr fasts and I the first time I dropped 1lb, the second one I dropped half a pound but it came back. I don’t really like fasting (I don’t get the euphoria that people talk about). I think about food the whole time (apart from when I’m asleep).
I don’t get the euphoria either, but I do it to let my body fix itself.
I’m glad I found this thread…I’ve been seriously debating whether to stop tracking for a while and see where that goes…
I went three days without tracking this week. Part of it ate me up inside not knowing exactly how many carbs I’d eaten, but another part of me felt free 
I’ve been doing this long enough to know what 20g carbs looks like, but I don’t wanna go low on my calories either…tracking helps me stay on top of those.
I have only been logging for a short time; but it is helping me see what I am eating and helping me make sure I am getting enough proteins, fats and calories in, I was doing fine with the under 20 carbs (but it shows me how I am doing with that too). I think for me, it is a good thing! I am doing it on the cronometer.com site though (I don’t have a cell phone) and then I have been posting my daily results on my accountability thread. It will be a good way to look back on it later as well =).
Yes. This. Also because you find it helpful to keep yourself in check. I used to use another food log app for ages. Did I skip days? Sure. But especially at the start it helped me stay on track. Now with using Carb Manager for 8 months, I have learned enough about my usual foods and carbs that I could stop using it. (I even entertained the pros and cons in another post a couple weeks ago.) But the truth is that it takes 20 seconds to do and I like the satisfaction of a day well done when I open the app.
But I can totally see how this would make things more stressful for some people. Like a daily exam you have to pass.
The nice thing about this woe is that there is no one correct way. You do what works for you.
I just find that recording keeps me on the straight and arrow even after 4 years.
I skip the odd day when eating at friends or at restaurants but when at home everything gets measured and logged…
keto data nerds unite!
actually it’s worse than that… the measuring spoon always comes out when I add cream to my coffee and milk to my tea… obsessive… who me?
I am just experimenting with not logging, very scary as I have done so for many years, even before keto.
Long term I don’t know if it will be for me but three days in I have dropped a pound and am feeling good…the urge to measure the creM in my coffee is still very strong tho!
I agree; I charted for maybe 2-3 weeks to learn the food values of the things I commonly ate, but after that, I stopped. Don’t want to do that anymore. I don’t want to think or obsess bout food, my weight, the scale, weighing measuring, how much I’ve lost, what my ketones are, etc. Since keto, I really don’t think about food much other than to decide what to pull out of the freezer for dinner. Never been able to do that before - ever. What a deliverance.
I’d never be able to trust myself to pour freehand and I know for a fact I get food amnesia if I don’t log straight away 
Your body doesn’t know whether you’re tracking data or not… so, on the one hand, it doesn’t really matter whether you formally record data or not.
One the other hand, if tracking facts (food intake, blood levels, supplements, etc.) gives you info needed to better manage and adjust what, when and how you eat, then yeah… it could matter quite a bit as to how things work out for your long-term health.
Like the answer to almost all of life’s important questions: It depends.
Some habits work well for some of us, some of the time. Few habits work well for everyone all of the time. Know thyself 
I used to log everything from a carb counting point of view, but that was to prove to my diabetologist as well as myself that I was doing everything ‘right’, and if not, to work out where I was going wrong.
I do still count carbs, but don’t log them - I just program them into my pump for insulin calculating reasons.
Funnily enough it is keto that has STOPPED me logging the minutiae of my food intake - but that’s fine by me. For the record, in the many many years that I WAS logging religiously everything that passed my lips, I found the act of logging and reflecting back on it easy and helpful to identify patterns.
I can recommend logging data, absolutely. But my keto life has so very much improved my life with T1D (no rapid highs due to carbs, no crashing lows due to overtreating highs) that logging has done its job so well I don’t need it now.
God bless keto.
BTW, some of you might find it odd that I am obsessive to the 10th degree about a lot of things, yet I don’t track anything at all ?
Yet I’m doing great with my Keto WOE, my weight, and my health in general
I choose to be obsessive with zero cheat meals or cheat days, ever… And staying below 20 gm of carbs a day. I have read a lot of labels, and I know where carbs try to sneak in. But rather than trying to count every one of them, I simply round higher on everything. If I figure I’ve had my 20 carbs, and I’ve actually only had 13, that’s fine too.
Personally speaking, if I put all of the weight on my counting, I feel like as soon as a slipped on my counting, I’d start slipping on my Keto WOE in general. As it is though, I’ve gotten to where I eat like I do, with very little thought. It has gotten to be very natural. Almost automatic.
But for those of you who do count, do you think you would fail at Keto if you didn’t ? Do you plan to count for the rest of your life ? …or maybe your not planning to do Keto for life anyway ? Just curious.