If you are not a counter, then you don’t need to count calories or calculate macros. The key insight from this way of eating is that the kinds of foods we are eating make more of a difference than the amount of calories.
“Eat less, move more” is a recipe for disaster in a high-carbohydrate diet, because the body responds to large amount of carbohydrate by secreting large amounts of insulin, which is the primary hormone signaling our fat cells to store fat. When we eat in a way that lowers our insulin, we actually have more energy, because less of it is getting trapped in our fat cells. And more energy circulating in the blood means less hunger, because our bodies are getting fed. In a low-carb situation, the body can speed up our metabolism, use energy to be active and healthy, build up our muscles, and all those good things. And fat, because it has almost no effect at all on how much insulin we secrete, is the perfect source of energy to fuel all these activities.
What people find is that, by eating enough food, we cause our appetite to reset itself at a level that lets us burn off some of our extra fat. The key lies in the hunger and satiety hormones. Insulin not only signals fat cells to keep storing fat, it also blocks the brain from receiving the hormone those cells send it to say they are getting full—another reason we are hungry most of the time when we eat carbohydrate. Lowering insulin lets the satiety hormones get through to the brain, and our appetite then becomes a reliable guide to how much food we need. And since the body can usually find a good use for extra energy, the actual number of calories we end up eating gets adjusted by our appetite. So listening to our body is what lets us get away without calculating macros or counting calories.