Your thoughts on the "counting calories" advice?

(Ron) #1

I have followed the discussions on other threads that often interrupt the original topic so thought I would dedicate a thread just of it’s own.
While most everyone agree’s that the Keto journey is individual and always a n=1 venture, there are many different roads to travel that can reach the same destination.
Some have attested that the keto path has to eliminate old thinking of "CICO " and focus on carb macro’s, protein moderation, and unlimited fat to satiety. They fallow this up with numerous ,podcasts, video’s, studies, articles, etc.
Others claim that you have to “manage” caloric intake to success on keto. They also have data to back them up.

Here is my take-
I believe that both paths have validity in the Keto World and in the pursuit of your n=1 you have to choose for yourself individually.

With that said, I have seen opposition posted when advice is suggested in specific directions. I don’t think this is a good expression on a public forum that is trying to help people.
Most people asking the questions that are causing the open debates are from newbie’s (and there are a few exceptions) that are looking for help. As they are just beginning their journey, they feel the need for direction and guidance. I conclude that since they are not yet adapted and do not understand the transition their body and mind is going to go through through, is is not a good suggestion to suggest to count calories or maintain the CICO mentality. There are so many other things they need to focus on in the beginning (and this does not include watching the scale) like electrolyte balancing, carb and protein management, feeding lifestyle, food contents, shopping, etc, etc, etc.
Worrying about ketosis, BG levels, heart rates, BP, Keto Flu, etc, are more than enough for them to be worrying about without adding to the list.
I thing a good approach “is” to stress the need to eat to satiety and not focus on the scale. Take care of the other things until you are fat adapted when at that time you can lower your caloric intake to achieve your goals.

What say You???

(Jay AM) #2

While I personally don’t believe in CICO and also don’t believe calories need restricting. My recommendations for the new people are meant to be simple for exactly this reason. If they decide later to go ahead and do whatever else, fine. My recommendations are there to provide a base to get people into ketosis and on the path to success. Invariably the topic gets derailed when someone tells them to count calories or fast. Contrary to my recommendation not to restrict calories. Usually this comes from people who aren’t as active in the whole forum or the newbie section, maybe they are only occasionally active, or they hang out in a specific topic, they have a personal n=1, or just lurkers popping in. It’s got to be one of my biggest pet peeves for someone to jump into a topic and give half assed advice and then wander off. Then you get one or two more regular members who are now playing damage control. Then I feel the need to argue about CICO in general. It’s a disaster.

As far as reasons I don’t believe in CICO, there are many. Such things as, none of our hunter gathering ancestors sat around talking about calorie counts. CICO is oversimplified, a calorie is a weird measurement unit, and a list of articles and such that I’ll have to come back and link here when I have a minute.

#3

It really doesn’t matter what any of us believe. Read and listen to all you can, then do what you think is best for yourself. The proof will be in the sugar-free pudding. If it works, great. If it doesn’t try something else. :slightly_smiling_face:

(Chris W) #4

The more I have read here, the more I see the same things daily.
I know were I made mistakes, even when I was making them I still had both forward momentum and drive to continue because I saw results that were tangible and quite drastic(almost scary). When I started to feel off, I did research into why, I fixed it, and to an extent was dam lucky as I was not here then. I was over ingesting potassium and we all know how bad that can be. But at the same time there were three or four other crazy things happening all at once, and while man before 1920 may have had this happen seasonally I had never before had it at all best I could tell so I was a little lost. And why did nobody mention salt, every other web site was say electrolytes, like they are some sort of magical elixir of life, when in fact it was mostly salt…but I digress again…

I got a good amount of basic knowledge before I landed here, wish I had landed here first but that is the past. I have basically listened to all the dudes podcasts, and in their fashion I started out with some basic premise and started to adapt from there. They freely admit they did not get everything right, hell they did a show on it. And so did I, and think this is both a dynamic process and one that we are all still trying to understand even the really really smart people.

The only thing I wish that this site had because I have to rely on others sites who are
defaulted to calorie restriction is a calculator, one that only gives your base line and that is it.
I hate to say it this way but so many times I see people who are eating 800-1000 cals because they are both taught that is good way to loose weight, and that I can do it quicker if I suffer some hunger. None of which are really good long term, probably not even a couple days let alone for years in some cases. Even when I was restricting I knew that is too much.

One of the other big problems I think is that the level of dysfunction and intent very so widely from person to person that you can really only fallback to n=1 sometimes. You can assume certain things, but often its only a WAG(wild ass guess) until they clarify, if they ever do.

CICO (in the context most commonly applied) in my humble and somewhat belittling opinion should be lumped in with BMI, cholesterol panels, and the food pyramid and filed right next Olestra in the “we thought it was a good idea circular file”

The discovery of BMR, TDEE, brown fat, and eating to satiety all the time has changed my experience 10 fold. Thanks to @Capnbob and few others for these things.

(Ron) #5

This would be a nice feature to be able to refer directly to.

#6

Can I just say that as a Newbies, I’ve found this site amazingly helpful, & feel that although there are a few differing pieces of advice at times, the overall consensus is the same, no calorie restricting, carbs 20g max etc, watch electrolytes- it’s given me brilliant advice through reading others’ posts.
So a big thank you to all of you regulars/ oldies for all you do to help!
@J_A-M you have the patience of a saint, endlessly posting your great advice!

(charlie3) #7

I’m tracking with Cronometer and a kitchen scale. Perhaps the experienced keto dieter can look in the mirror and just decide to fast as many days as necessary to reduce any amount of body fat but I’m not there yet. I’m confident fasting once a week for 36 hours. When I’m confident about doing more may be I’ll also have the confidence to eat freely and not worry about tracking or unplanned weight changes.

In the mean time I got some quick beginner fat loss even if it wasn’t by the best practice. Crono is teaching me what’s in my food and what’s not. It helps me stay close to 20 net carbs and gives some insights into the relationship between calories and satiety–if any.

May be I’ll stop tracking when I can feel my state of ketosis, when I know more about nutrients and I’m better at fasting than today.

(Mother of Puppies ) #8

I prefer not to.

It’s a nuisance.

-20 grams of carb
-125 grams of protein
-fat to satiety

Is working

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #9

Works for me, too. Dr. Westman says, “Of course calories are important—but you shouldn’t count them.” Gary Taubes says it’s not about how much we eat, but what our bodies do with what we eat. Dr. Phinney says that when we keep carbs as low as possible, eating fat to satiety triggers an automatic process that sets our daily food intake at the level that the body needs—without our having to count a thing.

When we have body fat to metabolize, the low insulin level caused by not eating carbohydrate allows our stored fat to be metabolized along with the fat we eat, and when we have metabolized all our extra body fat, the low insulin level caused by not eating carbohydrate allows the fat we eat to be metabolized instead of stored. It’s a simple idea, really, and endocrinologists have known the process whereby the body signals its cells either to burn fat or else to store it and burn glucose instead. The novel part of the idea is to apply what we know is going on at the cellular level to our understanding of how and what to eat. The standard hypothesis that it’s all about how many calories we are consuming—and about nothing else—fails to take account of too many facts that the hormonal regulation hypothesis explains very well indeed.

(Rob) #10

I like it ! May be hard advice to understand at first … but I think in relatively few words you’ve summed the key points up. I’d elaborate on that but I don’t want to hijack the thread … and it’s given me some ideas for one or two accountability type posts.

Thanks!

(Karen Parrott) #11

I get weighed and measured for health insurance , yearly

I do not have normal satiety signals.

I was previously obese or yo yo dieting 40 years

I love my normal pants and lack of joint pain.

I can only have these things with recording food intake. So I do. I get what I get and I don’t throw a fit. I do have to be a responsible adult for my choices and desired outcomes.

Do what works for you. Many long term folks track. No biggie. Many don’t and manage. There is probably one way that works better.

#12

Love these posts, thanks to all!

(Maha) #13

For the last couple of days I’ve been tracking my food to see where my macros are. I’d been lying to myself about my carb intake and decided I needed to see for myself that what I thought could be stalling me, is the culprit. It’s put me back on track, but I didn’t like the calories showing so prominently in MFP. Several times I freaked out, then thought, oh, that’s just calories. It’s so ingrained in us to watch calories, that even after a year of being keto/lchf, they still have an affect on me. So, doing CICO, no. Seeing how your food maps out for the day to see how you’re doing, yes. But I’m probably done with tracking, until I need to do it again. I just needed that reality check and boost to get back on track.

(Roy D Rushing Jr ) #14

One thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of the advice that gets thrown around comes from the perspective of someone who is or once was obese and insulin resistant. That’s not to knock anyone here at all. The keto diet strongly addresses a set of issues that a certain group are likely to have. It fights insulin resistance and high blood sugar, so you have tons of diabetics here. High insulin usually results in weight gain, so you have tons of obese or formerly obese people here.

Going from that assumption, it’s easier to understand why someone might say CICO doesn’t matter. For them, it doesn’t on keto. They will experience a very sharp drop in insulin production very quickly. The hormonal model of weight loss says that this is going to cause them to lose weight down to their new set point almost no matter what quantity of food they eat. Now, let that same person stay keto long enough to lose all the weight their new insulin level allows, and suddenly CICO matters for them again. It’s at this point that they have to get creative if they want to lose more. They can restrict calories to lose weight, or they can fast to drive their insulin levels even lower. In fact, long term both of those approaches is probably doing the same thing. Lowering insulin to allow the body to shed pounds naturally. From what I can tell, the more manageable approach appears to be fasting, especially for someone who has been on a ketogenic diet for a while.

Now, let’s say you’re a relatively healthy, non diabetic, insulin sensitive person. You’re still going to benefit from keto in he form of hunger management, energy levels, cognitive enhancement, and continued weight management. CICO is going to matter to you sooner than the obese and/or diabetic person though, at least if you want to continue losing weight.

Of course the argument could be made that losing any more weight would be deleterious to your health. Your body has told you quite clearly what weight it wishes to be at. You’d probably do well to listen to it, even if that means giving up your dreams of washboard abs in the short term. Long term, you might just get those washboard abs anyway as a result of steadily increasing your insulin sensitivity and thereby reducing the amount of insulin your body produces. This is a long and protracted process however. It isn’t something to expect anytime soon without some of the more intensive methods mentioned earlier. All of those methods involve reducing what you eat, either entirely for a short period, or partially for a long period.

Calorie For Calorie, Fat Restriction Is Better For Weight Loss
Advice for 2018 newbies with a lot to lose - keep it simple
(Ron) #15

Very well said!:+1: The only thing I might add in your description of keto was to address diseases and not weight loss directly. This has been a progression over time as a recognized side effect that still is a result of the original design. I imagine there are many who think of this WOE strictly as another developed diet newly conceived as another way to drop the pounds only.

(Sarah Slancauskas) #16

This is one of the most logical, level headed responses on this (somewhat emotive) topic that I’ve read on this forum.

(Roy D Rushing Jr ) #17

True. I forget about the therapeutic benefits outside of treating diabetes. There’s no doubt that plenty of people get in this WOE primarily to save themselves from later complications of diabetes and experience the weight loss as a pleasant side benefit. Some even adopt it to alleviate symptoms of autism or epilepsy. I find it pretty remarkable that it also helps with those last two, though I suppose it makes sense when you consider that you’re running your brain on better fuel when you’re keto.

(Alec) #18

I agree. One of the most consistent and annoying things here is most new people’s assumption that they need to be in calorie deficit, and they are encouraged into that thinking by the many keto calculators online that support a weight loss mode, which provides a low calorie analysis.

Is there a good calculator out there that does not provide a low calorie option?

(bulkbiker) #19

Might be worth you reading this thread too

In case you haven’t seen it.

(Ken) #20

Here’s a perspective from someone who once was obese, but it was many years ago.

CICO didn’t matter for the first several years. Only after your body has eliminated metabolic derangement does it apply.

Eventually it does if you want to lose additional fat. I plateaued for a year before I decided to apply it.

CICO doesn’t apply to Maintenance, if you’re primarily eating lipolytically.