Your thoughts on the "counting calories" advice?

(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.

(Auden) #21

How did you find your calorie level? Just slowly drop the calories and watch for a result?

(Ken) #22

I reduced the amounts of meat and fat I was eating, and increased my fiberous veggies. I used hunger as a guide, first to the point when I was hungry about the time I ate, then to where I was hungry several hours before. When I did that, I had carbs on the Weekend to prevent metabolic slowdown.

(mole person) #23

Exactly right. You’ve nailed my own experience. I started only 20 lbs overweight at 49 years old. I’d been slim my entire life and until the last 8 years or so didn’t even understand why dieting was difficult for others. For me I’d just stop eating cookies and ice cream for two weeks and whatever pounds I’d added would disappear. Then things just changed. I still added a couple of pounds here and there but my usual way of shedding them wasn’t working and they just slowly added up until I was quite miserable. Finally, after trying my usual method about a half dozen times and failing I heard a podcast with Taubes and it led me down the keto rabbit hole. I decided to try it. At first the results amazed me. I quite rapidly lost the first 10 lbs but then the needle jammed and nothing more would budge.

At thas point though I’d been reading about people on keto doing IF and decided to try it. I was fully fat adapted and so it went very easily. I started with 16/8 and then switched to OMAD. As soon as I was OMAD those pounds started moving again and I dropped all the way to 108 where I deemed that I was as slim as I wanted to be and so I started switching it up more with a larger window some days… Anyhow, the point is that for me keto alone only worked for a few months before sticking me at a set point that I did not find satisfactory. I still eat keto and LOVE the WOE for many reasons but currently to maintain a weight I enjoy I must do IF too otherwise I just eat too much. However, when I eat, I eat VERY, VERY well, and I love it.

(Chris W) #24

No I wish the dudes being the computer gurus they are would write some code that provides one, I personally think it should be weighted to beginners, and maybe slightly better explain exercise and proper way to handle the macros as targets but not end all be all points.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #26

It certainly would be easy to code. The trickiest part would be helping people to estimate their lean body mass, so as to calculate their protein intake. The rest is dead easy, because the carb macro would always be “under 20 g/day” and the fat macro would be “to satiety.”

(Ron) #27

The problem there is that most people coming from SAD diet don’t know what this is or how to recognize so there would have to be a reference in some form as a beginning guideline. (maybe with direction to understanding satiety for the beginner).

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #28

Well, my experience was perhaps typical. I just kept eating the same portion size as I was used to for the first few weeks, until the meal when satiety really kicked in and I understood—finally—what they were talking about. I was still losing weight while eating those larger portions at the beginning, so perhaps the body just needed all that coming in, in order to be sure the abundance of calories could be trusted. I can imagine it finally saying, “Enough, at last! Now I can tell him to cut back!”

(Chris W) #29

I agree, I have really like to term it as full until you figure out satiety. I think there would need to be an emphasis on this is a “guide” or place to start. I think there is disconnect in the macro calulators and the fact that you really should not be taking in any carbs, every once and while you run across a newbie that is making that carb macro without fail.

I also agree with @PaulL that I ate to maintain macros based on advice from the person who showed me the WOE. But I cut about a month in and that did not work out well after a couple weeks. I think another problem is that the people think that fat adaption is better than keto adaption, for me at least it was almost unnoticeable save my exercise.