You may have heard some people say that they lost weight on a keto diet without counting calories. But does that work for everyone? Not always!
It’s generally a good idea to count your calories if you’re on a low carb diet like a keto diet. It helps to give you an idea of your daily calorie intake and allows you to determine any mistakes made, especially if you are hitting a plateau.
You probably have heard some people saying that counting calories is not necessary if you’re on the keto diet due to its ability to cause more weight loss as compared to other diets. But that’s not really true because you will probably be burning more calories on keto than a low-fat diet due to your protein intake and lower carbohydrate intake.
Calories on a Keto Diet
If you’re on the ketogenic diet, you’ll likely end up eating slightly less as compared to other diets because the diet requires you to eat food that can easily make you feel satiated. With keto, you will feel fuller from the fats that you eat and feel satiated due to your protein consumption. And since you will be eating less food, you’ll therefore end up getting fewer calories. Your body will dig into your fat storage since you will naturally be restricting calories. This is how you will lose weight.
Related reading: How A Low Carb Diet Keeps Your Appetite Under Control
Calorie Counting on the Ketogenic Diet
Yes, you need to count calories on a keto diet, but it does not necessarily have to be an obsessive practice to the point where you will be counting all of the energy that you’re taking in. You can simply use calorie counting as a tool to help you to lose weight.
Using a food scale can help you to easily and properly keep track of your food intake for a few weeks so you’ll get a rough idea of your baseline. Once you have the rough estimates, you can simply gauge what you should and should not be eating.
You do not necessarily need to be a hundred percent accurate with calorie counting, but you can use this tool as a starting point in your keto diet. It’s a great way to measure how much energy you’re taking in, which you can simply adjust according to your needs. There are lots of factors that could affect the amount of energy you’ll be expending, such as your metabolic rate, level of activities, endocrine problems, etc. All these could affect the amount of calories you are taking in every single day.
Conclusion
While the number of calories you eat will have some effect on your keto diet, you should actually rarely look at this. This is because the amount of satiety as a result of the food that you eat in the keto diet will naturally restrict the amount of your calorie intake.
But does this mean you can eat as much as you want in a keto? Of course not, for if you overeat then you will naturally gain some weight.
If you’re getting a good result on your keto diet without counting calories, then keep doing it. However, calorie counting may be necessary for some people since it is a vital part of the process of weight loss.
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Image by Nick Youngson
