Have counted calories in the past but am looking for something hopefuly a little more simpler. Could someone please explain how many carbs I would need a day to lose weight? I am not sure how all this works. I am female, over 40, 5'9" and weigh 258 and am lightly active. I know someone who does low carb and they dont record anything as far as I know....they just look at the carb count and decide.
Thanks!!

dms6k Nothing worthwhile is simple. Your question actually is very complicated. To make it easier I use My Fitness Pal online to record my food. MFP is free to use. First you set up your profile, weight, height, goals, activity level and more. Then it will ask how many pounds you wnat to lose each week. After this is done it will give you a suggested daily calorie count, Carb count. Fat count, and protein count. At this point it is not yet a low carb plan. I go back into the goal setting area and for me I specified 1400 calories,
5% Carbs, 65% Fat and 30% Protein. This makes my daily goal:

1,400 Calories, 18 grams Carbs, 109 grams Fat, 88 grams Protein

Then comes the easy part. I enter my breakfast. lunch, dinner and snacks and MFP calculates everything for me. It shows how much of each I have had and how much is left for the day.

I ue MP and depending on my calories here is what I got...
Calories set by MP is 1860 calories and 233 grams of carbs
Caloies set by me is 1700 calories and 191 grams of carbs

Looking at yours, mine seems awful high....am I doing it wrong? I had MP set at light active and 1.5 pounds lost week.

My original settings were almost the same as yours. MFP lets you manually set goals and I lowered my calories to 1400 because I was not losing at 1800. Then I specified 5% for carbs, 65% for Fat and 30% for Protein. I did not set the grams for Carb, Fat and Protein. MFP calculated how mant grams of each based on the percentage I specified.

I am following a LOW Carb, High Fat, Moderate Protein plan. If you want a lower fat higher protein plan then reverse the percentages you enter and say 65% Protein and 30% Fat.

You mention you are using MP. Do you mean MFP?? I searched for MP food tracker and did not find anything. If you are not using MFP I can set a second temporary profile and calculate it for you. Let me know

WOW!! Another 2 pounds lost today

That makes 30 pounds in 45 days on Atkins.

When I was calorie counting my weight refused to budge even when I started eating 900 calories. I went for months without a loss. I decided to see if Atkins would wake up my Metabolism and it sure did.

I have MFP set at 1400 Calories, 5% Carbs, 65% Fat and 30% Protein.
This sure is working well for me.