I'm asking this because my mom seems to think that I should be taking this into account.
She asked me what my calories were and what I ate yesterday, which was:
Breakfast: oatmeal packet
2 slices of wheat toast with light butter
coffee
Lunch: home made soup (consisting of pasta noodles, beans, onions, garlic, marinara, and chicken broth) 203 calories a serving.
Dinner: subway club sandwich

she told me to cut out all breads, pastas, and eat only 1 1/2 packet of oatmeal for breakfast. yogurt with grapenuts for lunch, and 2 eggs for dinner with a small salad.

She kept telling me that this is why I'm not losing, "Because you're not using your calories wisely."

This was just yesterday's meal. Normally I do eat veggies for both lunch and dinner.
Other days:
Breakfast: same as above
Lunch: tuna sandwich with 2 cups of broccoli
dinner: fish or chicken with 2 cups of broccoli and rice or lentils.

Your mom wants you to eat 1 1/2 packets of oatmeal for breakfast, yogurt and grapenuts for lunch, and 2 eggs with a small salad for dinner? So that's, what, 150 calories for breakfast, 200 or so for lunch, and maybe 400-600 for dinner depending on what's in the salad? And roughly 1 serving of veggies, no actual fruit, and less than 1000 calories?

Seems to me you're losing on what you've been doing, your ticker says you're down 20 lbs.

I wouldn't ever (for me) cut out all bread, pasta, etc. Granted, I eat whole grain wheat bread, brown rice, and whole wheat/brown rice pasta, but I enjoy food and diversity in my meals. I couldn't eat the same things every day every meal, and I certainly wouldn't want to live a life where lettuce was my only veggie.

Ha, I realized I didn't answer your original question! I track carbs, fat, sodium, all of it. I try and keep a ratio of no more than 40% carbs, and the majority of my carbs come from fruit and veggies, but if I want pasta/rice/bread, I have it.

I don't track carbs in the sense of counting them, but I do avoid bread, pasta, etc (even whole wheat), starchy veggies (corn, potatos), and all refined carbs. But I eat lots of fruit and veggies and limited amounts of whole grain (brown rice, oats etc).

You will probably have an easier time losing if you substitute some less starchy foods and more unprocessed foods (esp veggies) will probably increase the nutrition (i.e. spend your calories wisely).

I try to eat a good balance of carbs, protein and some fat. Cutting out all carbs is unreasonable and not something you can really do long term. Besides the best part of calorie counting is that as long as you stay under your calories for the day, avoid too much sodium because it can cause bloat, drink plenty of water , get your nutrition in, you can eat whatever you want now and then.

Your menu could probably use some fruit or cut up veggies as snacks which I find to be helpful. Snacks keep you from overeating, giving into really bad stuff and keep your metabolism churning.

I usually do about 50% carbs, 30% protein and 20% fat but it really varries and I lost 46 pounds in 7 months, give or take, that way. *shrug*

FYI my mom used to tell me really crazy stuff about dieting which I ignored because she was anorexic. I didn't realize it at the time but she was kind of emotionally abusive about my weight. I'm not saying your mom is like that but, moms aren't always right about such things.

My opinion is that people need to make sure they get enough protein, rather than make sure they don't eat too many carbs.

I use the Zone percentages, which are 30:40:30 protein:carb:fat. I also try to aim for 70 to 100 grams protein.

Your mom's plan doesn't have enough nutrition or calories, IMO.

Jay

I track carbs. I think ultimately if you are in caloric deficit you will lose weight. However, for me, eating more protein relative to carbs curbs my appetite and helps me to stay within my calorie range.

Your eating is no one's business but yours
That said, I've found cutting out some carbs has been good for me. I still eat potatoes but only have bread (mm, pb sandwhiches) once in a while. I agree that eating more protein and fewer carbs helps appease the appetite better. I saw it the hard way this week.

IMO and my plan why bother counting anything besides calories. Weight loss is a simple formula, not sure why people don't get this, its calories in - calories burned.

True, but some of us have other issues such as PCOS or Diabetes and too many carbs can cause cravings.

I've never heard that whole foods cause cravings thing. To me food is food. I can't be bothered to worry about the other things, I have enough trouble sleeping at night just worrying about calories. Yes, I do constantly worry about calories and it does keep me up at night.

Whole foods actually HELP PCOS. Ruth I think was just saying that carbs can cause cravings.

When I eat the *right* carbs, I don't have any problem. Gimme a sack of french fries and they will be GONE though--as well as any other junk within my reach.

benchmarkman, I don't know that I would agree about weightloss being a simple formula..in theory yes, it is....

HOWEVER, how my body reacts to certain foods varies. I have an easier go of it using whole foods, things low on the GI chart, drinking my water and eating tons of fiber.

If I chose to eat 1500 calories of grilled cheese sandwiches each day my experience would be MUCH different than eating 1500 calories of a balanced diet.

As far as "not bothering to count anything but calories"....well, I care to understand the benefits of the foods themselves and what they can do for my body--weightloss will happen if you are eating the correct way--but obtaining a certain weight isn't a guarantee of health---if you ONLY care about weight, than YES, absolutely calorie counting is sufficient.

Do you use FitDay? It has a food log that counts calories, grams of fat, grams of protein, and grams of carbs. There's also graphs and charts that show you a report of your daily intake and nutritional balance. I've found it very helpful for keeping track of what I'm eating.

Eh, maybe, but *what* I eat makes the difference between being satisfied and full and happy vs miserably struggling to restrict and deny myself. Not that I *count* anything, actually, but I do make my choices on *much* more than just calories. It might be that people who don't get why this matters really don't experience any difference based on what they eat, and only get value from counting total calories. But that doesn't mean it doesn't make a big difference for some of us. There's a whole spectrum. A lot of people are a heck of a lot more careful with carbs than I am.