I've done hours upon hours of reading about low carb, why it's very healthy for us, etc., and I WANT to do it--and probably SHOULD do it--but I just CAN'T do it.

Even though it's not supposed to be deprivation, it feels like deprivation. Calorie counting feels like that too, but not as much.

So for those who've done any kind of a low carb/controlled carb way of eating, and switched to calorie counting--if you've been able to stick to the calorie counting, what about it made it so that you could?

I'm just trying to figure out what's wrong with myself.

Many of us here do both, at the same time. Both approaches are difficult, but IMO it's much more sustainable to do *some* form of carb control when one is calorie-counting. That may be a formal approach such as South Beach or Atkins or food exchanges or WW Core, or it may be an informal approach wherein one just avoids sugar and white refined stuff. But from what I see around here and have experienced myself, without some form of carb control, calorie-counting is likely to be doomed as a long-term weight-control strategy. If you look around at the long-term losers and maintainers here, I do not believe you will find a single one who doesn't severely limit or eliminate certain types of carbohydrates.

calorie counting works for me (I tried low carb for a while) because I LIKE carbs. BUT I do limit CERTAIN KINDS of carbs. White sugar, white bread, white pasta... all of those things. But I can have the whole grain version of them when I am calorie counting rather then eliminating them totally when I am doing no or low carbing.

I do really well with exchange plans (which I consider a type of calorie counting, because each exchange has approximately the same calorie count).

Exchange plans are flexible, as you can determine the ratio of exchanges that suit you best (the hillbillyhousewife website has examples of exchange plans with a variety of protein/carb ratios. There's a high-carb plan, a mid-range plan, and a low-carb plan).

Even though I'm trying to follow a more primal diet (ala the Primal Blueprint book, carb-restricted), I'm still using my old food journal pages (which have little boxes to check off the exchanges). I'm still checking the boxes and writing the calorie counts, just out of habit. Even though I'm not concerned as much if I "go over" on protein rather than the higher carb exchanges (fruit and starch).

I calorie count, and eat a low glycemic index diet. Carbs really throw a wrench into my loss. Last time I lost 40 lbs in 4 months, I was eating about 80-110 net carbs a day and that was right where I needed to be. I never did the Atkins or SB thing of going through a few weeks of severe carb limiting, and I don't think I ever went into Ketosis, but I lost steady and fast watching my carbs. This time, I'm more lenient but I'm not in such a big hurry to lose.

I'm another who does sort of a combo. I always assumed that because I didn't sit around eating white bread and potatoes, that I wasn't getting that many carbs....boy was I wrong. And on a normal day, I was eating a lot of carbs...most of them healthy, but I still decided to really focus on eliminating any that I could without being miserable.

Gotta keep your calories low, but the type of calories matters too. And carbs is something to be mindful of on any diet, I believe.

I personally started with South Beach diet as a general guideline and I like understanding GI in terms of food rather than low carb. I've lost a significant amount of weight without doing low carb and have been able to maintain it. Most of my calories (60-70%) come from carbs but they are high quality carbs which I think is something that is more important than cutting out all carbs.

I calorie count and I do not do low carb-- that being said, I did eliminate certain foods-- the ones that I have no prayer of eating in moderation and all of those foods are high carb:

rice, baked goods, pasta, sugary snacks and salty snacks. I am not someone who can eat treats in moderation; I do better just giving them up.

Once I cut out all of the stuff that I was likely to want to binge on my life just got much easier.

In the beginning, I was much more strict about anything sweet-- even fruit or yogurt-- but now I eat fruit and sweetened yogurt-- I don't have a tendency to overeat those things.


I have found a way of eating that feels highly sustainable, does not feel like deprivation, and works for me.

Twelve years ago I lost about 80 pounds on The Zone, one of the low carb diets. It was so complicated that I tried to simplified it but ended up giving up completely. This time, in my quest for a diet that I can live with forever, I decided to calorie count but also watch my carbs. Carbs are the key, for me, to control cravings.
Like others here at the beginning , I cut out sugar, white bread, white rice, that kind of thing. That was really enough to get rid of my cravings so I didn't watch my carbs too closely. About 8 months into my journey, my blood work showed a high sugar count. (So unfair since I didn't eat sugar.) I started a more formal approach, watched my carbs through the Daily Plate and kept them down to 50% of my total calories.
Two months ago, I tried to speed up my weight loss by dropping my carbs down to 30% to 40% of my total calories. It has not made a bit of difference in the rate of my loss, so I think I will go back to the 50% of my diet.

A long way of saying that I think that calorie counting with some carb limitations work well for me.

Calorie counting works so well for me because no food is off limits just because of someone else's rule. I may elect to put some foods off limits because of binge triggers or not worth the calories but knowing I CAN eat anything that I want if I fit it into my calorie budget works for me.

I am another one who does a hybrid. I would not consider myself low carb, but I am very careful about portion sizes for any grains and starches or sweets. On average, I end up being about 45% carbs, 25% protein and 30% fat, but that's plus/minus up to 5% on any given day, and that's based on an average of about 1400 calories.

I think I could probably lose weight a little more quickly if I eliminated more grains and starches, but I also know that I would not still be generally on plan if I tried to do that. The way I eat is very sustainable to me, and I'm easily seeing myself eating this way all the time - with occasional splurges - forever.

I calorie count but limit carbs--or rather, I maximize protein, which has the same effect. I try to get 45-50% of my calories from protein, and that means I have to get less than 40% from carbs (because lower than 15% fat just isn't happening). The carbs I do eat are really high quality: probably 50% of them are wheat bran and the rest is vegetables and fruit. Once or twice a month I have Chipotle with rice, or a plain grilled chicken sandwich with a whole wheat bun.

I do feel much better like this, though I still really, really want sweets. I just enjoy them.

I'm completely the opposite. It just shows how different everyone is.

Because exchange plans (much like straight calorie counting) allows you to eat anything that fits into your budget, I keep trying and failing at doing so.

Even though I now know that a high proportion of carb-rich foods (even if they're healthy whole foods, full of fiber) make it nearly impossible to eat sensibly, I can't seem to shake the "I can eat it, if I budget it in" mentality.
Probably because it sometimes works (at least for a day or two, then I fall back into the hungry-all-the-time trap).

I've found it very difficult to accept that high-carb foods just aren't worth the trouble they will cause later. For me, it's the entire class of high glycemic carbs, and even low-sugar, high fiber carbs have to be eaten in very small quantities or the raging hunger comes back, and before I know it, I'll be overeating again.

I do agree though that if I see my foodplan as "someone else's rules," I'm going to rebel against the restriction. The rules I follow have to be mine, but that doesn't mean I have to be the first to have discovered them.

It's taken me a long time to accept that I have to virtually elliminate all high-carb foods in order to control not only my hunger and my weight, but also the symptoms of my autoimmune and other health issues. That may not mean that I never have even a bite of off-lan food ever again. It does mean that I have to learn to look at high-carb foods almost as if they were foods I'm "allergic" to, and every bite has to be considered within the framework of "am I willing to suffer the consequences" (consequences being increased hunger, increased inflammation, and possibly lowered resistance to bingeing).

It's no longer just an issue of "is this food worth the caloric expense," but rather all of the other costs have to be weighed too. Costs that weren't even on my radar until I started eating low-carb for extended periods of time (I'm still struggling with compliance - mostly because I still think I can "budget" high-carb foods). I didn't know that carbs were aggravating my health issues, until I gave most of them up (and noticed tremendous health improvements). I didn't know that low-carb drastically reduced my hunger level, until I gave it a serious attempt (all my other previous low-carb experiences were short-lived, because I assumed it was an unhealthy WOE).

If you can eat high-carb foods without triggering intense hunger or other negative health consequences, more power to you. However, if you do notice those effects, it may be easier in the long run to learn to avoid some foods entirely, almost as you would if you had an addiction to another substance such as alcohol (I do find it interesting that many carb-rich foods affect the same pleasure-centers in the brain as cocaine, alcohol, sex and gambling).

I've done both. And right now, I'm doing both. I use calorie counting as the framework for the diet... and then within that framework I limit carbs, eat more veggies, etc.

I find that lower carbs are crucial to me for keeping my blood glucose low without meds, for satiety, and for avoiding cravings. I can tell when my carb numbers are creeping up because I begin fantasizing about bread and Cheez-its and pie, and trying to figure out how to fit them into my plan. So I do a couple very low carb days, and those cravings fade away again.

That being said, I'm realizing that when I do very low carb, I usually eat well below my calorie limit. I aim for 1800 calories a day. When I'm eating 20% carb, 25% protein, and 55% fat, I usually end up closer to the 1300-1500 mark. I've actually been thinking lately that I might not need the calorie-counting framework when I'm strictly low-carbing.

However, I'm not yet brave enough to try that experiment. I still feel the need for the accountability provided by recording everything I eat in MyPlate and seeing the total calories each day.

Perhaps in time I will try a month-long experiment in not calorie-counting, relying only on my blood glucose monitor and my cravings to tell me when I'm consuming too many carbs. But I'd probably only do it for a month. Just to see how it works.

Thank you for the replies. Now my decision is harder to make than ever because I know the damage that can be done by eating freely of the more refined carbs, and yet they draw me. That's why I thought calorie counting might be easier. But I hate counting, hate writing down what I eat...but I do like the idea of being able to eat ANYTHING as long as it fit into my calorie allowance for the day.

I never thought of it like this, and wonder if that's true--that the long-term winners at weight loss have virtually ALL strictly reduced their carbs?

I crave carbs from the time I get up, until the time I go to bed. I could live on breads, and sweet things. I could live on carbs, and not feel bad about never eating any protein, fruits, or vegetables--so you can see that I have a problem here.

I like that feature too, that nothing is avoided or considered off-limits. My problem is, once I start eating the carbs, even the so-called healthy carbs, I keep going and going, and I'd have to be awfully full before I'd stop.

It sure is hard to decide what to do...