And I had luck with calorie counting - by actually weighing and recording everything I didn't overeat (though I was hungry), even though the food I ate was partially ultra processed.

I know that the net calories consumed/burned is what determines my weight, but the benefit of a low carb diet (only speaking for me) is that I am not hungry. I lost 50 pounds in the first six months and have been at the same weight for 18 months.

There's a bit more to it than that.

First, it's calories absorbed, not consumed. That is, if I eat calories in a form that's harder to digest, my body may not get all the calories out of it that are in the food. I think that this is one of the deals with processed food - the processing makes it easier for your body to extract the calories from the food. The calories were already there, but they're processed into a form that your body can use more easily.

Second, some foods (at least for some people) have some effect on metabolism, so that calories consumed is not totally independent of calories burned.

Well, you are "anti-conflating" the latter and former. They are describing the same mechanism, not two separate ones.

The point is that carbohydrates are calorie dense. You don't need to eat a lot of them to get a lot of calories.

Fish is one of the least calorie dense meats. Vegetables and fruits are some of the least calorie dense foods. It's nearly impossible to eat enough lettuce in a day to go over your daily recommended calories. It just won't fit.

So, in a lot of ways, keto, paleo, vegan, Mediterranean diets are all sneaky ways to cut out a major source of calories. You don't have to count them because just the way you're eating is taking care of that aspect.

But if you want to eat Twinkies exclusively, you can do that as long as you eat only so many.

Fat is more calorically dense than sugar, and your examples are all low in fat as well - vegetables and fruits have more carbs than either protein or fats - and the high calorie examples (ie. Avacado) of those categories are high in fat. Fish has few fats and no sugars. The most calorific cuts of meat aren't that way because they are sugary, it's because they are fatty. It's just that fats lead to satiety quicker than carbs, but I'll bet if you ate pork belly for every meal you'd find that you could and would get fat on that.

I didn't say they excluded all major source. I said a major source.

Yes, paleo and keto (I think) don't exclude fat, but they are excluding a major source of calories. Because we do need some fat in our diet or else we go into rabbit starvation.

There's nothing really in bread or refined sugar that we need that we aren't getting from somewhere else.

Fat is 2.25x as calorie dense (Cal/g) as carbs.

And? We already eat fat pretty sparingly. Whereas with sugar, you can color it and fluff it up and people will eat a giant cloud of it.

So, when you point out where I said those diets cut out all major source rather than a major source, feel free to continue.

So would you say it's the low carbiness of the diet, or the high variety of healthy thinginess of the diet that led the weight loss/ whatever?

Perhaps your current diet + healthy carbs would still help you achieve your goals?

Not the op here, but I have been doing low-carb off and on (i get into deep ruts of depression frequently enough that messes with it and I occasionally fall off the wagon) for the past 2 years, and for me personally the strictness of the carb count works for me better than the healthiness of the food I am eating.

I limit myself to 30g of total carbs (minus fiber) a day so it forces me to be more honest with myself. If I am at 25g for the day and I need to make dinner for instance, it basically forces me to always pick the low carb version of a meal (veggies + meat).

I hope to one day be able to transition to a diet with more healthy carbs, but in the process I am focusing on working on better habits and losing weight.

That's something like under 5% of your calories from carbs, assuming a 2500 calories per day diet. Have you tried other amounts between that and 60% or so that is typical in the United States?

Personally, I found that about 35% gave me most of the same benefits people claim for the much lower carb diets, without the hassle of having to put a lot of work into food choice to achieve it.

At 35%, a lot of "ordinary" foods can be tweaked easily to fit. Sandwich is 50%? Get it with regular mayo instead of lite mayo, or make it double meat, or both...and you can get it to under 35%.

At 5%, that sandwich is right out. As are burgers, pizza, pasta...basically most of the mainstream diet is out, and since most food infrastructure is geared toward serving people on the mainstream diet, that can be a big pain.

I have played around with the amount of carbs, right now my level is where it's at for weight loss, but I am planning on scaling up once I get closer to my goal weight.

But yes, food can be a pain (I have been craving pizza and fries for the longest damn time). My other goal aside from losing weight is learning what foods I _do_ like since having been a picky eater, means I defaulted to the mainstream diet and never strayed far from it which was negatively impacting my health and weight.

On the plus side, while it can be slightly more expensive grocery wise, it basically closes any eating out for the most part, so I can save money.

Not OP but my own experience with being low-carb for years is that for me, there is no such thing as healthy carbs. Fruits and whole-grain breads and other things that the mainstream nutritionists regard as "healthy carbs" still spike my blood sugar and cause food cravings for up to 48 hours even after a single tiny serving.

If I stick resolutely to a high-fat, medium-protein diet, I am almost never hungry and have plenty of energy. And after 7 years, it has kept 45 lbs of excess weight off me. I was never truly obese, but others have shed hundreds of pounds permanently doing the same thing.

> still spike my blood sugar and cause food cravings

How do you know that it spikes your blood sugar? Are you diabetic and actively monitoring?

Do you not have any food cravings on your regular diet? What marks the carb-induced ones out as different?

Not the OP, but I've ketoed for months at a time in the past, also for weight loss, and I can describe the lack of cravings like this: when I get hungry on keto, it doesn't demand my attention. It's something I know I can take care of at some point soon, but it doesn't make me distracted, give me pangs of hunger, or make me feel weak or irritable. I don't get "hangry." Eating a regular diet, hunger takes over much more of my conscious experience. It's something I need to address. Keto breaks that, and it's actually a wonderful experience.

The only 'violation' I allow is the high-fiber carbs, which do strike a note with your opinion.

If he’s eating vegetables he’s likely eating all the healthy carbs there are.