If you’ve signed on to the low-carb, high-fat ketogenic diet, you already know what foods you need to avoid, but should you also limit your calories? To a certain extent, yes.
“Calorie-counting generally isn’t necessary on the keto diet because its macronutrient composition — high fat, moderate protein, low carb — suppresses appetite, leading to a spontaneous decrease in calorie intake,” Franziska Spritzler, RD, a certified diabetes educator in Huntington Beach, CA, told POPSUGAR. “This allows you to achieve a calorie deficit and lose weight without feeling hungry. However, not everyone experiences the keto diet’s appetite-suppressing effect, and it’s entirely possible to eat more calories than needed for weight loss.”
Desiree Nielsen, RD, author of Un-Junk Your Diet, agreed, noting that even when eating a well-formulated ketogenic diet, if your goal is weight loss, you do need to pay attention to calories. “A ketogenic diet will shift you to burning fat for energy, but if you are eating enough fat, your body won’t need to liberate its own fat stores to do so,” she said.
