This. Carbs are at least as important as calories. Carbs govern insulin levels, and insulin levels govern fat gain/loss. Keep doing what you're doing. Don't let the naysayers sidetrack you.
That's the way it usually works, isn't it? If your reduce energy input, the body will slow energy use to compensate. You can mitigate that effect through exercise, but during the other 22+ hours, your body will use energy (burn calories) at a lower rate than before. We should not assume that calories in and calories expended are independent variables. If you change one, the other will most likely also change, whether you want it to or not.
Mine for the last few months has been 42% protein, 12% carbs, 46% fat.
I know, it sounds horrible! But I've followed the low carb eating style -not without slips, granted- for a little over five years. According to conventional wisdom, I should be dead or a pudgeball.
Yet my cholesterol is 177, triglycerides 122, and I weighed 109 pounds this morning.
I am kind of a numbers nerd, so this comes naturally to me. I keep a food diary in a little 3x5 top spiral note pad that I carry in my purse. On most days, I write down everything that I eat and later transfer the data to an Excel spreadsheet that I set up. I track calories, and grams of fat, carbs, and protein. I use info from
Nutrition facts, calories in food, labels, nutritional information and analysis – NutritionData.com and corporate sites like Applebees, McDonalds, etc. I tend to eat the same 2 or 3 dozen things most of the time, so tracking is easier than it sounds.
It takes about 6 calories per day to maintain a pound of muscle versus 2 calories to maintain a pound of fat. If you replace 5 pounds of fat with 5 pounds of muscle (your total weight remains the same) you will burn an additional 20 calories per day. It's not much, but over a years time that could be a couple of pounds lost.
Lindy