Anonymous wrote:Conventional wisdom is you can’t lose weight and build muscle at the same time. People usually cut calories to lose fat and then eat a surplus of calories while focusing on muscle building and then cut again to lose any fat gained while building muscle for their desired aesthetic.

It is actually possible to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time, but it needs to be carefully approached. A way to do that is to increase calories immediately post workout and drastically cut down on rest days. Like that one could eat in a surplus on some days to promote muscle growth and still create an overall caloric deficit leading to simultaneous fat loss, though those two processes would not happen in the body exactly at the same time.

To get back to the original question, yes, I totally believe it is all about calories in vs calories out. You should still watch what you eat for overall health and satiety reasons and to minimize muscle loss while dieting, but whether or not one loses weight in the end is all about whether a calorie deficit was created.

Anonymous wrote:Its not just calories in and out. I actually eat more calories on Keto and occasional IF than I did before yet I have lost a ton of weight. When I was younger, I noticed that I would gain weight whenever I ate a bunch of potatoes or rice. I thought I was crazy but I definitely saw a pattern.

Insulin is a big factor in weight management. The problem now is that everyone has the wrong food pyramid stuck in their heads. Nutrionists are just parroting what they were taught 10-20 years ago and they aren't the brightest bulbs anyway.

There is a different between legit fat gain and bloating. If I do a hard workout or eat more junk and carbs, yes the scale will be a little higher the next day, but that is not because I gained fat overnight from eating carbs. It's just because carbs can cause you to retain more water. If I cut all carbs from my diet today I would probably drop a few lbs pretty quickly, but again that is just water being release.

people who say X food causes them to gain weight are usually referring to the above- a weight measurement taken the day after eating such and such food. Which is not accurate.

I can also bet that keto is not the only thing that would cause you to lose weight. I could feed you a diet of all carbs and you'd still lose weight as long as you were in a calorie deficit. It seems that keto works for you and a way you find helpful to manage your calories, and that is great. if it works for you go for it. But if you started eating 4000 cal/day of keto food you would gain weight.