This recent post by Michael Eades got me thinking more about calories. In the comments of the post, you find the same story: people go on low-carb diets, lose weight, and then stall out. Curiously, Eades recommends that people continue what they're doing and focus on restricting calories. To me, this is the wrong approach.
A better approach would be to vary calories, such that calories are restricted some days and then have normal or healthy overeating on other days. The overeating side of things often gets overlooked. Continually keeping calories at maintenance or below maintenance levels is not how we're meant to live. Hunter-gatherers had periods of fasting and feasting, not an even level of calories each day. In other words, there is supposed to be variation in caloric intake; eating the same amount every day is what's out of whack.
One poor lady mentioned in the comments section that she was done to 1,000 calories a day on low-carb and still not losing weight. 1,000 calories?? Sometimes I have that many calories just for breakfast. Instead of eating 1,000 calories per day, she would be better off eating much more some days and then sharply reducing calories on other days.
Also from the comments, here is a similar approach:
"I had been eating a reduced, healthy carb diet for about 4 years (whole grains), and a very low carb diet since December, but didn’t see much of a result until mid-February, when I started 24-hour fasting once a week. The weight came off without effort as soon as I started intermittent fasting - I lost about 20lbs in 8 weeks, even though in March I also increased the fat content of my diet to about 60 or 70%."
