At the beginning of my keto journey I was told it wasn’t necessary to track your food and macros; just keep a mental note of your carb intake and as long as you’re under 20g you’ll be fine.
This worked for a little bit, but the weight was incredibly slow to come off. Once I calculated my macros and started tracking my food I quickly became aware that, although I was eating keto foods, they were in excess and my calories were sky high. In order to consistently lose weight, you must still be in a caloric deficit.
If you’re stalled and not tracking, I highly recommend doing so, even if only for a little bit. It’s extremely educational and eye opening once you do. I was amazed at how far off I was on portion/serving sizes. Once I hit my goal and enter maintenance mode, I will likely ease off tracking. I’ve definitely become a better judge of eating within my macros, but still prefer the accountability tracking holds me to. Also, if you find yourself thinking you had an inflammatory reaction to something you ate, it will be easier to look back and see what the possible culprit could be.
If you’re looking for a good tracking app, I use and recommend Cronometer. I prefer this app over My Fitness Pal as I feel like it’s a bit more user friendly to those eating keto. It still has a barcode scanner, and with the paid version you can share recipes with friends and family, and also categorize your day. If you scan something and it isn’t in their database, you submit the nutritional information and they email you (typically within an hour or two) once it’s been added. This is the same for reporting an item with incorrect nutrition counts. It’s also easy to create your own foods and in my opinion, their recipe builder is better than MFP.
So, give tracking a shot and see if it improves or speeds up your results. I think you’ll be surprised at the difference!
Coffee, Keto, & Curse Words 