You can probably freely feed one or two meals a day on a low carb diet (8 grams of carbohydrate per feeding, 20 grams of carbohydrate per day) and lose weight, if you don’t go crazy. The problem is that eating as much as they want, most patients eat way too many calories on low carb diets, so they don’t lose weight. Freely feeding doesn’t work for most patients, because it’s way too easy to eat 3000 calories of ribs at Outback (there are 3000 calories in that single slab) and 4000 calories of steak at Morton’s. Patients work hard depriving depriving themselves of carbohydrates, don’t see weight loss, get frustrasted, binge and give up. If you want to lose weight, you have to count or at least watch your caloric intake. There’s no other way. Otherwise, you are going through a ton of deprivation, that’s not going to help you lose weight.