Full time low carb doesn’t work for most patients, because most people won’t keep their calorie intake low enough on a low carb diet, 7 days a week, to maintain. The problem is that low carbohydrate foods tend to be higher in calories. You can get lots of 100 calorie ice cream bars (and 30 calorie sugar-free Creamsicles and 40 calorie sugar-free Fudgesicles) at the grocery store. But Dreyer low carb ice cream bars are about 170 calories each. Traditional low carb maintenance foods (nuts and cheese) contain way too many calories, way too fast – so most patients can’t eat any significant amounts and maintain. Low carb substitue foods ( low carb bread, low carb pancakes, low carb cheesecake, etc.) more often than not, contain more calories than the real thing, because they substitute fat calories (9 calories per gram) for carbohydrate calories (4 calories per gram).