So i lost 30kg with IF last year and never counted calories. I generally tried to eat balanced meals and healthy snacks but didnt want to put the added stress of tracking meals and counting calories. You can try not counting for a while and if you dont like the results, maybe start counting then
I will say I do count because I’m one of those people who can never consistently remember what they’ve eaten (lol), or accurately factor in “hidden” calories in a dish such as butter/oil, so without counting I tend to eat past my deficit goal.
As the other response said, try it out and see how it goes. You could do just fine. I’d give it a month to see if you get the results you want. And decide if you need to change anything based on that baseline data.
Regardless if you strict count (with an app and measuring each ingredient), estimate the count (being able to intuitively know and remember what you’ve eaten for the day), or not count in any way at all, your calories will need to be at a deficit compared to your TDEE (total daily calorie expenditure) over time in order to see weight loss.
Your TDEE is an equation of height, weight, and activity/lifestyle so if calculating this then your calculation will need to be updated each month (updated to reflect your updated weight). This is calculated using a calorie calculator (you can find them online, I like NASM’s calorie calculator as it gives you a timeline and graph of expected results). To lose weight, eat at a deficit compared to your TDEE. For example, if someone’s TDEE is 2000 that would be their maintenance calories and 1500 could be a good deficit for them.
Also, think thru the “eat anything I want” part. Like, that’s what got you where you are. When this is over, and you’ve reached your goal weight … if you haven’t developed healthy eating habits … you’ll just return to where you started.