Hi Robynsnest and welcome to the forum. Yes, you absolutely can do LC just for the health of it and not focus at all on your weight.
My husband and I found ourselves going low-carb "accidentally" after he was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes with an HbA1C of 12.4. He's deathly afraid of needles and the thought that he might have to start injecting himself with insulin a couple of times a day almost put him into shock.
We decided to figure out if he could control his BG with diet. We started out eating very simple meals (one item) and tracking his blood sugar after every meal to see what that food did to him. For awhile he did a test every 30 minutes for up to 3 or 4 hours after every meal...until his BG dropped back down to fasting levels.
Then, if a food caused his BG to spike way up and/or stay high (above 130) for longer than about 90 minutes, we just quit eating that particular food. If his BG didn't react (no big spike), we knew that food was "safe" and he could eat more of it. If his BG went up but didn't stay up too long, we put that food in an "okay in limited amounts category."
Didn't take too long to basically teach ourselves what Dr. Bernstein and Dr. Atkins had been teaching all along. Fats don't raise blood sugar. Protein in reasonable amounts doesn't raise blood sugar. Limited amounts of carbs from non-starchy vegetables and low-sugar fruits are okay especially if eaten with fats to slow carb absorbtion. But grains, starchy vegetables and high sugar fruits cause serious BG spiking. A diabetic simply cannot eat those things and expect to control his/her blood sugars without medications. Not sure a diabetic can eat starches and sugars and REALLY control BG with meds either...but the AMA and big Pharma still wants you to believe you can.
BTW, for simplicity I tend to think of non-starchy veggies as "green carbs" and starchy veggies and grains and sugar as "white carbs." Whatever carbs a diabetic does eat should come from green-carbs, not white carbs. Dividing them that in my mind makes meal planning much easier.
Why didn't we just follow Dr. Bernstein's and/or Dr. Atkins diets?
Duh... Because I had never heard of Dr. Bernstein and, while I had heard mention of Atkins, I didn't know ANYTHING about what he actually taught because all my life I had simply rejected ALL diets as "fad diets" except the AMA approved food pyramid and the "eat less, move more" plan. As far as I was concerned, Atkins was as much a fad diet as the "grapefruit and cottage cheese only" diet. All my life I had closed my ears equally to everything I considered a "fad diet" and didn't even bother to read or consider what ANYBODY had to say if it wasn't accepted by the American Medical Association. Talk about being a true-believer! Looking back, I can't BELIEVE that was me.
But the thing I wanted to tell you is that, even tho we were focused totally on keeping Hubby's BG under control and not paying any attention to the scales, we both started losing weight and I, being "larger" lost weight FAST! About a month or two after Hubby was diagnosed, I suddenly noticed that all of my slacks were getting way too big for me...as in falling off of me too big. And I noticed that my constant HUNGER had gone away. I had quit snacking every night before bedtime without even noticing that I was doing it.
I hadn't been trying to lose weight and up to that point, I hadn't even bothered to weigh myself. But the weight came off anyway. It was at that point that I started researching on the internet, first learned the term ketogenic, found this site, and started learning the truth.
If you're in this for your health, that is absolutely wonderful! It is the single best reason to change your life.
Don't bother buying or using a weight scale. Do get a BG meter and start checking your sugars regularly. Find out what your fasting BG is. Pick a reasonable "max number" that you're shooting for with your post-prandial BG. If you're already been diagnosed with diabetes or pre-diabetes, then at first your goal might be "no BG readings over 150 and back to my fasting level within 2 hrs.) You'll probably find that there is some "magic" number for you re the number of green-carbs you can safely eat at a meal that won't cause your BG to spike up too much or stay up too long. Once you find your magic number, I predict you'll find your clothing soon starts to get too big for you too.
Over time, as your glucose control gets better, you might find yourself re-setting your BG goals to stricter numbers. Your fasting BG will likely slowly fall and your post-prandial BGs will run lower and lower and return to fasting levels more and more quickly.
Hubby's BG now seldom goes over 130 and is always back to his fasting levels (90 now) within about an hour. He is off all diabetes medication and his HbA1C runs between 5.1 and 5.3. For all intents and purposes, he is no longer diabetic. Oh, and he also is no longer overweight.
So yes, do this for your health. You won't be sorry!