I’m literally brand spanking new to this forum, so please forgive me for repeating and questions that I might have missed during my cursory search. I’m doing this a more difficult route as I only eat dairy and eggs. I am feeling pretty good about it so far though. I did one week slowly easing in and this past week really hitting the macro goals as best I can. I spent the last half of the week feeling gross, headachey, and grumpy, but today woke up feeling pretty good. I haven’t been counting calories or weighing. I’m going by the way my clothes feel and how I feel.
I’m a bit confused about what is a good macro breakdown. I have borrowed a ton of books from the library, listened to several podcasts, and watched hours of YouTube lectures and the general consensus is to eat under 50 grams of carbs. Now I’ve run across this forum and a few new podcasts that say 20 grams of net carbs. So if I’m averaging 40-45 carbs a day and 20-25 grams of fiber, does that mean I’m averaging 20-25 net carbs? I’ve been eating around 130 grams of fat and 80-90 grams of protein too. This is after a decade or more of eating 200-250 carbs, 30-50 grams of fat and 60 grams of protein. Is there a hard and fast rule that it has to be under 20 net carbs? Or does it depend on the individual?
New and vegetarian
Being vegetarian I would not trust carb counts - it has made up a huge part of your diet for so long, it could affect you very differently than the average ketoer on this site.
Probably best to buy a blood ketone meter and see how what you eat actually affects the numbers.
You could discover 50 grams a day is absolutely fine (with nice high blood ketone levels) or you could find that you have to really tighten up your game plan.
I agree, you’ve been on higher carbs for a long time. 50 g a day is a good down step for you and you may find once you’ve been lower carb for a while that you want to step down to 20 g a day. You face more challenges than someone who can fill up on meat in exchange for carbs. I’ve looked into very low carb vegetarian and I couldn’t work it out in my head. Best wishes and you’re off to a good start!
20 grams or under was chosen because it is low enough for the vast majority of people to get into ketosis. It’s by no means a hard and fast limit. Dr Phinney recommends under 50 grams and he wrote the book!
Depending on your goals you can just go by how you feel, or, as recommended by others, get a meter and moniter your blood ketone levels to be sure. I probably get around 30 total carbs, especially on a rasberry day. Under 20 otherwise. But I don’t track most of the time, and I’ve never tested.
I was mostly vegetarian until I started keto 8 months ago. You can certainly do vegetarian keto, but it is more challenging. I decided not to go that route. If your reasons for being vegetarian are moral, then keep at it! If your reasons are health or environmental, I’d do more research and then decide. Dr Peter Ballerstedt is a ruminant specialist with some very thought provoking views on the environmental impact of raising animals for food.
Here is a link to diet doctor’s advice on keto for vegetarians. 