So what if I exceed 20gms carbs?

#1

Hi all, I’m confused.
Let’s say I’ve been in Ketosis for the last three days. Then let’s say I eat 120gms of carbs in an hour, then won’t my body just go out of ketosis till the 120gms of carbs are burnt up, and then I’m back to ketosis? It’s not like there’s more than 120gms carbs available? Help?

(Susan) #2

Welcome to the forum @themuppet =).

Basic Keto that we suggest on the forum and to stay in Ketosis is the 20 grams or less of carbs. With this, also eat NO Sugar (some people also have issues with artificial sweeteners spiking their insulin, and making them stall or even gain weight, so it is good to be aware of this), eat adequate proteins, healthy fats and make sure you are eating enough calories (in fact eating 3 meals a day at the early stages and not worrying about calories, as long as you keep carbs 20 grams or less and no sugar) is what is more important. Drink enough water and Electrolytes, and you are all set.

You are defeating the purpose of Keto/ketosis if you eat a bunch of carbs. Eating Keto is low carb, no sugars, healthy fats and proteins… so just avoid carbs.

(Allie) #3

Once you’re adapted yes, but after three days you won’t be.

#4

Thanks folks, but I’m still confused by the basic
maths (or math in USA). If I’ve ditched the excess glucose in my liver and there’s no glucose from carbs available and I’ve proven I’m in Ketosis. Then logically once I burn up any carbs input I’m immediately back in Ketosis. I’m being the devil’s advocate here, to get some straight answers. For me, I’m not going to exceed carbs based on sugar, but some things like a lot of almond butter, mayonnaise (New Zealand style, 18gms carb per 100g), and our grass feed milk definitely runs the risk of putting me over 20g. Which I’m ok with as I also do an hour and a half walking each day, but I’m genuinely curious about what the body does if i came out of ketosis. Logic would dictate that if some excess carbs went in, I’d only be out of Ketosis till the body burned it off (excercise). And even if I didn’t burn it off immediately, it would only take a short while with 120g carbs on board to kick back into ketosis. I also don’t eat between 10pm and 1pm the next day. Or am I missing something? I don’t want keto diet rules, but I do like to know the facts or science so I don’t have to worry if I bounce out of ketosis for a couple of hours… Thanks, and I appreciate this is a more complex question than what your average Keto Fiend might ask :-):grin:

#5

There is a difference between being in ketosis & being fat adapted. This http://www.tuitnutrition.com/2016/01/dont-be-a-ketard1.html is a long read but Amy Berger’s site is an excellent resource.

Hope you find what you’re after :slightly_smiling_face:

(Scott) #6

Step one ketosis
Step two fat adaption
You can’t go to step two until you have mastered step one for several weeks.
No science but I aim for <50g. I eat good veggies and drink wine with dinner so I need more room than 20g. I still get the weight loss benifit so it works for me.

(Hyperbole- best thing in the universe!) #7

The goal with keeping under 20g of carbs a day isn’t soley about your glucose levels. It is primarily about hormone control, namely keeping your insulin levels low. Insulin is great! In moderation. As others have stated, it can take a few weeks, maybe more depending on your metabolic health, to get fat adapted. Meaning your body is quite happy to use fat and ketones as fuel. The high carb SAD diet has ruined our metabolic flexabilty, conditioning our bodies to burn carbs for energy easily, but not fat. It takes some time to correct that. And for many people it is best to keep to fat burning for a long time before testing your flexibilty. In an ideal world you can use fat or carbs for fuel. Most of us can’t switch back and forth very easily.

A lot of this is very personal and depends on what your goals are. I got into this for weight loss, but there have been so many other benefits, including mental health, that I want to keep those ketones high enough to keep that train rolling.

Another factor to consider is addiction. Unlike fat and protien, carbs can be very addictive for people, even if it itsn’t in the form of sugar. So maybe a 120g carb meal won’t hurt you. But if it pushes you back in to eating more and more carby foods, then it ain’t worth it.

That said, under 50g of carbs a day works quite well for a lot of people. But under 20 works for almost everyone.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #8

@themuppet Do the experiment and let us know what happens.

(Full Metal KETO AF) #9

There’s good reasons why we do this the way we do. You seem to be looking for a way to keep carbs up and be popping in and out of ketosis on a daily basis. This just isn’t reality. You can’t have both worlds. You are resetting a two month timer for fat adaptation everyday. Most of us experience a not so great transition after a high carb meal going back into ketosis, feeling crappy for a day. Keto flu again for many. If you do what you suggest you will never become fat adapted. It’s more complex than just using up the carbs and going back into ketosis till tomorrow when you carb up again. Sustained ketosis with minimal insulin triggering causes you to flip where your body prefers ketones as fuel over glucose. This lets your body burn fat as fuel. Keeping insulin response higher by eating too many carbs will cause fat storage instead of burning. It’s like trying to dig a hole and fill it at the same time. You are working against progress. What you’re suggesting is just a low carb diet and not a ketogenic way of eating. One foot in the boat and another on the dock and you aren’t going anywhere on land or water.

The foods you are talking about are not keto friendly foods.

Likely your mayo is made with vegetable/seed oil and highly processed and insulinogenic. This is inflammatory and toxic to your cells. Vegetable oils cause weight gain.

Milk is too high in carbohydrates for KETO. We use full fat dairy to keep carbs low.

Nuts and nut butters aren’t good unless you have the self control to limit your portions to 30-45g. They aren’t really recommended for the early weeks and as you suggest you go over on them. They are dense and the carbs add up quick. You don’t have self the control it sounds like if you are going over into a higher carb level to include them.

So try ditching all three, but especially the toxic vegetable oil mayo should go straight in the bin and never enter your body again. Learn to make your own if you eat mayo a lot, or buy pure avocado oil mayonnaise. Just try the way that’s been suggested and has been worked out by thousands of people before you. It works if you put in the work and stay clean with your food.

:cowboy_hat_face:

(Joey) #10

You’ve gotten superb responses above so I won’t pile on and repeat things that are already well put.

But I will take the liberty of pointing out where your assumptions have been leading your thinking astray…

Nope. Sorry, your logic is based on faulty assumptions about human body metabolism. It’s more like an ocean liner than a speed boat and simply cannot turn on a dime.

No, I’m afraid that it does not take a “short while” to get yourself adapted to the changes you have in mind. Just like it takes more than a few barbell lifts to build muscle.

Sorry, but if you want to change your metabolism this will be a long-term effort.

#11

Thanks to all of you for your feedback, I’m definitely not religious about Keto, but combined with intermittent fasting it’s having great effect! Some great points raise here and I now better understand the ‘fat adapted’ concepts. Dave :slight_smile:

(Scott) #12

FWIW I may be liberal on may total carbs of <50g I am very hard core or ridgid about not “cheating”. So if out to eat there is non keto food on my plate I will eat it. They include fries with my meal I will let them sit and not touch one.

(Susan) #13

Didn’t you mean NOT eat it, Scott? =).

#14

Yes, but there’s more to it than that. 120g will most likely fill up your liver and probably some muscle glycogen, while that process is happening fat you eat may be stored at additional bodyfat… maybe it won’t. You really don’t know. If you were to eat 120g I probably wouldn’t eat again that day. When you’re first starting out doing that will really delay how long it takes you to become fat adapted. You don’t want to flip flop drastically like that. There are ways to do it strategically, but do it right until you’re fat adapted the benefits are worth it.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #15

Some of it depends on where you are in your ketogenic journey. If you are just starting out, a high-carb day is merely going to delay your eventual fat-adaptation by some number of days. If you are fully fat-adapted, a high-carbohydrate day should make you feel crappy for a day or two, and then you’ll return to making and metabolising ketones.

Whether a high-carbohydrate day is worthwhile depends on a number of factors. If you are a carb- or sugar-addict craving a hit, you might embark on a binge that could last quite a long time. You might never, in fact, get back to eating a ketogenic diet. Many addicts find that it is far easier to abstain from their drug than to try to use it in moderation.

If you are diabetic or even just insulin-resistant, a day of high carbohydrate can send your insulin skyrocketing. Given the damage that high levels of glucose and insulin in the bloodstream can cause, it may not be the greatest idea to send them into the stratosphere. My own feeling, since I am genetically vulnerable to diabetes and heart trouble, is that I went to a great deal of effort to get my muscles into shape to metabolise fatty acids instead of glucose, so I am not particularly eager to mess them up by hitting them with a quantity of glucose.

If you don’t care about your metabolism and merely want to shed some extra fat, a high-carb day might seem like a welcome break from all that boring bacon, eggs, beef, pork, lamb, duck, goose, chicken, bison smothered in gravy made from butter and heavy cream, and broccoli smothered in cheese sauce, or salad with blue cheese dressing, but given that insulin is the fat-storage hormone and you’re trying to lose fat (if you are), why delay the process, even by only a day or two?

Ultimately, there are no rules to keto, except that if you want what we’ve got, you have to do what we did to get it. And that’s not really a rule, more like a simple law of nature.

#16

Thanks Paul, to be honest I was just giving an extreme scenario to establish some facts. In terms of my scenario it’s more likely that I might go over 20g based on eating keto friendly foods (almonds, unsweetened yogurt) and the odd thing like mayonnaise which isn’t as keto friendly. I’m not talking about bread, potatoes and pasta but more those things that are around the 15 - 20gms net carbs per 100g. I’m quite disciplined so even on the odd chance I eat a bran muffin it wouldn’t set me on a course of giving it all up. We are lucky in NZ that we don’t sugar the hell out of everything like North America, I was staggered by the unhealthy North American diet. I’m not overweight at all, and despite our better food here, I still ate too much chocolate, icecream and baking and my blood sugar were silly (I’m T.O.F.I.). So this keto thing suits me because it means I’m not eating all that unhealthy stuff and feeling better as a result. Combined with Intermittent Fasting (which is easy with 8 cups of green tea due to GTs ability to suppress the hunger hormone) it’s going well. I figure once I’m fat adapted I’ll easily be able to eat 50 - 100 carbs especially because I fast for 15hours every 24 hours… not with sugary unhealthy food, but a few oats, more almonds, carrots and mayonnaise to make coleslaw taste awesome. The feedback on this forum has been great, especially the link to Amy the keto blogger. She’s not a keto zealot, but a pragmatist who sounds a lot like me in terms of her approach! Get low carb fat adapted and you don’t need to be a Keto crazy person :slight_smile: :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

(Susan) #17

Chosen Foods Avocado Mayonnaise is Keto approved and doesn’t contain any seed oils or sugar (both of which are sheer poison for your body). There is no need to eat carbs and it is easy to keep them to 20 grams or less a day for life, or just go off on special occasions once in a while.

(Full Metal KETO AF) #18

Are you slyly implying that we’re a bunch of wing nuts here? Get with the program and get fanatical or you might lose your Club Keto Card. It’s jihad time in Carblandia!

:joy::joy::grin::cowboy_hat_face:

#19

Ha ha, not even slyly… kidding, but keeping it less extreme is a better guarantee of success - at least for me. But for some people rules are easier to follow, so I do get it, that’s why religion is popular :slight_smile:

(MooBoom) #20

I’m curious, what is it that you’re finding so extreme? Adopting a ketogenic lifestyle requires carbs to be low enough for the body to remain in ketosis. That’s not extremism, that’s just what a ketogenic way of eating requires.

You can exceed the ketogenic carbohydrate threshold, and you’ll probably bounce around in LCHF, which is still considerably better than the SAD- but not keto.

The rules are there to ensure keto is keto, not LCHF :slight_smile: