A nagging question has been in my head for a while now.
It is said that one must, if he wants to remain in ketosis, not eat more than a certain quantity X of carbs (let us call it: 20 grams) a day. But: why “a day” instead of “a meal?”
Let us say I eat a meal with 20g of carbs at midday, as a result of which I do not get kicked out of ketosis. After everything is digested and the insulin in my blood has come back to its pre-meal level, why would this not completely “reset” the count? Is it not so that, at that point, the next meal at 8 pm, with the same 20g of carbs will, likewise, not kick me out of ketosis?
I say these without deep knowledge or anything, just my thoughts…
These things (eating it at once or not) must matter - especially if you exercise in-between This number is surely not fixed! Not even with the same activity level but we know that exercise uses up carbs so that makes things quite different.
But our body has its daily needs so it can’t be a proper reset I suppose… And I personally didn’t experience that 5 meals gives me a bigger leeway (not like I feel ketosis but in the end there were some signs).
I can eat 40g net carbs at once and it’s apparently fine but another 40g doesn’t even feel that good, I pretty much feel carbs add up during the day (even the week!) and my body starts to complain eventually. I can’t try some more intense than walking exercise between my meals as I only can do that well-fasted. It would have been interesting though…
I hope others can tell about their own experiences
The whole X number of carbs thing is false, but it’s the easiest way to explain this to people, and a safe limit for almost everybody to shoot for, so it stuck. How many carbs people can eat and get away with staying in ketosis is both dependent on their metabolism, and how glycemic those carbs are.
How insulin sensitive you are also comes into play. A super insulin sensitive person can eat 30,45,50g of carbs, blood sugar will rise, Insulin will secrete, and they can be back at baseline within an hour. An Insulin resistant person could literally take 3,4,5 hours to come back down. The Insulin resistant person would be kicked out for much longer, with the same amount of carbs.
Answer #1 where I agree with that: Correct, if the carbs burn as fuel quick, aren’t super glycemic and you sugar either doesn’t rise noticable because the carbs were from veggies or something, it’s pretty much a no harm, no foul. That’s why many don’t count veggie carbs (greens typically).
Answer #2 where I don’t: You’re ALWAYS kicked out of Ketosis once your body starts eating carbs, when your body starts burning carbs, your liver stops producing ketones because it doesn’t have to for the time being. So right there, you ARE kicked out. The difference is that you simply think you’re not because you can still measure what’s in circulation, and since the body will preferentially burn the carbs, the ketones hang around for a while, but you are very much (not) in the metabolic state of ketosis anymore.
Two answers, totally conflicting, and they’re both correct! The wonderful thing we call nuance.
The worst thing that happened to keto is the obsession with being “kicked out”. Don’t do it. Ketosis isn’t an on/off thing either way, it’s a spectrum, which regardless of how hard you try, it’s turning on and off all the time.
The simplest answer is, because that’s how it works.
Back in your insulin-sensitive youth, you could handle more carbohydrate at each meal, but you are now in a state of insulin-resistance, and the only way to return to health (and shed some of that excess stored fat) is to eat in a way that keeps your insulin level as low as possible as much of the time as possible.
Your metabolism has reached the point where you are insulin-resistant and hyperinsulinaemic. In other words, if you’re not a Type II diabetic yet, you are well on your way. The only way to reverse that condition is to restrict carbohydrate intake to a level that allows insulin to drop. Over time–months, if not years–the cells in your body are likely to recover some insulin sensitivity because of the lowered insulin, but it will not happen instantly.
There is a big difference between the effect of 10 g of carbohydrate eaten at two meals a day–or 6.7 g eaten at three meals each–and 20 g eaten all at once. If you are really lucky, your insulin-resistance is not so advanced, and you might be able to tolerate 20 g at each of two or three meals a day, but how do you know? Yes the 20 g/day limit is arbitrary, but its a limit that guarantees success to almost everyone who tries to eat this way, everyone except the most insulin-resistant, who will have to restrict their carb intake even further.
Not everyone is insulin-resistant and sick though… Ketosis requires low enough carbs even if one is super healthy and never ate high-carb in their life… Right?
From the signs of ketosis, people talk about many. Most people here apparently notices if they are in ketosis. It feels the same to me, I only had my water weight changes in the past, now I have nothing Hence I personally can’t test these things but others can.
That’s the operative point, I think. Are you eating to heal your metabolism by keeping your insulin level as close to a flatline as you can, or are you simply hoping to stay at a point where your carb is burned off (rather than stored) before the next meal, hopefully maintaining your weight or perhaps dropping it a bit by having enough of a glucose deficit that you produce some ketones to supplement. If your metabolism is healthy and your weight setpoint is satisfactory to you, simply “not overdoing the carbs” may be adequate to keep you there., but for many of us, especially as we age, that’s not the case. Ah, if we knew then what we know now …
It’s at least a two fold thing. Firstly, your body does not go in and out of ketosis at the drop of a hat. It takes roughly 24 hours for my body to register if I’ve over consumed carbs.
Secondly, it’s less a matter of grams of carbs, more about the percentages of macros. Tracking carbs is easier than doing the math to figure out what percentage of fat to protein to carbs you’ve consumed. I know, because I have a food log app that tracks my macros and I’m willing to go through the hassle to weigh my foods, it’s become such a habit I miss it when I don’t do it.
You need roughly a minimum of 65% of your calories coming from fat, 10% or less from carbs, the rest protein but this is very much a YMMV thing.
It’s very hard to overeat carbs if you stick to 20 net. So yeah, essentially it’s an arbitrary number meant to make things easier for beginners.
Ah, what a smart and concise answer to solve the apparent contradiction! However, I cannot avoid reflecting on this: AFAIK, when I eat fat my body still greatly reduces the production of ketones because it has fats ready at its disposal, right? If this is true, it seems that it is the very act of eating that impacts the production of ketosis. But in one way as in the other, I think most would agree that if one keeps having ketones around in its system (and, therefore, a very low level of insuline in the blood) one is still doing fine, isn’t he? In fact, I do not chase ketones, I chase low insuline levels at the highest level of carbs I can get away with! If my blood keeps having this low level of insuline in the blood in the, say, 7 hours between end of lunch and beginning of dinner, is my blood not doing quite fine anyway?
I am not in a state of proper insuline-resistance. I am in ketosis six days in a row without any issue. I am not pre-diabetic, either. I have, therefore, the luxury of playing with my “carb limit”, hoping not to be kicked out of ketosis but knowing that, if that’s the case, I will be back in ketosis the following day without fail.
I use two indicators:
I can stay 23 hours without eating anything, and without any desire of eating anything, easily. My body nourishes me out of my fat. It’s quite a pleasant sensation, like being sated all the time, but with an empty stomach. It does not happen to me with carbs eating. This, to me, is evidence that I have been in ketosis all day. A full carbs meal creates in me a bigger sensation of fullness after eating, and a much earlier desire to eat again the day after.
My acetone breathaliser gives consistent high levels of acetone. I monitor those very constantly (actually, whenever I am home I play with that thing all the time), and it gives me a pretty consistent picture of what happens in my body. When I eat full keto, I only notice, after a meal, a smaller decrease in my acetone levels (say: from 29 to 21 on my acetone breathaliser) before the levels stabilise or start to rise again. If I eat very moderate carbs but “get away with it” (say: very moderate quantities, and Berberine after the meal; I am still testing the boundaries of the feasible), I see the acetone level decrease more, but still remaining healthy (say: from 29 to 13, and it stays there). If I eat carbs and “cross the boundary”, I will see my acetone level crash by dinner time (say: from 29 to 2). When that happens, I am back in the game by lunch time the following day, early afternoon at the latest if I have stuffed myself with lasagne the dinner before.
I am only, according to whom you ask, 2 to 3.5 kg overweight (from the ideal weight). I am not in the business of losing weight, though I think I will lose some weight in the months to come and I would welcome the event. My game is general health. I want to be in ketosis 5 to 6 days a week, and explore ways to integrate a reasonable amount of carbs in the other 1 or 2, without this compromising the general aim. To me, keto eating is a gateway to intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting, not keto per se, is my Holy Grail and what I want to establish as a lifestyle. However, in order to be a lifestyle it needs to be sustainable, and the best way to make it sustainable to me is to make way for a sufficient amount of weekend carbs. This is why I am rigid on keto during the week (when all of my OMAD days take place), and I am constantly experimenting with and wondering about carbs on the weekends.
For example, yesterday I have, for the first time in my life, made fresh pasta with lupin flour and wheat gluten. I called it a great success. This will allow me to have, whenever I want, a Saturday lunch meal that looks and tastes very traditional, but comes at a ridiculously low amount of carbs. This is progress, but no solution, as I still want to explore the boundaries of the feasible in terms of stuff like pizza, risotto, or bread.
This is one of those questions that I don’t think is easy to answer for every person. It’s kinda like “How close can I get to the edge of a cliff before I fall over?”
20 grams or less is a place where it’ll put most people into ketosis and keep them there. For some, that’s lower than they can actually get away with. For some, that’s almost too much. It’s more of a “rule of thumb” for people who demand an exact number.
Ask an alcoholic how much alcohol they can drink and not relapse. Bring that back to eating… Some of those might find that carnivore is one of the safer places for them to be in relation to carb intake, which is darned close to zero.
Just my take. Whether you’re in ketosis all of the time or not, just cutting out the majority of the carbs and sugar is definitely a good thing to do. I kinda did a little of the “dancing on the edge” when I first started in keto years ago. Anymore, a lot of that marginal stuff got left behind. It’s much less stressful leaning more towards carnivore, at least to me. I wish I’d done that sooner.
Good points, for those of us who have conquered various addictions, we appreciate drawing a hard line that we do not, must not cross.
And yes, for many of us that leads to carnivore.
It’s not only about health, it’s about peace of mind.
I was just thinking about this very thing yesterday. I’ve noticed that the people who seem to benefit the most are the elder ones who have spent most of their lives eating poorly and filling up their bodies with poisons.
A lot of people here have discovered it’s just easier to eat whole foods, but there are a bunch of great recipes from years back here - check out Fathead pizza and its modifications!
Thanks Kib! I had looked at keto pizza videos and wanted to do it tonight, but I feel pretty full after my keto gnocchi today so I’ll postpone until next weekend.
As I have been in ketosis from early afternoon on Monday until now, I will eat some salmon crostini for dinner, come what may… but I will take apple cider vinegar and Berberine and think I will be back into ketosis by tomorrow early afternoon at the very latest.
I have also bought a waffle maker to try to make chaffles. Again, not today, but perhaps an evening during the week as it is full keto anyway…
Not the drop of a hat, but pretty soon after. Once your body senses exogenous glucose, the ketone production starts shutting down. If by your body registering you’ve overconsumed carbs, you mean via checking ketones, that’s very much on a delay. The ketones in circulation are still in circulation despite eating the carbs, and the carbs will be burned up preferentially to the ketones, which means the ketones lasting longer than they would have absent the carbs.
Agreed on the grams, but not the percentages. Being in a metabolic state of ketosis is 100% about the absence of carbs/glucose. Has nothing to do with fats or proteins. If a person eating SAD simply stops eating, totally, they will burn up their liver stores and enter ketosis. Doesn’t matter how much fat or protein they eat, or if they eat literally 0. No carbs coming it will end with ketosis starting to pick up the slack.
You just described me. This is why I need carnivore, and it works so well for me. My poisons of choice were sugar (usually chocolate), grains (bread), seed oils (I have eaten a lot of processed crap in my life) and alcohol (I reckon I was close to being alcoholic at 50).
My body pre-carnivore was an accurate reflection of that lifetime of poor eating. What is incredible to me is how much healing has happened so fast being on carnivore.
Your body cannot make ketones unless it has fat to work with and is in fat-metabolising mode. Ketones are partially-metabolised fatty acids, much as charcoal is partially-burnt wood. If you listen to your body and stop eating when you are no longer hungry, your body will metabolise both the fat you eat and extra fat from your fat store. Data show that fatty-acid metabolism speeds up noticeably once we replace the dietary carbs with dietary fat.
As for using excess stored fat, yes, the skeletal muscles prefer fatty acids over ketones, once they are fully fat-adapted again (as we were when we were infants and young children). But while the muscles are using fatty acids for energy, the liver is using them to produce ketone bodies. Ketogenesis cannot occur until insulin drops low enough to permit fatty-acid metabolism.
The brain, by the way, cannot metabolise fatty acids, because they are too big to cross the blood-brain barrier. So it relies on the ketones that cross the barrier. It uses some for fuel, and uses some to make the fats and cholesterol it requires.
This number is surely not fixed! Not even with the same activity level but we know that exercise uses up carbs so that makes things quite different.
