Type of carbs within macros?

[Jukikee]

Hi everyone! I discovered this forum yesterday and have already poured through a lot of great advice. One question - if I’m staying below my carb macros limit, is it okay if those carbs are actually fruit? I assume I would need to eat the fruit with some fat so as not to get an insulin spike? I desperately adore naval oranges and would like to have one per day… TIA.

[amwassil]

Stay sub-20 grams of carbs per day. It doesn’t much matter where they originate.

[Vic0628]

you could have one a day but at 18 carbs would it be worth it and not have anything in the budget for anything else?

[Jukikee]

Thanks. I’m actually targeting under 40 grams of carbs, because I wasn’t sleeping on 20 grams. SO an orange plus a bit of other carbs is entirely worth it to me, provided it’s not “wrecking” everything. I was on LCHF for about a month before switching to keto 2 weeks ago tomorrow. I’ve dropped four pounds since switching, and dropped 10 on the LCHF, so I guess I’ll just keep having the orange unless I’m unhappy with my progress. I don’t have a lot to lose - another 12ish ideally, though I will continue on for the health benefits and because I want to fully become fat adapted.

[mtncntrykid]

If you are new to the Keto WOE I might suggest that you hold off on the oranges and concentrate on keeping your carbs as low as possible (under 20 or more) and eat moderate amounts of protein and enough fat to meet or exceed your suggested daily calorie suggestions. I say this because you are changing a lot and your body needs all the help it can get to adjust to the new way of functioning on ketones instead of glucose. You also have to let the body heal and eliminate all the inflammation from your previous lifestyle. The stomach has to rebuild the Gut Microbiome to handle different fuels to digest and break down. There is a lot going on until you become fat adapted and I would focus on adaption first before relaxing to fruit in your diet.

[amwassil]

Keto is a metabolic normalization process, not a miracle weight loss diet. You need an attitude adjustment, and it will come if you stick with it long enough. Ketosis is a good thing and many good things happen that otherwise don’t.

My Start - question about fruits

One of the first questions we all ask when starting keto is probably “How am I going to eat less than 20 grams of carbs per day, every day?” Followed quickly by “Do I really have to?” Eating SAD or some variation all our previous lives, consuming literally hundreds of grams of carbs per day, it’s understandable to wonder how on earth can one possibly do it. Pretty much all of us wonder “what am I going to eat?” First the bad news. There is no perfect keto food that contains zero carbs but has …

You’ll probably find this entire topic/comments of interest.

[PaulL]

The problem with fruits is not just the carbohydrate, but the fructose content, since fructose in excess of what the liver can handle causes liver disease (fructose is metabolised by the same pathway that metabolises ethanol, so it causes all the same liver problems that alcohol causes). It doesn’t matter whether we ingest the fructose as part of a sucrose (table sugar) molecule, or separately, as in high-fructose corn syrup, the damage is the same.

That said, Dr. Robert Lustig, the anti-fructose campaigner, says that whole fruit, with its fibre intact, is safe to eat, because the fibre slows down the absorption of the fructose to a rate the liver can handle. But fruit juices are deadly, because the fibre is destroyed by the juicing process.

On the other hand, most people recommending a ketogenic diet generally advise against eating most fruits, because of the sugar content. They advise sticking to high-fibre berries, such as blueberries. You can find more information by Googling “Diet Doctor,” “Eric Westman,” “page four,” and the “Banting Diet.” All those sources will have lists of foods that are safe, not-so-safe, and unsafe, from the keto perspective.