Why is there not a differentiation between keto diet and "low wheat" diet?

[Don_Q]

Eating a whole food diet of single ingredients is the best approach for your health, but theoretically you could eat white sugar, protein powder and canola oil and be in ketosis and losing weight while destroying your health.

I agree with this 100%. Doctors actually prescribed something pretty similar to this back in the 80’s as part of a VLCD (Very Low Calorie Diet) for the treatment of morbid obesity. Lots of patients died of heart failure so they stopped doing that. The If It Fits Your Macros approach is doesn’t really square up with the chemistry of human metabolism. It’s nonsense.

But the rule is to eat less than 20g of carbs, irrespective of the source of carbs.

Try eating 20g/day of sugar packets a day for a few weeks. I reckon visions of sugar plums will start dancing your head very shortly. Sugar addiction is real and it ends poorly. A gram a sugar is a carb is so is a gram of fiber. The body reacts very, very differently to those two things. The jury is pretty much in on that one.

[David_Stilley]

There is only 1 ketogenic diet. It was created to treat diabetes a century ago and it bears a resemblance to what we call keto on the forum. Hence the nickname. Basically, nobody here is doing the ketogenic diet

I gotta disagree 100% on this. First it was created for epilepsy. Second saying there’s only one ketogenic diet doesn’t account for the evolution of use of words in language. At it’s inception KETO was what it was. The diet has greatly evolved since and actually nobody does what the original ketogenic diet was anymore, even epileptics. We are eating a ketogenic diet if we are in ketosis…that’s the bottom line. The foods that were originally eaten to treat epilepsy aren’t what we eat today with better knowledge, we get health results and the original ketogenic diet for epilepsy controlled epilepsy but had other serious health complications, especially for children. The previous treatment was extreme fasting, also ketogenic. Making a distinction that we aren’t eating keto because we aren’t living on refined cottonseed oil and very little protein or carbohydrate doesn’t apply because the diet has evolved, not died.

[David_Stilley]

But the rule is to eat less than 20g of carbs, irrespective of the source of carbs.

This is not a rule, it’s a recommendation for everyone to be pretty sure they will be in ketosis. I’m in maintenance and I haven’t counted anything in months, carbs included. My weight is stable because I eat right now without tracking. I’m sure I range between 10-30 carbs 99% of the time.

[Don_Q]

I gotta disagree 100% on this.

That’s okay, because I was 100% wrong!

It was epilepsy. Wikipedia is pretty emphatic on that point…

Second saying there’s only one ketogenic diet doesn’t account for the evolution of use of words in language.

This is a very good point also. All I was trying to say is that we needn’t be dogmatic about what’s “keto” and what isn’t. A triathlete will approach it differently than someone like me who is just trying to reverse metabolic syndrome, and that’s totally ok. “Keto” is a wide umbrella.

Personally, I think the best approach to keto for anyone starting out is to go <20g/day for at least 3 months so they get totally fat adapted, and kick their cravings and addictions to all the crap they were getting on the SAD diet. Once they have a baseline for what it feels like to have tons of energy, and mental clarity, they’re in a place to experiment a little with a few more carbs from whole foods. Once they have a baseline, they can tell if it makes them feel worse or better. I think we’ll all be a little different there.

[David_Stilley]

@Don_Q Then we are in agreement Nick, I recommend the same as you do. Basically when people bring up that original diet and say we aren’t eating ketogenic is a big soap box trigger for me!

[Janie]

Keto diet focuses on carbs in general, irrespective if the source of the carbs is sugar, wheat or broccoli.

Not true. Where is this informtion coming from?

But the rule is to eat less than 20g of carbs, irrespective of the source of carbs.

Like @David_Stilley said - it is a recommendation, not a rule. And if you have lost all the weight you want and at a stable weight, then maintenance carbs can be double (or more) of that.

There is more to the keto lifestyle than 20 carbs or less, otherwise you may as well call it Atkins induction. The carbs you eat should be mostly vegetables, no refined carbs or sugar, no HFCS, etc. The fats should be saturated fats and olive oil.