Every time you walk into a grocery store, you definitely feel overwhelmed by the keto-friendly or low carb labels. Well, you’re not alone. When you’re finding ways to lose weight or be healthy, the keto vs low carb diet conversation is usually the first thing you often hear. The big question is — do these diets mean the same thing with different names, or is there a real winner for your health and well-being? According to experts, a ketogenic diet is always low in carbs. On the other hand, a low-carb diet does not always mean low in carbs. It is, therefore, important to choose between the two depending on your specific goals, how your body handles insulin, and your own history with food.
The following article discusses why the keto vs low carb diet is more of a sliding scale than a simple yes or no choice. You’ll be able to understand which one would help you with weight loss, how they’ll affect your gym performance, and why your hormone levels matter more than just counting calories.
The Difference between Low Carb and Keto
One of the first things that you need to comprehend is that these two diets, i.e., low carb and keto, live on the same continuum or sliding scale. Imagine a line where one side is a standard diet and the other side is a very strict fat-burning mode. The main difference between low carb and keto is about how many net carbs you eat every day and what your body does with them. Now, the question is how to find your net carbs. It is a simple calculation where you take the total amount of carbs in a food and subtract the fibre. Fibre is non-digestible in our body, and thus fibre does not spike blood sugar and does not release any energy. Here is how the numbers usually seem:
Low carb diet: Here, you typically consume 50 to 150 grams of net carbs per day. This is often between 10 and 30 percent of your daily calories.
Keto diet: This is much stricter than low carb diet. Here, you consume about 20 to 50 grams of net carbs per day. And, this is only between 4 and 10 percent of your daily calories.
One of the biggest differences between low carb and keto is called ketosis. It is a metabolic state and very important to understand it. When you consume a few carbs (keto), your liver will turn it into ketone bodies, which act as the fuel for your brain and body instead of sugar (glucose). However, on a low-carb diet, even though you’re eating fewer carbs, your body is still mostly burning glucose for energy. Another sharp difference between low carb and keto is protein. When you consume low-carb meal, you might eat a lot of protein. On the other hand, when you consume keto, you consume moderate protein, which is around 20 percent of your calories. And, if you consume too much protein on keto, your body will turn protein into sugar, which might stop you from entering ketosis.