• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

What's the difference?

In generalised terms Keto is below 25g carbs per day. LCHF is anywher between 25g and 130/150g per day.
 
I’m assuming the threshold of carb consumption to reach ketosis is different for all of us? I try to stick to 30g a day but some days it’s up to 40g but am producing ketones.
 
I would say that LCHF is a way of eating that lowers carb intake and replaces them with increased fat. Some people choose to eat higher protein, but that isn’t necessary for the way of eating to be considered LCHF.

Keto is often declared to be ‘under x number of carbs’ a day. But really, it is lowering the carb intake to a level that means the body switches to ketones as fuel instead of glucose.

So if someone goes into ketosis on 80g carbs a day, then their way of eating is ‘keto’.
If someone else, eating 15g of carbs, isn’t in ketosis, then they aren’t ‘keto’.
 
Last edited:
I am eating more than 30gms of carb a day but am producing ketones obove 0.6 so am in light nutritional ketosis.
 
In general around 20-25g carbs a day will guarantee ketosis whatever type of diet we might chooseto call it. Eating at this level for long enough should enable your body to make some chemical changes to become keto/fat adapted and so be able to burn both carbs (usually in slightly higher levels than needed to keep us "in ketosis" as it's a more robust state) and dietary and stored fats. And this is actually our normal mode (we weren't designed to live on high carb diets!) and it enables us to switch between both fuel sources as required and we may or may not see any ketones depending on which fuel source we're currently using. (Over the last four years I've definitely seen variations from no ketones to normal dietary levels depending on the time of day I've checked as well as from a day to day basis.)

I'd agree with @Brunneria thereseems to be no set number of carbs to define keto or LCHF as they seem to vary slightly anyway according to where you check - and Diet Doctor appears to have changed their definition.:wideyed: Bothare a style of eating to enable for us as diabetics to best manage our condition, so just use any figures as a guide, and use your meter to check. For me what really matters is that my glucose levels can be kept low and stable by burning fats as my main fuel source.

Robbity
 
bulkbiker said:
I try to stay under 20g carbs per day but yes it will vary for everybody.. I think if you can get down to 20g then nearly everyone will be able to get into nutritional ketosis.
Click to expand...
A bit tricky but thanks for the confirmation.
 
Brunneria said:
I would say that LCHF is a way of eating that lowers carb intake and replaces them with increased fat. Some people choose to eat higher protein, but that isn’t necessary for the way of eating to be considered LCHF.

Keto is often declared to be ‘under x number of carbs’ a day. But really, it is lowering the carb intake to a level that means the body switches to ketones as fuel instead of glucose.

So if someone goes into ketosis on 80g carbs a day, then their way of eating is ‘keto’.
If someone else, eating 15g of carbs, isn’t in ketosis, then they aren’t ‘keto’.
Click to expand...
confusing
 
SueJB said:
confusing
Click to expand...
I think what @Brunneria is saying that like most things "diabetes" everyone is different. People's reactions to carbs are individual so someone eating 20g of carbs a day will almost certainly be in ketosis (using ketones for fuel/burning fat) but another person may be able to "get away" with eating 50 or 80g of carbs a day and still be in ketosis. The only way you can see is by measuring ketones in the blood. The pee sticks are pretty useless as the more your body gets used to running on ketones the less you waste so the pee sticks can show no ketosis but your body is using all the ketones it produces for fuel so none are being peed out. Does that make it a bit clearer?
 
SueJB said:
confusing
Click to expand...

Voleck and Phinney talk about how some people struggle to get into ketosis even at the generally accepted '20g a day'.
They say the level varies significantly, with middle aged hormonally challenged (e.g. PCOS or menopausal or hypothyroid) women, being more likely to draw the short straw and to need to drop their carb intake to 10g a day, or less to achieve ketosis, whereas others can hit ketosis at 100g carbs a day (most likely to be fit, athletic, youngish men). With a whole range of different people in between.

This idea seems to be bourne out on the forum where we regularly see men hitting ketosis and dropping weight much more easily than women, with age and hormones being factors too.

For this reason, I rather resist the idea that xxg carbs a day = a ketogenic diet.
Because it can be very misleading.

Edited to add: the only way ANY of us know whether we are on a ketogenic diet, or not, is to test for ketones, on the understanding that sometimes our bodies produce ketones for reasons not related to reduced carb ketogentic eating. For example, some drugs, starvation, some illnesses including ketoacidosis and some T2 diabetic medications, may all cause measurable levels of ketones to appear.
 
Last edited:
Brunneria said:
Voleck and Phinney talk about how some people struggle to get into ketosis even at the generally accepted '20g a day'.
They say the level varies significantly, with middle aged hormonally challenged (e.g. PCOS or menopausal or hypothyroid) women, being more likely to draw the short straw and to need to drop their carb intake to 10g a day, or less to achieve ketosis, whereas others can hit ketosis at 100g carbs a day (most likely to be fit, athletic, youngish men). With a whole range of different people in between.

This idea seems to be bourne out on the forum where we regularly see men hitting ketosis and dropping weight much more easily than women, with age and hormones being factors too.

For this reason, I rather resist the idea that xxg carbs a day = a ketogenic diet.
Because it can be very misleading.

Edited to add: the only way ANY of us know whether we are on a ketogenic diet, or not, is to test for ketones, on the understanding that sometimes our bodies produce ketones for reasons not related to reduced carb ketogentic eating. For example, some drugs, starvation, some illnesses including ketoacidosis and some T2 diabetic medications, may all cause measurable levels of ketones to appear.
Click to expand...
Wow, thanks for this info @Brunneria. I've definitely draw the short straw. I'll keep swimming against the tide:happy:
 
I think I was a lucky one - as I'm a fat, currently inactive, old lady who was able to get into ketosis fairly quickly by dropping carbs to 20-25g a day and lose.fair bit of weight while eating at that level, Though I think it may have helped that I've always eaten full fat - unfortunately combined with high carbs for some years pre-diagnosis , and I've been able to maintain that weight loss while eating up to about 50g carbs a day since then, and may (or may not) be producing any ketone at any given time,

I believe now that many low carbers who are losing weight and dranatically reducing their glucose levels, not needing to eat all the time oi craving carbs, may very likely be in ketosis/ fat adapted without even trying or knowing. I think their results probably speak for themselves! See http://www.tuitnutrition.com/2016/01/dont-be-a-ketard1.html for more info.

Robbity
 
Robbity said:
I think I was a lucky one - as I'm a fat, currently inactive, old lady who was able to get into ketosis fairly quickly by dropping carbs to 20-25g a day and lose.fair bit of weight while eating at that level, Though I think it may have helped that I've always eaten full fat - unfortunately combined with high carbs for some years pre-diagnosis , and I've been able to maintain that weight loss while eating up to about 50g carbs a day since then, and may (or may not) be producing any ketone at any given time,

I believe now that many low carbers who are losing weight and dranatically reducing their glucose levels, not needing to eat all the time oi craving carbs, may very likely be in ketosis/ fat adapted without even trying or knowing. I think their results probably speak for themselves! See http://www.tuitnutrition.com/2016/01/dont-be-a-ketard1.html for more info.

Robbity
Click to expand...
Thanks for the link. The writer has rather an odd style and took rather too long to make her point in my opinion. She did however explain fat adapted and being in ketosis and the use/uselessness of peestix
 
They are simply what people happen to call particular regimes - actual ketosis is what most people do at some time - burn fat for fuel, and LCHF is how to achieve it more often - but the process of fat burning is a natural thing to do, and LCHF is not going to kill you if the guidelines are sensible. Even if they are not, a bit of caution and a search engine will soon correct any problem.
 
SueJB said:
Thanks for the link. The writer has rather an odd style and took rather too long to make her point in my opinion. She did however explain fat adapted and being in ketosis and the use/uselessness of peestix
Click to expand...
Yes - IMO she's a champion ranter/woffler, and is worse as a speaker than as a writer, but I believe she can talk some sense!

One of the first things I learned was NOT to rely on Ketostix: I was only ever seeing the very lowest colour levels to start with and then neutral; other people were celebrating deepest colours, and I wondered where I was going wrong, but a bit of research told me that I'd simply been measuring waste ketones, so no waste means they're probably being put to good use. Also that dehydration could be a cause of higher ketone concentrations in wee, so neither levels necessarily much use! I ended up with the original basic breathalyser type Ketonix, which is cheaper but not as accurate as testing beta-hydroxybutyrate levels in your blood.

Robbity
 
Back
Top