Are "Keto" and "low carb" interchangable terms?

Wakey618

I was chatting with some women at work here about low carb (one is doing Paleo), and the other said she's thinking about doing this "new" diet called Keto. I told her I was pretty sure Keto & low carb are the same thing, as you're trying to get into ketosis, but that I wasn't 100% positive. Is there a difference? If so, what is it?

auntstephie321

Low carb is anything under 150g of carbs per day. Keto would be very low carb, most would consider is under 50g total carbs a day, some go lower or count net carbs and restrict to around 20g. All low carb is not keto, keto falls into the low carb category.

Sunny_Bunny_

Not all low carb plans are Keto. But Keto is low carb. Very low carb to be exact. Low carb as our group defines it is under about 150g a day. Keto's high end is about 50g with many of us aiming for 20g.
So they are both low carb but they are not both keto and therefore not the same.

Twibbly

I'm currently aiming for low carb, not keto. Around 100g carbs per day, even though I may end up with less sometimes. A keto diet is a low carb diet, but a low carb diet is not necessarily a keto diet. Kinda like an orange is a fruit, but not all fruits are oranges.

KenSmith108

A=Keto
B= Low Carb
A is a subset of B

or

Wakey618

Thanks for the clarification! Now to split hairs...I am doing <= NET 45 carbs. Is that keto? Or is keto STRAIGHT carb numbers?

KenSmith108

That's the keto macros I used when I used macros.

or

Foamroller

Wakey618 wrote: »

Thanks for the clarification! Now to split hairs...I am doing <= NET 45 carbs. Is that keto? Or is keto STRAIGHT carb numbers?

Good question. The trouble is that even the experts can't give a definitive answer. There's no clinical definition of what keto is. For some people keto is 20 g total carbs. For others it might be 50 g net carbs. The problem is that the goal of ketosis are not the ketones themselves. The goal is to achieve and sustain nutritional ketosis long enough for the keto adaptation to take place. The carb threshold is INDIVIDUAL, meaning the amount of carbs (and type of carbs) that invites your liver to produce ketones can be very different from someone else. Some people can adapt faster than others, some slower etc. Diet, muscle mass, exercise protocols, fasting hours, gender are probably the most important variables that affect state of nutritional ketosis.

Btw this is things Phinney, Volek, D'Agostino amongst others have said on numerous occasions in lectures and interviews. So it's not just my personal opinions. Phinney recommends 50g as a starting point and adjust down or up according to how you feel.