What Is A Low Carb Diet?

littlemshepy

I appologise if this is a stupid question its just that I've been seeing alot of people on this diet.

Is it like conpletely avoiding carbs?

tiptoethruthetulips

Low carb diet is essentially that and not its not completely avoiding carbs.

If you google 'low carb high fat' you will find plenty of info as well info regarding the ration split between protein, carbs and fat. Low carb isn't necessarily a keto diet either. Keto is very low carb.

WVWalkerFriend

Low carb is generally 100-150g carbs a day. Keto is on the stricter end of things.

nvmomketo

littlemshepy wrote: »

I appologise if this is a stupid question its just that I've been seeing alot of people on this diet.

Is it like conpletely avoiding carbs?

Completely avoiding carbs is a zero carb diet. Usually that is a carnivorous diet - one that avoids all plant matter beyond a few spices.

Low carb is generally considered to be below 100-150g of carbs per day. It is less than the usual person's minimum glucose needs so the body starts to rely on fats, more easily, for energy. The liver will produce any glucose the body still needs using gluconeogenesis.

Moderate carbs is often thought to be 100g up to about 40-50% of your macros. High carb is 50-55+%.... I believe. Moderate and high carb is pretty open to interpretation.

lemurcat12

It's really open to interpretation (nvmomketo and I recently had a big discussion on this and she convinced me I eat kind of low carb). ;-)

The US RDA is 140 g, so I'd personally say it's anything under that, but it also makes sense to consider percentage, and under 40% would often be considered low or low-ish.

Setting aside the really rare "no carb" (which usually aren't totally no) "carnivorous diets," low can range from keto or very LCHF, where carbs will be around 5% or under 30 g or some such, to a much higher amount that is still below the RDA (or below 40%, perhaps).