Keto vs Paleo diet

"ketosis" is just a state when your body (basically) switches from burning glucose to fat. I didn't realize it was a diet, but a lot of the paleo/primal people talk about going into ketosis when their carb intake is extremely low.

I'm not going to say I suggest it as a weight loss method but that's what it is in a nutshell

Maybe I'm confusing the two terms. I guess ketosis is more of a medical term (I think if you eat 50-100 g of carbs a day or less) and Paleo is one diet that MAY induce ketosis.

Sounds like you got it right. But you'd need to eat less than 40-50g of carbs to go into ketosis. As for potatoes... They aren't encouraged in the paleo lifestyle but not strictly forbidden either. Eating potato once in a while won't be the reason you lose weight or not

Indeed. I eat what would be considered fairly strict paleo, but do not intentionally restrict my carbs. Will often exceed 150g daily.

I eat paleo, I have been for a year now, and once in a while I will do Keto-- where I lower my carbs to 15g a day. I stay satiated throughout the day-- never starved. I do this to help lose some stubborn fat. I Keto maybe a week or so a month. This time I'm going for longer-- 60 days, I have some stubborn belly fat that wll is quite stubborn. Of course I'm not relying on diet alone, I lift and do cardio as well ;-)

My goal weight is 110/100lbs (which is fine for my 5'1'' frame)-- I'm currently standing at 134 (I weighed myself a month ago and that's where I was at) my body fat % was at 24. My highest weight was 149LBS and paleo and excercise combined has helped me lose the weight (mostly inches really) gradually. Even if I don't hit the 110 mark but I look and feel good in a bikini then I am content :-)

Anyways the point is Keto can be incorporated in a Paleo diet.

The Paleo diet among others are just user friendly skins/brands of the ketogenic diet. Originally used to treat epilepsy in children, the ketogenic diet used a 4:1 ratio by weight of fat to combined carbs/protein[1]. It has been modified several times to increase the volume of protein allowed. The process of ketosis involves many factors but in a nutshell it is the point when your body begins burning fat for fuel instead of carbohydrates. So for the most part when you see high fat moderate protein low carb diet such as the Paleo or Atkins diets you are just seeing a revised and expanded ketogenic diet. Below are links to Wikipedia and to a study conducted by a group of cardiologists who studied the longer term effects of a high fat low carb diet.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketogenic_diet#MCT_diet

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2716748/

The process of ketosis involves many factors but in a nutshell it is the point when your body begins burning fat for fuel instead of carbohydrates.

The human body is pretty much always burning fat for fuel.

And Paleo does not imply low carb.

A great resource for a Paleo style diet is at Marksdailyapple.com. Lots of information on his blog, as well as a huge community in the forums. I recall reading a blog post about ketosis and quite a few forum posts on it as well. There are also quite a few in the community that are Primal with high carbs. (300+g).

As lindsey said, Paleo and therefore the Primal Blueprint is more about restricting the source of food. Organic grass fed meat is huge on the list. Not stressing, getting good sleep, and remembering to play also are huge factors. Stress can cause you not to lose fat, same with not sleeping well, and who doesn't love to play?

As of right now, I am at about 15% carb, 25% protein, and 60% fat. However, that is more of an average over a week rather than a day to day number. Since starting this, I have lost 16 pounds! That is in one month, and no exercise yet. (Unless playing/keeping up/cleaning after three kiddos counts). Now that my knees have stopped hurting, I can start working on a little more intensive things.

But check out the forums there. Some people don't do as well with VLC (very low carb) when others can thrive there. We all are unique, so try new things to find out what works for you! Don't be afraid to experiment. After all, if you test one way for a month, you can always go back .

Loving the support from others! I haven't really delved into the MFP forums so much, but I love how everyone can have a civilized discussion about such hot topics. Not something that is seen all the time.

Good luck!

Paleo is healthier and better for long term weight loss and health
Keto is amazing for weight loss, but is the worst for long term maintenance if you don't plan on doing it for the rest of your life.
When I started out I only planned on doing keto for a year, i was scared of fat and didn't want long term affects of bad fats. I still do plan to do keto until i reach my goal, but I love how much it has taught me about my body, health and lifestyle.
After that I will gradually increase my carbs in veggies, but won't eat less red meat. Definetely not miss having to eat 10 tbsp of fat a day. Will continue a paleo diet and eating 70-80g of carbs a day.
On paleo dairy is not allowed, that is one of the major differences between the two.

"Paleo" simply means that you try to eat what your ancestors ate in the paleolithic time, which is essentially before we had agriculture. It's a very vague definition, and so there's a wide range of foods that are included at least in somebody's definition of paleo, but not in another's. Typical bones (pardon the pun) of contention are dairy, legumes, ancient/wild grains (quinoa, amaranth etc.), tubers (roots) and so on.

"Keto" on the other hand has a clear definition: Any diet where you eat very little digestible carbohydrate (typically <50 grams of net carbs) and moderate protein (about 100g for an average male person) will cause your body to produce ketones in the liver, and your brain will switch to burning these preferentially instead of glucose. There's a host of other changes which happen during ketosis, but in a nutshell you indeed switch from carbs to fat, and at least during weight maintenance (also called a eucaloric diet, you eat as many calories as you burn) about 70% of your calories come from fat (a mix of mono-unsaturated and saturated fat).

So - do those two diets overlap? Sure. You can definitely implement a ketogenic diet using paleo foods - in fact that's what in essence all the popular books on low-carb / ketogenic diet books advise: Focus on whole foods, organic, grass-fed, steer clear of processed foods. Keto by no means implies a meat-heavy diet - you can even implement it vegetarian style while still remaining paleo. Vegans will have a hard time, since complete protein is hard to obtain once you eliminate rice and legumes, but they can get there using fermented soy - which is technically not paleo, but fermentation itself is thought to have been used for a long, long time, so if not strictly "paleo" you can look at it as an "ancestral" technique. So how would a typical keto+paleo meal look like? Think a huge salad made from leafy greens and non-starchy vegetables, with a little bit of meat,fish,seafood,dairy or eggs, and liberal amounts of butter, olive oil, avocado or coconut oil (fat), with maybe some nuts sprinkled on top. Typical macros for keto: 70% fat, 15% protein, 5% carbs.