Ketodummy w/ a newbie question
Hi all, my husband and I are brand new to keto. It's day 6 and everything is going surprisingly easy so far. My question is do we HAVE to meet the 20g carb goal everyday? For example, today we have only 13g of carbs total for the day. Should we try to eat more to make 20g? And how long should we eat LCHF? Is it okay to do it long term? The internet has conflicting opinions on that.
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The 20g limit (some use 50g) is a maximum, the goal is to try to always be under that. The idea is to NOT consume carbs as much as possible since they get converted to sugar which causes insulin to be produced which in turn inhibits metabolizing fat into ketones.
For some the lchf diet is a lifestyle change i.e. permanent.
I am back on it for a second try after being off for about 6-8 months. I found it hard to maintain through the fall/winter, hopefully I will have better success this time around.
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I think it is safe long term provided you don't eat a lot of processed meats. I don't think all the nitrates in processed meats is good for us over the long haul.
I also feel that getting more of my fats from plants rather than meat is preferable. Like coconut oil, olive oil, avocados, fish/seafood.
As to conflicting opinions, that is certainly true. There are few longterm studies and even then they tend to have narrow focuses so inferring net benefit/harm is really beyond what the studies can truly say. Any claims either way on long term effects are nothing more than subjective biases in my opinion.
Still I dont think that a lchf diet is any worse for you than the generally "recommended diet", both can be fine provided you avoid processed foods as much as possible. I think that it is more likely that in general you simply tradeoff of one set of risks for another.
I dont think there is any great harm eating lchf for most people but I am also not a fanatic who claims this is the only diet anyone should eat.
