Everyone recently has their own ideas about what constitutes a Ketogenic Diet. There are rules galore, and every group of people you talk to will have different ideas about what rules are important and what are not. It’s confusing, but it doesn’t have to be.
A Ketogenic diet is, in general, a diet which allows you to burn fat for energy and keeps your insulin and glucose levels low. People often use 20 grams of total carbohydrates as their daily goal, but others will use a calculation of less than 5% of your daily calories coming from carbohydrates. If you use a percentage, you’ll need to know your daily caloric goal and work off of that number to see how many grams of carbs you’ll need. I find that keeping net carbs under 20 grams per day works just fine for most people, and it’s an easy number to calculate in your head if you don’t like tracking everything.
If you keep your carbohydrates this low you are eating a Ketogenic diet. This is the ONLY strict rule you need to follow. What you choose to eat to meet this goal is ultimately up to you. You are free to make your own choices about what is working or not working in your diet. You can track calories or not. You can use artificial sweeteners if they work for you. You can eat eggs every day, or avoid them like the plague. It’s totally up to you to decide.
This is not to say there aren’t things that can be helpful to think about when eating a Ketogenic diet. I will be covering some of those things in future posts, so stay tuned!