The 1 Reason Your Low Carb Diet is Failing

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Are you following a Keto diet meal plan or counting macros for a low carb diet, but not fully doing Keto? If that's the case you are also probably asking yourself why your low carb diet doesn't work?

Consider this a low carbohydrate Ketogenic Diet Manual to show you: 

  • Low carb diet vs keto diet

  • Why low carb diets are bad for you

  • Macros for ketogenic diet

  • How to track macros

low carb diet

Low Carb VS Keto

Naturally, your body uses carbohydrate stores (glycogen) for energy, but when you transition to a Ketogenic diet meal plan you are essentially training your body to burn fatty acids or ketone bodies for energy. 

Just because you reduce your carb intake that doesn’t mean you’re now reaping the benefits of a ketogenic diet. 

In fact, just depriving your body of carbohydrates, but not supplementing that with higher healthy fat intake leaves your body with no source of fuel for energy and leads to:

  • fatigue

  • constantly feeling hungry

  • lack of energy for workouts

  • muscles loss

  • weight gain

To effectively burn fat your body needs ONE MAIN energy source! So you should either commit to low carb, high (healthy) fat diet OR low fat, higher carbohydrates. 

It is not effective if you are just “kinda doing low carb, but not fully doing keto” and actually is probably one of the main reasons you are not getting results.

The best way to be sure you are eating a balanced diet is to track your Macros for a few days.

Many of my clients are shocked when they realize how off they are and often times are eating way more net carbs than they thought or sometimes not eating enough. 

Macros or Macronutrients are what make up your daily calorie intake of fats, carbohydrates, protein etc. 

Macros for Keto

Step 1:

Create a free account with Cronometer or My Fitness Pal and adjust your macro goals accordingly (remember for Keto you count net carbs, Total Carbohydrates- Dietary Fiber )

For Keto (low Net Carbs, High Fat): 75% fat, 25% protein and 5% Carbs
For Low Fat, higher Carb: 30% fat, 30% protein and 40% Carbs

Macros for low carb diet

Step 2:

Just eat how you would usually and input everything into your food diary on the app

Step 3:

Evaluate your macro counts for each day and adjust accordingly.

As you can see below I went over on net carbs, but needed more protein and fats. 

If you struggle to find ways to add healthy fats to your diet  check out these 5 easy ways to increase fat intake on keto

Macros for low carb diet

Tracking your Macros for a few days will really help you get a better idea of what a day of balanced eating includes, portion sizes and really help you ensure you are doing either a full Keto diet or low fat rather than tip toeing in that no good middle area!