How Many Grams Of Carbs On Keto To Lose Weight

How many carbs are there in common foods? It varies wildly. On this page you’ll find out in a simple way. Like this:

A low-carb diet restricts carbs. For example, on a keto diet, your target is fewer than 20 grams of net carbs each day.

While healthy, active and insulin sensitive individuals can remain in ketosis at higher levels of carb intake, others must be more strict with their carb intake.

Low Carb Vegetables {keto Vegetables Chart + Printable}

You can eat a lot of vegetables before reaching 20 grams of net carbs, even if you add some colorful peppers and tomatoes. Roughly 20 ounces – more than half a kilo – of vegetables, which are full of other nutrients.

On the other hand, just half a large hamburger bun can contain 20 grams of carbs, adding up to the entire day’s ration of carbs on a keto diet. In that case, regular bread is not really an option. But there are low-carb breads that are much lower in carbs.

These foods practically can’t be included at all on a keto low-carb diet, and only in small amounts – if at all – on a more liberal low-carb diet.

Keto Food List: What To Eat And What To Limit

Rice can be replaced with cauliflower rice and potato mash can be replaced by cauliflower mash. For a pasta option check out our keto pasta or simply spiralize a zucchini.

Getting to 20 grams of net carbs by just eating spinach (bottom right plate) requires an enormous effort. At 1.4 grams of net carbs per 100 grams you’d have to eat about three pounds (1.5 kilos) or 42 cups of spinach. Please note that this is much more than what is shown above. This is simply all the spinach we could fit onto the plate!

However, by adding some other low-carb vegetables like peppers and cherry tomatoes, it’s quite easy to get to 20 grams (top left plate). One large yellow bell pepper, half a large zucchini, one cup of cherry tomatoes, and five cups of spinach total up to 20 grams of net carbs.

Diabetic Friendly Low Carb Keto Bread.

Nuts and berries are moderately low carb, and you’ll have to be a bit careful with them to stay under 20 grams every day. One cup of raspberries and 3/4 cup of blueberries add up to 20 grams of net carbs. One cup of walnut halves plus 1 1/2 cups of hazelnuts also add up to 20 grams of net carbs.

Adding a bit more bread, pasta, rice or potatoes will easily take you above 50 grams of carbs as well – the suggested limit for a more moderate low-carb diet.

None of the foods above are extremely low in carbs. How much would you need to eat to get to 20 grams of net carbs when eating other low-carb staples? Get the answers below:

Keto Diet Foods To Eat, Limit Or Avoid

With our low-carb and keto meal plans, we do the planning for you. All you have to focus on is cooking, eating, and enjoying healthy, delicious food.

A low carb diet for beginners Low-carb foods 14-day low carb diet meal plan DD+ MEMBERSHIPStart your FREE 30-day trial! Get instant access to healthy low-carb and keto meal plans, fast and easy recipes, weight loss advice from medical experts, and so much more. A healthier life starts now with your free trial! Start FREE trial!The minute you begin exploring the keto / low-carb diet, you’ll learn that in order to follow it successfully, you need to significantly restrict your carbohydrate intake. But by how much? Some sources say you should limit your intake to 20 total carbs per day, while others say 20 net carbs per day. What’s the difference between total carbs and net carbs and why does it matter? We’ll explain everything you need to know here so you can decide the daily carb intake that’s right for you. 

To understand why you need to know about net and total carbs, it’s good to have a solid understanding of the role carb-limitation plays in the keto diet:

How Many Carbs In Eggs?

The entire goal of a ketogenic diet is to get and keep your body in a state of ketosis. This is where the body relies on fat for energy rather than carbs (sugar), and your ketone levels are at least 0.5 mmol/L when you test them (your blood glucose lowers significantly too, as sugar/carbs are known to raise blood sugar).

The only way to achieve ketosis is to drastically restrict your carb intake long enough so your body trains itself to produce ketones from stored and consumed fats and use them for energy. Once you’re in ketosis, the goal is to stay there and optimize its many benefits. The only way to do this is to continue to limit your carb intake. 

Fortunately, the amount of carbs you should eat on a keto diet is not arbitrary. In fact, it’s scientific, though there is some confusion due to nuances we explain here: 

Low Carb Mediterranean Diet Recipes

It’s widely agreed upon by physicians that people following a ketogenic diet for medically therapeutic reasons, such as cancer or epilepsy, should limit their total carb count to 20 grams of total carbs per day. Strict adherence ensures maximum benefit from higher ketone levels. 

Here, “total carbs” is exactly what it sounds like—the total number of carbs consumed in one day (For success, it’s important to track your food intake, also known as macros or macronutrients, and carefully track your carb count using a tracker, since carbs can easily sneak into your diet.)

For the general population, there’s a consensus among experts that pretty much anyone can stay solidly in ketosis (i.e. maintain ketone levels of at least 0.5 mmol/L or more), if they consume 20 grams of net carbs per day. 

The Best Low Carb Nuts And Seeds (carb Charts)

Net carbs are the total grams of carbohydrates in any given food minus its grams of fiber and sugar alcohols. (The sugar alcohols and fiber are subtracted because they are not digested by the body.)

1 cup of cauliflower rice contains 4.8 grams of total carbs and 3.2 grams of fiber. So, to get its net carbs, you subtract the fiber (3.2 grams) from the total carbs (4.8 grams), which leaves you with 1.6 grams of net carbs (i.e., 4.8 grams carbs – 3.2 grams fiber = 1.6 grams net carbs for 1 cup cauliflower rice). 

If you’re following a keto diet for weight-loss or general health reasons, staying within 20 net carbs per day is the way to go. It’s easier to do, allows you far greater consumption of vegetables and other wholesome foods that contain carbohydrates, and, as we mentioned, still allows you to stay in ketosis. 

Keto Carb Limit Explained: How Many Carbs Can You Have On Keto?

Now let’s try an example of calculating net carbs with a food that contains sugar alcohols. There are many keto and low-carb products that utilize sugar-alcohol-based sweeteners to sweeten food products without adding carbs (or in the case of some sugar alcohols, adding minimal carbs). But there are also recipes that call for sugar alcohols. While there are many out there (maltitol, xylitol, sorbitol, etc.), we recommend erythritol sweetener, which, unlike some sugar alcohols, contains absolutely no carbs and doesn’t tend to affect blood-sugar levels. So, for this example, we’ll go with homemade keto whipped cream (2 cups heavy whipping cream and 2 teaspoons erythritol, whipped together). 

Here, the whipping cream contains 32 grams of carbohydrates and 0 dietary fiber (or 32 total carbs), while the erythritol contains 8 grams of total carbs and 8 grams of fiber. So, the net carbs count is 32 – 0 + 8 – 8 = 32 carbs total for enough whipped cream to serve 16 people (thus 2 net carbs per serving).

Once you’re solidly in ketosis for three or more months, some people like to test their “carb edge, ” to determine whether they can consume more than 20 net carbs per day and still stay in ketosis. You can do this by gradually increasing your daily carbohydrate consumption and testing your glucose and ketones daily to see if you get glucose spikes, or pushed out of ketosis by eating more carb foods, including carb-heavy veggies. Learn more about testing for your carb edge here.

Low Carb Nuts

It’s also common to test yourself for bio-individuality, or how your unique body responds to certain keto-friendly foods or processed foods. Some people get a glucose spike with certain sugar alcohols or dairy, for example. Testing your glucose and ketones before and after eating questionable foods allows you to discover if a food sensitivity is impeding your ability to stay in ketosis and achieve keto success. 

To help you keep track of all your testing and subsequent results, offers a free app where you can sync your readings to your smartphone and then tag or make notes in your readings. That means you can either tag or make notes on the foods you ate before testing or how many net carbs you’ve had for the day.  You can even filter your readings by tags.  To get even more insight into your readings with graphs and trends, or integrations with other health apps like Cronometer or Carb Manager,  you can sign up for a MyMojoHealth account within the app. Learn more here.

Total carbs are exactly that—the sum of all the carbs you eat in a day.

How Many Carbs On Keto To Reach A State Of Ketosis