Many people who are trying to lose weight nowadays automatically gravitate towards either a keto or a carb cycling keto diet.
What are these diets, what is the difference between the two and what is likely to be the right choice for you?
What is the keto diet? — A typical keto diet restricts carbohydrates to 25 grams a day or less. This generally means you can eat extremely limited amounts of fruit and vegetables, while most people on these diets eliminate bread, rice and pasta completely.
Once on this diet, the goal is to get your body into what is known as ketosis. Once in this stage, your body will consume fat as energy instead of carbohydrates. This helps you lose weight faster than if you were on one of many other diets.
Typical foods eaten on a keto diet include fish, meat, eggs, chicken, dark leafy greens, broccoli, cauliflower, butter, cheese, cream, nuts and avocados. They also include oils like sunflower oil, olive oil and coconut oil.
All these high fat foods force your body into ketosis and then the real work of burning fat as energy begins.
What are carb cycling diets? — These are a type of diet that cycles the amount of carbs you decide to eat, either on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. In most cases, how you cycle carbs is entirely up to you.
You could choose to eat higher carbs one day and restrict carbs to under 25 grams the day after. You could eat one week or one month with higher carbs, then one week or one month with the lowest recommended level of carbs.
People tend to start a carb cycling diet if they enjoy eating carboyhdrates and do not want to limit them too severely. These types of carb cycling diets also stave off the boredom that can often come from a keto diet as, over a specific period of time, they are much less restrictive.
Some people will also use carb cycling diets if they are preparing their body for a major sports event. The low carb weeks can help get their body into ketosis, while the higher carb days give them the energy they need when they are training.
What diet is the right choice for you? — Both diets definitely help people lose weight, so it is up to you what diet you choose.
If you are not a particular carbohydrates lover, and so would be fine eating mainly meats, fish, chicken, low-carb vegetables and high fat foods, then a keto diet may be a good choice.
If you do enjoy eating carbohydrates, though, but still want to lose weight, a carb cycling diet may be the best option.
