How Many Carbs is Low Carb? 

What is Low-Carb?

In my article, Healthy Weight Loss with a Low-Carb Lifestyle, I explained the difference between traditional dieting and lifestyle change. The lifestyle change I advocate is low-carb and sometimes even ketogenic (very low carb).

Easy to say but what does that really mean? Everyone is talking low-carb and keto these days but what does that look like? How is that different than what the average American eats?

To even understand what low-carb means, we need a baseline. The baseline will be the Standard American Diet. Below are a few outlines of what different levels of dietary carbs look like based on different dietary lifestyles. You’ll notice that the standard American diet is listed in all outlines.

Dietary Carbohydrates Outlined

Here’s one outline of what the carb counts look like for different dietary strategies:

• Standard American Diet – 250 grams or more of Carbs/day
• Whole Food Paleo – 250 grams or less of carbs/day
• Low Carb Paleo – 150 grams or less of Carbs/day
• Low-Carb Lifestyle – 100 grams or less of Carbs/day
• Very Low-Carb Lifestyle – 75 grams or less of Carbs/day
• Ketogenic Lifestyle – 30 grams or less Carbs/day

Mark Sisson from Mark’s Daily Apple has a carbohydrate and health outline for his plan, The Primal Blue Print. This is actually one of the first places that I saw dietary carbs outlined. I still like his guidelines.

Primal Blue Print:

• 300 or more Carbs/day = Danger Zone, onset of Disease
• 150 – 300 Carbs/day = Standard American Diet & Weight Gain
• 100 – 150 Carbs/day = Maintenance
• 50 – 100 Carbs/day = Weight Loss
• Less than 50 Carbs/day = Very Low-Carb / Ketogenic

I think Mark’s standard American diet values are too low. More about that below. Basically, he’s saying anything above about 150 grams of carbs/day will lead to weight gain. I do agree with that, for most people however, I think certain athletes can perhaps eat up to 200 grams of carbs/day and remain healthy.

As for 100 – 150 grams of carbs/day as a maintenance level, I would agree, for a healthy, active paleo person. Not necessarily for someone who has battled obesity and won. The formally obese person will more than likely always be very sensitive to carbohydrates and more than 100 grams/day could easily result in weight gain. Everyone is different so I’m sure it may work for some and not for others.

Based on the outlines above and my personal experience, here’s what MY CARB GUIDELINES looks like:

The Standard American Diet & Carbs

O.k, you have some numbers, great but still no context. What do those numbers really mean?

I’m going to try and quantify the numbers for the standard American diet. Below I have 2 days of food outlined:

1. What I think (guess) a typical American eats. This is someone who isn’t worried about eating healthy. They are just living their life and eating mostly out of convenience.
2. Again, a guess about what a typical American eats when they are trying to eat a ‘healthy diet’.

At the bottom of each out line I have totaled the calories, fats, carbs, fiber, protein and sugars eaten.

Typical American Day of Convenience Foods:

• 7:00 am – Coffee with Toast (at home)
  • 2 pieces of white bread: calories 188, fat 2 g, carbs 36 g, fiber 2 g, protein 8 g, sugars 3 g
  • 1 Tbsp. Butter: calories 102, fat 11.5 g, carbs 0, fiber 0, protein 0, sugar 0
• 8:00 am – Starbucks Latte (2% milk) & a Banana (on the way to work)
  • Grande Caffe Latte: calories 190, fat 7g, carbs 19 g, fiber 0, protein 13 g, sugar 18 g
  • Banana, medium: calories 105, fat 4, carbs 27, fiber 3, protein 1, sugar 14
• 9:30 am – Yogurt, low-fat with Fruit on the bottom (at desk)
  • Yoplait Light, Blueberry: calories 90, fat 0, carbs 16 g, fiber 0, protein 5 g, sugars 10 g
• 11:00 am – 2 Rice cakes with Nutella & a Soda (at desk)
  • Rice cakes: calories 70, fat 0, carbs 14 g, fiber 0, protein 2 g
  • Nutella 2 Tbsp: calories 200, fat 11 g, carbs 22 g, fiber 1 g, protein 2 g, sugars 21 g
• 12:30 pm – Subway with Chips & Soda (lunch)
  • 6” Chicken: calories 350, fat 6 g, carbs 45 g, fiber 5 g, protein 29 g, sugars 7 g
  • Bag of Chips: calories 130, fat 2 g, carbs 26 g, fiber 2 g, protein 2 g, sugars 2 g
• 3:00 pm – Chocolate Chip Cookie (giant, like the ones from Subway)
  • Calories 200, fat 10 g, carbs 30 g, fiber 1 g, protein 2 g, sugars 18 g
• 5:00 pm – Diet Soda (in car)
• 6:00 pm – Tostitos Tortilla Chips while waiting for Pizza
  • 28 chips: 560 calories, fat 28 g, carbs 76 g, fiber 4 g, protein 8 g, sugars 0
• 6:30 pm – Pizza, California Pizza Kitchen – Thin Crust Pepperoni
  • ½ pizza: calories 485, fat 11 g, carbs 61 g, fiber 4 g, protein 24 g, sugars 0
• 7:00 pm – Ice Cream, Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
  • ½ Pint (1 cup): calories 560, fat 30 g, carbs 64 g, fiber 0, protein 8 g, sugars 50 g
• 8:00 pm – Popcorn, Light Butter Microwave Popcorn
  • 1 Bag: calories 330, fat 10 g, carbs 49 g, fiber 9 g, protein 7 g, sugars 0

Total for the Day:

Calories 3,560 | Fat 132.5 g | Carbs 485 g | Fiber 31 g | Protein 111 g | Sugars 143 g (36 tsp. of sugar)

• 7:00 am – Coffee with Low-Fat Creamer, 1 Tbsp (at home0
  • French Vanilla Coffee Mate: calories 25, fat 0, carbs 5, fiber 0, protein 0, sugars 5
• 8:00 am – Fresh, Homemade Smoothie
  • 1 Orange, 1 Banana, 6 Strawberries, 2 Cups Spinach, 4 oz. Low-fat Yogurt,
    4 oz. Skim Milk
  • calories 365, fat 4 g, carbs 79 g, fiber 9 g, protein 15 g, sugars 57 g
• 10:00 am – Nature Valley Granola Bar, Oats n’ Honey
  • calories 190, fat 7 g, carbs 29 g, fiber 2 g, protein 3 g, sugars 11 g
• 12:00 pm – Chipotle Salad (lunch)
  • Salad: Lettuce, chicken, black beans, roasted corn salsa
    • Calories 400, fat 10, carbs 40, fiber 11, protein 44, sugars 7
    • Chips, ½ of a small order
    • Calories 270, fat 12, carbs 36, fiber 3, protein 3
• 3:00 pm – Snack, Apple, 3 ¼ inch with 2 Tbsp. Almond Butter
  • Apple: calories 116, fat 0, carbs 31, fiber 5, protein 0, sugars 23
  • Almond Butter: calories 190, fat 16 g, carbs 7 g, fiber 3 g, protein 7 g, sugars 2 g
• 6:00 pm – Nuts, snacking while making dinner
  • ¼ cup Whole Almonds: 205 calories, fat 18 g, carbs 8 g, fiber 4 g, protein 8 g, sugars 1
• 7:00 pm – Dinner
  • 3 oz. Salmon: calories 177, fat 11 g, carbs 0 g, fiber 0, protein 17 g
  • ½ cup Quinoa: calories 111, fat 2 g, carbs 20 g, fiber 2 g, protein 4 g
  • 5” Sweet Potato: calories 112, fat 1 g, carbs 26 g, fiber 4 g, protein 2 g
  • 6 Asparagus Spears: calories 45, fat 3 g, carbs 4 g, fiber 2 g, protein 2 g
• 8:00 pm – Microwave Popcorn, Natural Light, Oroville Redenbacher’s
  • Calories 130, fat 5 g, carbs 20 g, fiber 3 g, protein 3 g, sugars 0 g

Totals

Calories 2,336 | Fat 89 g | Carbs 305 g | Fiber 48 g | Net Carbs 257 g | Protein 108 g | Sugars 106 g (26.5 tsp. of sugar)

O.k., I feel comfortable saying that the Standard American Diet is typically over 250 grams of carbohydrates per day.

A couple of other things I’d like to point out:

1. That’s a lot of food and a lot of calories. When you burn sugar as your primary source of fuel you eat often, you have to, sugar is fleeting, you burn through it quickly. As soon as the sugar is gone your body will force you to start thinking about food. You’ll get ‘hangry’ and need to eat.
2. When the diet has more carbohydrates than protein or fat you eat more. Carbohydrates are not as nutrient dense, filling or satiating as protein and fat so you eat more to get the nutrients the body craves. Hence, the calories.
3. The carbs are crazy high but so is the sugar. Makes sense since carbs ARE sugars. Again, I ask you, how much sugar do you eat in a day? 36 tsp. of sugar is 12 tablespoons; 26 tsp is almost 9 tablespoons. That’s a lot of ‘hidden’ sugar.
4. If we go by Mark Sisson’s outline both of these days of food would put people in what he refers to as the ‘danger zone’. Not surprising that American’s are dealing with an obesity and diabetes epidemic.

Paleo, a Healthy Alternative to the Standard American Diet

The eating style that I like as a healthy alternative to the standard American diet is paleo. Paleo cuts out grains (sugars) and most processed foods. Eliminating processed foods will get rid of a lot of refined sugars and inflammatory vegetable oils. Eating real, whole food is a huge step in the right direction and, for some, may be the only lifestyle change needed.

Paleo is not necessarily low-carb. Again, this is not a bad thing but if you are over 40 and struggling with health issues and weight loss, paleo may not be enough to get you to your goals. If you need to balance blood sugar and improve your bodies response to insulin there may be too many carbohydrates (sugars) in a standard paleo diet. It all comes down to how sensitive you are to carbohydrates.

A paleo lifestyle is grain-free, dairy free, whole food based. Some of the high glycemic foods that are part of a paleo lifestyle include fruit, all fruit, bananas, pineapple and more, dried fruit, natural sweeteners like maple syrup, honey, and coconut sugar, starchy vegetables like sweet potatoes, butternut squash, turnips and more. While these are all good, healthy foods they are not low in sugar (carbs).

I’m not going to outline a day of Paleo meals but I will note some of the carb counts that would be included in a normal paleo lifestyle:

• 5” Long Sweet Potato: 27 g Carbs
• 3 Medjool Dates (YUM!): 16 g Carbs
• 1 Cup Pineapple Chunks: 22 g Carbs
• ¼ Cup Dried Cranberries: 33 g Carbs
• 1 Tablespoon Maple Syrup: 13 g Carbs
• 1 Cup Mashed Butternut Squash: 25 g Carbs

I hope you can see how the carbs could easily add up over a single day. Again, not bad foods but depending on your issues and goals they may not be the right foods for you.

Low-Carb for Weight Loss

Based on my chart above, there’s a range of daily carbs for weight loss.

• Active, Healthy Person = 100 grams or less/day
  • Exercises 4 or more days a week, sleeps well, eats when hungry and stops when full
• Over Weight, Fatigued, Sugar Burner in generally Good Health = 75 grams or less/day
  • Generally good health but might be dealing with some IBS, heartburn or reflux, reactive hypoglycemia, lack of energy,
    lousy sleep, brain fog
• Very Overweight (obese), suffering with Health Issues = 30 grams or less/day
  • Pre-diabetic, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high triglycerides, low HDL as well as the issues noted above and possibly more

All of these carb ranges are just suggestions, everyone is different. I would put myself in the ‘active, healthy’ category and typically like to keep my ‘net carbs’ at or below 30 grams/day. This usually puts my total carbs between 50 – 70 grams/day. This is a maintenance level for me.

Net Carbs = Total Carbs – Total Fiber

When I really want to get lean and drop some body fat, I try to keep my net carbs at 20 grams or less/day.

So, what does 30 net carbs or 50 – 70 total carbs look like? Here’s an example:

• Breakfast (breaking my over night fast) 10:30 am: 3 eggs, 2 pieces of bacon, ½ an avocado
  • Calories 537, fats 45 g, carbs 7.6 g, fiber 4.4 g, NET CARBS 3.1 g, protein 27 g, sugars 2 g
• Lunch 2:30 pm: Onion-Cilantro-Lime Soup with Meatballs (homemade)
  • Calories 356, fats 18 g, carbs 10 g, fiber 2 g, NET CARBS 8 g, protein 39 g, sugars 0
• Dinner 6:00 pm: Ribeye Steak (6oz) with Roasted Broccoli (1 cup) and Cauliflower (1 cup)
  • Calories 508, fat 27 g, carbs 16 g, fiber 8 g, NET CARBS 8 g, protein 51 g, sugars 5 g
• Treat 6:30 pm: Avocado Brownie
  • Calories 177, fat 15 g, carbs 14 g, fiber 8 g, NET CARBS 6 g, protein 5 g, sugars 0 g

Totals:

Calories 1,578 | Fats 105 g | Carbs 47.6 | Fiber 22.4 | NET CARBS 25 | Protein 122 g | Sugars 7 g (less than 2 tsp.)

Here’s an example of a lower Carb day, 16 g Net Carbs:

• Fasted until Lunch 12:30 pm: 3 eggs, ½ avocado, 4 pieces of bacon, 1 Tbsp Butter
  • Calories 674, fat 56 g, carbs 7.5 g, fiber 4.4 g, net carbs 3 g, protein 37 g, sugars 1.4 g
• Snack 2:00 pm: Almond Butter Snack Pack by Barney Butter
  • Calories 180, fat 16 g, carbs 7 g, fiber 3 g, net carbs 4 g, protein 6 g, sugars 3 g
• Snack 4:30 pm: Mackerel, Wild Planet 3oz Can
  • Calories 180, fat 11 g, carbs 0, fiber 0, net carbs 0, protein 21 g, sugars 0
• Dinner 6:30 pm: Spaghetti Squash with Ground Beef, Pesto and Cheese
  • Calories 617, fat 46 g, carbs 12 g, fiber 3 grams, net carbs 9 g, protein 40 g, sugars 4 g 

Totals:

Calories 1,651 | Fats 128 g | Carbs 26 g | Fiber 10 g | NET CARBS 16 g | Protein 104 g | Sugars 8.4 g (about 2.5 tsp)

If you’re curious about % of macros, this works out to: 4% carbs, 25% protein and 70% fat

Also, I drink water and occasional unsweetened iced tea.

It’s not that often that I eat 3 full meals in a day. It’s usually two meals and a snack, maybe. The food is nutrient dense and fat rich which is very, very filling. There are days I eat way less than this and there are days I eat more. Again, this would be weight maintenance for me.

Ketosis

As I mentioned in my previous post, a ketogenic diet is a low-carb diet but a low-carb diet isn’t necessarily a ketogenic diet. Confused?

Keto is just a sub-category of low-carb living. A ketogenic diet is a very low-carbohydrate diet. A ketogenic diet or lifestyle is one that elevates blood ketone bodies. Ketone bodies are by-products of fat metabolism (burning fat).

A ketogenic diet or being in a state of ketosis, producing ketone bodies, mimics the metabolic state our bodies go into when fasting. Fasting has been used therapeutically for 1000 of years. A ketogenic diet was the standard of care in the United States 90 -100 years ago for seizure control. It was and is a nutritional approach to uncontrolled epilepsy. (1)

The macronutrient profile of a therapeutic ketogenic diet is often defined as:

• 60 – 90% of calories as Fat
• 10 – 20 % of calories as Protein
• 5% or less calories as Carbohydrate (fibrous vegetables)

Dom D’Agastino, a researcher and teacher of neuroscience, molecular pharmacology and physiology is a leading researcher and voice in the world of nutritional ketosis. One area of his research revolves around nutritional ketosis as an effective treatment for drug resistant seizures. I recently heard him mention that a therapeutic ketogenic diet works for all causes of seizures such as genetic issues, temporal lobe epilepsy and even traumatic brain injury. This begins to make sense as he explains that nutritional ketosis enhances brain function. This aspect of nutritional ketosis is important for all neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s and dementia.

Beyond enhancing brain function, ketones as an energy source, also generate ATP in cells, reduce inflammation in the body and appear to have a positive influence on epigenetics, the expression of different genes. (2)

Anecdotally, what I have experienced and also heard and read in the keto community is enhanced cognition when living in a state of ketosis. I know that when I need to be sharp mentally it’s best for me to keep my carbs low and make sure I add extra fasting time into my schedule.

As mentioned above, I consider myself a part of the ‘healthy, active’ category. You may be wondering why I restrict carbs at all. Being in my 50s, I do find flowing from low-carb to ketosis and back again does help maintain my weight but more importantly for me, are the other health benefits of ketosis. My family has a history of type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease and cancer. All things that appear to be positively affected by nutritional ketosis.

When considering a low-carb or ketogenic lifestyle, weight loss is important but don’t overlook the other very positive health implications.

If you’re ready to get started and would like a little guidance, enter your name and email below to download my free guide:
How to Low Carb for Life: Learn to Ditch Sugar, Enjoy Fats and do a little Fasting.

Final Thoughts

I was going to finish this post with the low-carb/keto advantages to weight loss but realized this post was already way too long. I’m going to save that for my next post. I hope this post gave you more of an understanding about what eating low-carb means and what it looks like. Please understand, it all comes back to sugar. High carb foods are high sugar foods. Processed foods tend to be high carb (sugar), high calorie with little nutritional value which causes over consumption. Step 1 is always eating real, whole, natural foods. Step 2, dialing that food into a ratio that helps you meet your personal health and weight goals.

A couple of things to ponder until next week:

• Calories actually are a factor. There are a lot of people in the low-carb/keto world who like to say calories don’t count and all you have to do is keep carbs low and fats high. This isn’t entirely true. I’ll get into the calorie stuff more next week but for now scroll back up and look at the calories for the two standard American diet examples and then the calories from my low-carb examples. Big difference.
• Once you’ve notice the calories, go back and really look at the food. While I’m eating less food in my low-carb examples, I think you might agree that the food is nutrient dense, filling food. It’s the kind of food that drives away hunger. Naturally being able to eat less is one of the big advantages of a low-carb/ketogenic lifestyle.

I hope you found the quantitative food outlines informative. I always think it’s impossible that the average American eats over 300 grams of carbohydrate a day but every time I think about all the food we see advertised on T.V. it starts to add up.

Next week: 

• ketosis as a natural human state
• advantages to burning fat, why adopt a low-carb and/or ketogenic lifestyle

Be well,

References:

(1)(2) https://www.peak-human.com/home/dom-dagostino

Amy White, Functional Nutritionist

I’m Amy a board certified holistic nutritionist, certified functional nutritionist and lifestyle practitioner and certified Life Coach. I help women in midlife understand the changing needs of their body so that they can stop dieting and lose weight permanently. At 56 I live what I teach. Don’t believe the story that your best years are behind you. They are not. Your best years are just starting!