Remember when you first started keto and how strict you were?  Most likely you were meticulous in tracking your carb macros at least… even if you didn’t count anything else.  I remember I tracked EVERY single morsel that went into my mouth meticulously.

Then time goes on and it’s not so exciting as it was in the beginning (or we’ve just relaxed our parameters a wee bit).  It’s SO easy to go higher than you want to with your carbs.  A bite here, taking someone’s fry there, a few chocolate covered almonds won’t hurt (these are all my real life examples), lol… then just like that, our net carbs are through the roof!

Not such a big deal when you’re including some intermittent fasting and/or exercise into your daily routine, but for many people those things are not a regular part of day, so little carb creeps make a much bigger difference.

Here are a few tips if you suffer from carb creep:

🔹  If it’s not a vegetable, fat or protein… track it!

The odds of you going over your 20g per day of net carbs when eating only veggies, fat and protein are pretty slim.  It’s all of the other things that really add up, things like fruit, keto flours, keto breads, keto desserts, etc… If you hate tracking (I get it) at least tracking your net carbs can be a real eye opener.  Try your best to only have veggies, fat and protein most of the day and save your ‘keto treat carbs’ for 1x per day and stay within your macro limit.

🔹 Are you leaning on packaged ‘keto’ foods?

This is the easiest way to go over your carbs.  Packaged food companies have capitalized on the keto trend, coming out with products that seem too good to be true. Very low net carbs, so hey, we can have a lot right?  Even though we typically go by ‘net carbs’ [which is total carbs (minus) fiber (minus) sugar alcohols] there really is a limit here, but the packaged food companies do not let you know this.  They add in more fiber and sugar alcohol in order to make the food seem very low in net carbs.  These products are very high in total carbs, they are refined, usually have a lot of artificial ingredients as well as grains, which can cause inflammation and make weight loss harder.  These ingredients can spike insulin pretty high despite looking good on paper, and with spiked insulin comes sugar cravings and hunger.  Bottom line, these type of foods should be occasional treats, not daily fare.

🔹 Go longer between meals

Adding in some intermittent fasting or longer fasting into your health plan is so beneficial as it will dump a lot more glucose than keto/low carb alone.  For health reasons it’s amazing as it takes out the cellular garbage and toxins… win-win!