The ketogenic diet is very different from the low-carb diet of the garden variety because it restricts carbohydrate intake to only 5 to 10 percent of energy intake, Bruning says. In general, that means consuming less than 20 to 50 grams of carbohydrates a day. Most of the rest of your diet, around 70 to 80 percent, is fat and about 10 or 20 percent is protein. Nutritionist Mark Sisson makes three recommendations in his book on the paleo diet The Primal Blueprint.
Paleo diet followers looking to gain muscle mass should consume between 150 and 300 grams of carbohydrates per day, while those looking to maintain weight or gradually lose weight should eat between 100 and 150 grams of carbohydrates a day. If you're looking for faster fat loss, try to consume 50 to 100 grams a day. Unlike the Paleo diet, these processed foods are allowed in the ketogenic diet as long as they are kept within macroeconomic limits. The glycemic index measures how quickly the carbohydrates in a specific food influence blood sugar levels (the higher the glycemic index, the faster and faster your blood sugar will rise after eating that food), but this concept doesn't take into account the carbohydrate density of that food.
Root vegetables, tubers, and fruits are whole foods that are high in carbohydrates, but they also contain unique types of fiber (such as pectin in fruits and resistant starch in roots and tubers) that are incredibly important to the gut microbiome. Returning to the topic of hunter-gatherers, Cordain's analysis revealed that most populations consumed between 19 and 35% of protein and between 28 and 58% of fat. The Paleo diet includes nutrient-rich, whole-grain fresh foods and encourages participants to avoid highly processed foods that contain added salt, sugar, and unhealthy fats. The most important and predominant carbohydrate is glucose, the main metabolic fuel of the human body and, in fact, of most forms of life on Earth.
Both groups significantly reduced fat mass and weight circumference at 6 and 24 months, and the paleo diet resulted in greater fat loss at 6 months, but not at 24 months. So what's the take-home message when it comes to carbohydrate recommendations? For most people, consuming less than 100 grams of carbohydrates a day for extended periods is not a good idea (unless a ketogenic diet is used for therapeutic purposes for a specific condition and under close medical supervision). The Paleo diet is a relatively simple concept: get rid of all processed and artificial foods from your diet and focus only on the natural foods that ancient man would have eaten. Triglyceride levels decreased more significantly with the paleo diet at 6 and 24 months than with the NNR diet.
Although following a paleo diet doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to follow a low-carb diet, the total elimination of several categories of carbohydrates (both whole and refined), as well as the emphasis on proteins and fats, make eating low in carbohydrates a common result of following the paleo diet, Bruning explains. Some randomized controlled trials have shown that the paleo diet produces greater short-term benefits than diets based on national nutrition guidelines, such as greater weight loss, a reduction in waist circumference, a decrease in blood pressure, an increase in insulin sensitivity, and an improvement in cholesterol. However, Paul Jaminet, a true paleo diet similar to the one that cave men and women would have eaten, contains about 20 percent of total caloric intake in the form of carbohydrates. On the other hand, too few carbohydrates (with a lot of protein and fat) could mean a lack not only of fiber, but also of certain nutrients and phytochemicals found in greater abundance in foods rich in carbohydrates, even if quality options are chosen (such as vitamin C, polyphenols, chlorophyll, carotenoids, isothiocyanates, and organosulfur compounds, all of which play a variety of roles in preventing diseases).
Fruits and vegetables will make up most of the carbohydrate intake in the Paleo diet, along with small amounts of carbohydrates from nuts and seeds...
