Early on, every keto beginner hits the same confusing fork: should you count net carbs or total carbs? The forums argue about it, the food labels muddy it, and the answer affects what you can eat. It is not as complicated as the arguments make it seem, but getting it right matters, so here is the honest version.
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People often talk about keto and carnivore as if they were two names for the same thing, and you can see why: both are low in carbohydrate, both put fat and protein at the centre of the plate, and both tend to attract the same crowd. But they are genuinely different diets, and the difference matters if you are trying to decide which one to follow. Keto is a low-carbohydrate diet with room for plants.
The first month decides whether keto becomes a thing you do or a thing you tried once. Most people who quit do so in the first fortnight, almost always for reasons that are predictable and avoidable. So rather than another list of foods, here is a guide to the actual experience of the first thirty days, what happens, what to do, and how to get to the other side where it becomes easy.
If there is one thing that separates people who sail through the start of keto from those who feel dreadful and quit, it is electrolytes. Get them right and the so-called keto flu largely disappears. Get them wrong and you feel headachy, tired, crampy and foggy and blame the diet itself. But the standard keto advice to “salt everything and supplement your electrolytes” has a blind spot that matters, because one of these minerals is genuinely dangerous to overdo.
Constipation gets most of the attention as a keto side effect, but plenty of people run into the opposite problem in the first week or two. Loose stools, urgency, and outright diarrhoea are common enough that they have earned nicknames online, and they can be alarming when you were expecting the diet to make everything better. The reassuring part is that this is nearly always temporary and nearly always down to a few identifiable causes, most of which you can fix by adjusting how you eat rather than abandoning the plan.
People use “keto” and “low carb” as if they were interchangeable, and in casual conversation nobody minds. Nutritionally, though, they describe two different things. Every ketogenic diet is low carb, but plenty of low-carb eating never comes close to ketosis. Knowing where the line sits helps you pick the approach that suits your body and, just as importantly, one you can actually stick to.
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Most people need roughly 1.2 to 2.0 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day on keto, leaning towards the higher end if you train hard or are older and want to hold on to muscle. For a 70kg person that works out at about 85 to 140 grams a day. The mistake beginners make is setting protein too low, not too high, usually because they have read somewhere that protein is dangerous on keto.
Somewhere in the first few weeks of keto, a lot of people notice they feel cold: chilly when everyone else is comfortable, cold hands and feet, reaching for a jumper or an extra blanket. It is a common complaint and it takes people by surprise, because nobody mentions it. The reassuring news is that it usually has ordinary causes, most of them fixable, and for many people it passes as they adapt.