What to drink while on a low-carbohydrate diet?

What do you drink if you’re following dietary guidelines that call for limiting carbohydrates in your meals?

What is the best option for you and what are the most common mistakes?

Water, as well as coffee and tea, are excellent and contain no carbohydrates (with no sugar, of course). It’s also fine to have a glass of wine now and then. Look at the chart below to see what is a good option and what you should avoid at all costs.
The numbers indicate how many grams of net carbohydrate are in a typical serving (which is the serving size you get when you order at a restaurant). Low carbohydrate drinks are indicated by green numbers and are recommended for consumption.

Adding a sugar cube to coffee or tea is not a good idea because it adds 4 grams of carbohydrates to the drink.

Size does matter

On a low-carb diet, sweet soda is always a bad idea, but size does matter. A large drink (such as soda or cola) has a surprising amount of sugar in it.

A small drink will kick you out of ketosis for the whole day, while a large one even for a week!

Then the question remains – are artificial sweeteners (no added sugar) acceptable?

Dietetic drinks

Artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, sucralose, or acesulfame K are used to replace carbohydrates and calories in diet drinks. Many people believe that diet drinks are safe because they are calorie-free. Non-caloric sweeteners, on the other hand, cause a slew of other issues.

Let’s start with the sugar substitutes. They are harmful to our bodies because they increase our sugar cravings, which is disastrous if you are addicted to sweet foods. Furthermore, they make it difficult to appreciate real food’s natural sweetness. Switching from diet drinks to water has also been shown to help people lose weight. Insulin levels can be raised by certain diet drinks (thereby increasing fat storage).

In short, diet drinks are likely to be less harmful than sugar-sweetened beverages. However, if you can avoid these drinks entirely and replace them with water, you will be doing the best thing for your health.

If you’re not sure what to eat on a ketogenic diet, look at some sample recipes and go to the page with a list of foods that are allowed on a fat diet.