Keto Diet and Atkins Diet are two highly popular low-carb diets used by many people to achieve their desired weight loss. There is a central idea behind the formulation of both the keto and Atkin diet; you can improve your health by limiting your daily carb intake and achieve the metabolic state of ketosis which will help you in losing weight efficiently. In both these diets, people avoid high-carb foods like starchy vegetables (potatoes) desserts, processed foods, and dairy products, and high-fat, high-protein foods.
If you are new to low-carb diets, both these diets may look quite similar to you, but they have a few key differences between them that set them apart from each other. The purpose of our today’s article is to make you understand the major differences between Keto Diet and Atkins, but first of all, we would like to discuss both diets briefly. Through this brief description, you will able to understand the basic difference between Keto and Atkins Diet.
What is the Keto Diet (Ketogenic Diet)?
The Ketogenic Diet is a low-carbohydrate diet plan in which you can only consume high-fat and high-protein foods. High-Carb foods are strictly avoided throughout the diet plan. The primary goal of the Keto Diet is to get your body into ketosis, a metabolic state in which you burn primarily fat for fuel as a replacement of sugar or carbohydrates.
In Ketosis, your body runs on ketones that come from the fat you eat or already deposited body fats. Ketosis has many unique health benefits including weight loss, better brain functioning, and healthy blood sugar level. A typical macronutrient breakdown for Keto Diet is as follows:
- 5% Carbohydrates
- 20% Proteins
- 75% Fat
What is the Atkins Diet?
The Atkins Diet is also a low-carb diet but its working is slightly different from the keto diet. The Atkins Diet Plan is broken down into four major phases (steps) to achieve the desired weight loss. At the start of the Atkins Diet Plan, you set yourself a goal weight, and then and start going through the following four phases:
- Phase 1 (Introduction Phase)
In the first phase, also known as the introduction phase of the Atkins Diet, your daily allotment of carbohydrates is under 20 grams of net carb. The first phase continues until you are within 15 pounds of your weight loss goal. Your body will almost certainly achieve the metabolic state of ketosis in this phase.
- Phase 2 (On-going weight loss)
In the second phase, you increase your daily carb intake to 25-50 grams of net carbs. The second phase continues until you are within 10 pounds of your desired weight loss.
- Phase 3 (Pre-maintenance)
The 3rd phase is to lose the last 10 pounds. In this phase, you can increase your daily carb intake up to 50-80 grams until you hit your weight loss goal. Now, you just have to maintain your goal weight for at least one month.
- Phase 4 (Maintenance)
Once you maintained your goal weight for at least one month, you can consume up to 100 grams of net carbs per day. You will stick to phase 4 indefinitely for the maintenance of your weight loss.
In Atkins Diet, You can gradually increase your daily carb allotment as you lose weight unlike the Keto Diet, in which you can increase your daily carb throughout the diet plan.
What are the main differences between Keto and Atkins Diet?
Both Atkins and Keto diet involves cutting of daily-carb intake and encourage weight loss. However, these are the only two things common between them. If you want to know how the keto diet is different from Atkins, here are the major differences between them:
- There is a consistent carbs limitation in Keto Diet while the Atkins diet increase the carb intake in phases
As we have mentioned earlier, there is a constant restriction of daily carb intake in the Keto Diet Plan. A typical Keto Diet contains 70% of fat, 20% of protein, and just 5% of carbohydrates. It means you can take more than 5% of carbohydrates in your daily Keto Diet plan. A person who is on Keto Diet can only take 20-30 grams of net carbs daily to reach ketosis.
On the other hand, the Atkins diet limits the daily consumption of carbs only in phase 1 to induce ketosis. The Atkins diet allows you to reintroduce carbs in your daily diet from phase 2 onwards. You can easily understand from this difference that the Atkins diet is not as restrictive as the keto diet in terms of carbs consumption.
- The Keto Diet encourages more fat foods while the Atkins diet favors protein-rich foods
The Atkins diet always recommends eating more protein to subdue hunger traditional, while in the Ketogenic diet fat-rich foods are preferred. Sometimes ketogenic diet limits the consumption of protein and encourages fat use to soothe a rumbling stomach.
The exact percentages of protein that you should consume in your daily diet plan (particularly in the Maintenance phase) are not properly defined in the Atkins diet due to its holistic nature. On the other hand, the percentage of fat consumption is well-defined in the Keto Diet (which is around 70%). You can get the 70% of fat by eating fat-rich foods such as cheese, avocados, nuts, and full-fat yogurt.
- Keto Diet recommends eating whole foods while Atkins does not
According to nutritional experts, Keto Diet is all about whole foods. It means you have to eat whole grains instead of refined grains on the Keto Diet. You will also have to avoid processed, canned, or packaged foods. Thus, Keto Diet is based on whole and fresh foods without any preservatives.
On the other hand, the Atkins Diet does not have such restrictions. People can eat different Atkins-brand bars, shakes, and other canned or packaged foods which are specially designed to support their lifestyle.
We hope this article will help you understand the major differences and similarities between the Keto Diet and Atkins diet. Now, you can choose one of them easily and conveniently.
