Reference
Keto Glossary: 37 Low-Carb Terms in Plain English
Plain-English definitions of the keto terms you’ll meet: net carbs, ketosis, BHB, fat-adapted, macros, MCT oil, sugar alcohols and more.
1 min readUpdated By The Keto Vibe Kitchen
New words come with any new way of eating. Here are the ones you’ll see most on keto, defined in a sentence or two. Every term has its own link: tap a letter to jump, or share a definition with a friend.
A
- Acetoacetate
- One of the three ketone bodies. It’s the ketone that urine test strips measure.
- Acetone
- The ketone you breathe out. It causes “keto breath” and is what breath ketone meters detect.
- Allulose
- A rare sugar that tastes and bakes like sugar but has very few calories and essentially no effect on blood sugar.
B
- Beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB)
- The main ketone in the blood, and the one blood ketone meters measure. Nutritional ketosis is roughly 0.5 to 3.0 mmol/L of BHB.
- Bulletproof coffee
- Coffee blended with butter or ghee and MCT or coconut oil. A popular keto breakfast replacement.
C
- Carb creep
- The slow increase in daily carbs from small extras (sauces, nuts, “just one”) that can push you out of ketosis without noticing.
- Cauliflower rice
- Cauliflower pulsed into rice-sized pieces and cooked. The most common keto swap for rice.
- Cyclical keto
- A variation that adds planned higher-carb days, usually for athletes. Not recommended for beginners.
D
- Dirty keto
- Eating keto macros mainly from processed or fast food. It can keep you in ketosis but is low in nutrients.
E
- Electrolytes
- Minerals such as sodium, potassium and magnesium. Keto increases sodium loss, so topping them up prevents most keto-flu symptoms.
- Erythritol
- A sugar alcohol with almost no calories that the body excretes unchanged. It’s the most common keto baking sweetener.
- Exogenous ketones
- Ketone supplements, usually BHB salts or esters, that raise blood ketones temporarily without diet changes.
F
- Fat bomb
- A small, high-fat snack, often made with cocoa butter, coconut oil, nut butter or cream cheese.
- Fat-adapted
- The state, usually reached after a few weeks of keto, where your body burns fat and ketones efficiently and energy feels steady again.
- Fiber
- The part of plant carbohydrates the body can’t digest. It’s subtracted from total carbs to get net carbs.
G
- Gluconeogenesis
- The body making its own glucose from protein and other sources. It’s why you don’t need to eat carbs to supply the parts of the body that need glucose.
- Glucose
- The sugar your body runs on by default, made mainly from dietary carbohydrate.
- Glycemic index
- A ranking of how quickly a food raises blood sugar compared with pure glucose. Keto foods are mostly low or zero.
- Glycogen
- Stored carbohydrate in the liver and muscles, held with about three times its weight in water. Using it up is why early keto weight loss is mostly water.
I
- Insulin
- The hormone that moves glucose into cells and tells the body to store energy. Keto keeps it low and steady.
- Intermittent fasting
- Eating within a set window, such as eight hours a day. It pairs naturally with keto because hunger tends to drop.
K
- Keto flu
- Short-lived headache, fatigue and fog in the first week of keto, mostly from water and sodium loss. Usually eased by salt and fluids.
- Ketoacidosis
- A dangerous condition, mostly in type 1 diabetes, where ketones rise far above nutritional levels and the blood turns acidic. It is not the same as ketosis.
- Ketogenic diet
- A very low-carb, high-fat diet that keeps carbs low enough for the body to run on ketones, usually 20 to 50 g of net carbs a day.
- Ketones
- Molecules the liver makes from fat when carbs are scarce. The brain, heart and muscles can use them for energy.
- Ketosis
- The metabolic state in which your body uses ketones made from fat as a major fuel.
L
- Lazy keto
- Tracking only net carbs and not counting fat, protein or calories.
M
- Macros
- Short for macronutrients: fat, protein and carbohydrate. Keto is roughly 70% fat, 25% protein and 5% carbs by calories.
- Maltitol
- A sugar alcohol common in “sugar-free” sweets. It raises blood sugar noticeably and is best avoided on keto.
- MCT oil
- Oil made of medium-chain triglycerides, fats the liver turns into ketones quickly. Usually made from coconut oil.
- Monk fruit
- A fruit whose extract is 100 to 250 times sweeter than sugar, with no carbs. Usually sold blended with erythritol or allulose.
N
- Net carbs
- Total carbohydrates minus fiber (and minus erythritol or allulose). The carb number most keto eaters track.
S
- Stevia
- A zero-carb sweetener from the leaves of the stevia plant, 200 to 300 times sweeter than sugar.
- Sugar alcohols
- Sweeteners such as erythritol, xylitol and maltitol that are partly absorbed. How much they count toward net carbs depends on the type.
T
- TDEE
- Total daily energy expenditure: the calories you burn in a day. The macro calculator estimates it from your body and activity.
W
- Whoosh effect
- A popular term for a sudden drop on the scale after a plateau, usually explained by shifts in water retention.
Keep learning
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Put it into practice
Recipes to try
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