How A Food Scale Can Make Following The Keto Diet So Much Easier

If you're following the ketogenic diet, odds are you're prepping your food in advance. This extremely low-carb diet is simple to follow if you are accustomed to cooking most of your meals at home, considering eating out can quickly knock you out of ketosis due to sneaky sugars in marinades, salad dressings, sauces, and beverages. But keto-friendly fast foods and drink options are out there. This fat-focused diet is taking the world by storm, and adherents report weight loss benefits and more consistent energy levels. However, there are a few things to consider when starting such a drastic lifestyle change.

According to NuTrail, portion control is a huge factor in your success on the ketogenic diet. Many assume that as long as you're staying within the realm of allowed foods, the amount you consume doesn't matter because your body is in its fat-burning phase. However, overeating can prevent you from losing weight and even halt ketosis if you're not careful. Eating mindfully and for the sole purpose of fueling your body is essential because, let's face it, too much of a good thing can turn into a not-so-good thing. A food scale is a perfect tool to help with portion control and accelerate your progress.

According to Perfect Keto, owning a food scale can take the guesswork out of how much you're supposed to consume at each meal and can even make it easier to utilize cookbooks that list their ingredients in grams. As a beginning ketogenic dieter, eyeballing the perfect portion size doesn't come naturally and can put you at risk of overeating. Sometimes all it takes is one extra tablespoon of peanut butter, and boom, you're back to square one.

According to Harvard's School of Public Health, when looking at an average 2,000-calorie diet, a good rule of thumb is to consume a total of 165 grams of fat, 75 grams of protein, and 40 grams of total carbohydrates per day. Using a food scale and entering your data on sites such as CalorieKing can help track your calories and macronutrients, giving you a better understanding of what a ketogenic-portioned plate looks like. After a while, food portions will come naturally to you, and you'll be less reliant on the scale. After all, it's not sustainable to weigh every single thing you eat for the rest of your life.