Can You Eat Oats On The Keto Diet?
Bad news, oatmeal lovers: If you're on the keto diet, your breakfast staple is probably not going to stay on the menu for you. While oats are a great source of fiber and a perfect pre-workout complex carbohydrate, they are still carbohydrates, so adding them to an incredibly low-carb diet is nearly impossible.
The keto diet generally relies on eating between 20 and 50 grams of carbohydrates per day (via Healthline). A half cup of oats is a whopping 27 grams of carbohydrates, or 23 net carbohydrates once fiber is subtracted (via Quaker Oats). That means a single serving of oats could be your entire day's worth of carbohydrates.
While technically, the serving of oats may fit into the keto confines, adding that amount of carbs in one sitting could make it much tougher for your body to get into ketosis, and maintaining a low-carb diet will be much more difficult. Once you're used to a keto diet, you may be able to introduce smaller servings of oats into your diet, but you will need to be careful (via Perfect Keto).
What if you really love oatmeal but want to stay in ketosis?
Even if you can technically fit oatmeal into your carb count for the day, you'll likely struggle with every other meal. Carbohydrates are present in most foods, and the grams add up quickly. Vegetables, which should be included in every diet, contain carbohydrates, as do nuts and most condiments like ketchup or barbecue sauce. Even keto-friendly wraps, breads, and other treats are rarely free from any carbohydrates (via CarbManager.com).
Rather than sticking to your old staples, consider swapping your oatmeal for a more keto-friendly breakfast option that won't take up all of your net carbs for the day. There are great recipes for porridge-type meals that use chia seeds, hemp seeds, coconut flakes, or flax seeds as the base, and you can add in some lower-carbohydrate fruit plus nuts and no-calorie sweeteners like stevia to create that same oatmeal taste and texture with a much lower carb count (via Perfect Keto).