Why your carb limit is personal
The 20 gram starting point most keto guides use is deliberately cautious: it gets nearly everyone into ketosis. It is not a number you have to live at. The carb intake that keeps a person in nutritional ketosis commonly lands somewhere between 20 and 50 grams of net carbs a day, and it moves with activity, insulin sensitivity, body size and time on the diet. Someone who trains hard may stay in ketosis at a level that would take a sedentary person out.
Finding your own limit is worth the effort, because a few extra grams a day is the difference between a salad and a salad with berries, or room for a vegetable side at dinner. More room usually means a diet that is easier to keep.
How the step-up method works
The approach that keto clinics describe is simple. Once you have been steadily in ketosis for a few weeks, add a small amount of net carbs, typically about 5 grams a day, and hold that level for a few days so your body has time to respond. Then check your blood ketones first thing in the morning, before eating. A reading of 0.5 mmol/L or higher means you are still in nutritional ketosis, so you move up. If it falls below that and stays there on a recheck, step back to the previous level. That level is your working carb limit.
The planner builds those steps into a dated schedule you can print and fill in. It does not track or store anything; the paper copy is the log. Use the net carb calculator to keep each step accurate, since a few untracked grams can blur the result.
Getting clean readings
Measure at the same time each morning, before food or coffee. Add the new carbs from whole foods rather than sweets, and spread them across the day instead of eating them in one sitting. A hard workout, a bad night of sleep or an illness can move a single reading, which is why the plan asks for a recheck before you step back.
Ketones are not the only signal. If hunger, cravings or your weight trend change for the worse at a new level, that is useful information even when the meter still reads in range.
Who should check with a clinician first
If you take insulin, a sulfonylurea or an SGLT2 inhibitor, changing carbohydrate intake changes what your medication needs to do, so plan the test with your prescriber. The same goes for pregnancy, kidney disease, or a history of disordered eating.