Anyone doing the Fat Burning Index Ratio Diet

[CindyCRNA]

Anyone doing the FBI diet? I was reading one of the other threads from 2004 about the proper ratio of fat to carbs/protein should be at least 1.5 grams fat to 1 of protein plus carbs (net I hope) so if you have 15 grams protein plus 5 carbs, the fat for that meal needs to be AT LEAST 30 grams. They even state you could go up to 4:1 which is a lot of fat!

[CarolynF]

LOLO..Cindy, I have done that one. It's also called the Optimum Diet or the Banta Diet.

I can't remember if I lost, but that was alot of fat..So, if you had 2 eggs for breakie, you would have to add 22 grams of fat..However, the eggs have 10 grams of fat in them, so you would only have to add 12 grams of fat..about a Tbs. of butter. Or, you could have some fatty bacon with it as bacon is pretty fatty..

Basically, EFGT is sort of like it..20 percent protein to 65 percent fat. If you had 2 eggs on the EFGT plan, you would have to add 90 more calories of fat..or 10 grams extra of fat.

[CindyCRNA]

I agree, that IS a lot of fat. I have been trying to add protein and net carbs and adding enough fat to equal 1.5 times. That has helped me get my protein down to about 70-80 grams a day.

[FreeIndeed]

It's hard to tell what kind of plan - because they are all so similar. I have been eating a lot of fat because my main thing is Dr. Richard K. Bernstein and Protein Power...have to test my blood sugar frequently.

Too much protein actually causes my blood sugar to soar. Too many carbs obviously too. What's left? Fat. My ratio is I'm pretty sure qualifies for this type of plan.

Ice Cream with whipped cream on it.

my favorite ice cream maker is inexpensive and the best one I've found so far because low carb ice cream in the store has stealth sugar.

Camper's Dream Ice Cream Ball at REI.com

And this little gadget will make eat fat yummy and fun

White iSi Mini Whip (Half-Pint Size) - Whipped Cream and Dessert Maker


Low carb veggies cooked with heavy whipping cream. Dr Bernstein had a recipe in his book where you cook cauliflower and mash it with butter and heavy whipping cream. I mean it was more like butter and cream soup with cauliflower when I made it, but it was delicious.

Last night I cooked cauliflower and drenched it in heavy whipping cream and added parmesan cheese, smothered my steak (have to control protein) with sour cream and had jello tubs sf with whipped cream for desert.

I make pudding out of cream with water and put whipped cream on top of he whipped cream pudding.

And, shoot, sometimes I just squirt whipped cream right out of the mini whipp into my mouth!

Have to be very careful about sweetners cuz even heavy whipping cream has some carbs so I have to use sweet N low liquid cuz all the powdered ones have carbs I have found it is very important to keep carbs very low and not too much protein when doing high fat.

[jem51]

free, i prefer to use cream cheese
and butter in my cauli-mash (faux tatos) because it doesn't get so soupy. also i use a hand blender rather than a masher.
also eating too much protein makes me have a basal (FBG and PP's) of about 120.
this type of eating is way better....

[FreeIndeed]

Ya Know I bought some cream cheese so I will try that tonight! Thanks for the suggestion!

[CindyCRNA]

What percentage of fat are you looking at? How about total grams protein and net carbs?

[FreeIndeed]

Originally Posted by CindyCRNA

What percentage of fat are you looking at? How about total grams protein and net carbs?

78 grams of protein

6 carbs for breakfast
12 carbs for lunch
12 carbs for dinner

And fat....

So far today,

For breakfast today, I had soy bread (2) (pancakes the sizie of burger bun) with two fried eggs and cream cheese spead on soy pancakes.

I make the soy pancake batter
by putting 1/4 cup soy flour, teas of baking powder into 3 eggs and beating. It makes about 5 pancakes so I figure 8 grams for soy flour, 1.5 grams for 3 eggs and divide by 5 so say

1.9 grams carbs per pancake which makes 4 grams
1 gram carbs for eggs and paper thin slice of ham 34 grams protein from ulitmate breakfast sandwich from Jack in the Box..(cheese all stuck to the buns I threw away)
1 gram carbs for cream cheese I spread on pancakes(2 tablespoons)
total about 6 grams of carbs and 34 grams of protein for breakfast

Today for lunch I had two side salads from jack in the box that I dumped in a bowl and then opened olive oil bottle and dumped all over the salad with two packages of jack in the box ranch dressing and a can of albacore tuna. 37.5 grams protein
4 carbs per side salad = 8,
no carbs in olive oil
I figure 4 carbs for the two pkgs of ranch dressing - can't find dressing on their website so I'm guessing.
Total of 12 grams of carbs and 37.5 grams of protein for lunch.

For Dinner I have only 6 grams of protein left so I guess I will make some Cauliflower soup with lots of clarified butter and some heavy whipping cream and some sf jello with whipped cream and maybe put 1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese in there for 7 grams of protein.
1 1/2 cups of cauliflower 6.37 grams of carbs
heavy whipping cream
12 tablespoons (between the soup and the whipped cream on sf jello) 6 grams carbs
and as much clarified butter as I want no carbs no protein.
Total of 12 grams of carbs and 7 protein for dinner

[FreeIndeed]

Originally Posted by jem51

free, i prefer to use cream cheese
and butter in my cauli-mash (faux tatos) because it doesn't get so soupy. also i use a hand blender rather than a masher.
also eating too much protein makes me have a basal (FBG and PP's) of about 120.
this type of eating is way better....

Oh yeah! I made it with cream cheese and butter last night for dinner and it was really like mashed potatoes. I also added some parmesan cheese.
Thanks for the suggestion!

[CindyCRNA]

Free, to offset the protein, how much fat are you eating. About 100-120 grams? Wasn't the FBI diet about 1.5 times the amount of protein and carbs combined to equal the grams of fat? I love the premise of this diet and can work out the ratios on ****** but the only info I can find on this diet is on this site as there are no books, or at least none in print.

[FreeIndeed]

Originally Posted by CindyCRNA

Free, to offset the protein, how much fat are you eating. About 100-120 grams? Wasn't the FBI diet about 1.5 times the amount of protein and carbs combined to equal the grams of fat? I love the premise of this diet and can work out the ratios on ****** but the only info I can find on this diet is on this site as there are no books, or at least none in print.

The 4:1 ratio is mostly for controlling epilepsy in children...very difficult to stay on. Almost impossible, I would think to come up with any good recipes. Good for a fat fast if you are stalled maybe.

I did find one book that may mention the 1.5 ratio - The Ketogenic Diet: A Complete Guide for the Dieter and Practitioner by Lyle McDonald. But stay away from the book about epilepsy. 4:1 must be just eating butter all day and a stick of celery (kidding, but really?).

I haven't read it So can't review it, but there are 48 reviews at amazon that I plan on checking out to see if worth ordering.


The 1.5 ratio is something bodybuilders seem to use.

I just used Calorie Counter, Diet Tracking, Food Journal, Nutrition Facts at The Daily Plate because ****** is sloooooow it seems. Didn't used to be, but is now and if I slide my mouse over the pie chart, it shows yesterday, I had

2165 calories
34 carbs (6.89%)
165 grams of fat (74.69%)
92 grams of protein (18.43%)

Now, I have been only doing this to bring my blood sugar down not expecting to lose weight and I have lost 12 pounds since 3-17-09 eating this many calories a day? It's blowing my mind but I read in Dr. Bernstein's book that...[COLOR="Red"]in the absence of carbohydrates[/COLOR], fat in the form of ketones is not burned efficiently so instead of counting 9 calories per gram of fat, it is more like 5 calories per gram of fat.

So that is why it works. This is the metabolic advantage (besides the fact that protein uses 25% of calories to metabolize whereas carbs and fat only use say 4-7% to metabolize (I read that somewhere).

If you figure my calories above
34 carbs x 4 = 136 calories from carbs
165 grams of fat x 9 = 1485 calories from fat
92 grams of protein x 4 = 368 calories from protein
which would total 1989 calories - labels per Bersteins books are not that accurate, but let's say 2165 calories minus the fat calories that are wasted [COLOR="red"]ONLY IN THE ABSENCE OF CARBS[/COLOR].

Instead of 165 x 9which comes out to 1485 fat calories, we would multiply 165 x 5 which means we are only gettng 825 EFFECTIVE carbs from the fat rather than the whole 1485 so 2165- 660 calories that were peed or breathed away means effectively yesterday, I only ate 1505 calories.

Anyway, so I'm not sure the percentages are as important as finding a low carb food plan that works for you individually and just knowing how many real calories you are utilizing versus peeing away or breathing away in the form of incompletely burned ketones. Calories count, but carbs make a difference in terms of how many calories are burned versus wasted.

[COLOR="Red"]However, when enough carbs are present, fat burns completely so unless doing very low carb, you have to figure the whole 9 calories per fat gram.[/COLOR]

That's me doing the math, not bernstein. But there has to be a reason why I am losing so much weight eating this many calories a day. The closer to goal weight I get, no doubt, I'll have to lower my calories, but I am also finding that I feel a bit too stuffed eating this way and so...fat satiates too.

[CindyCRNA]

Wow, Free, that explains a lot. Yes, at 130 lbs, I would not expect you to lose any at 2165 calories. That is amazing. I think you have found the key. Just curious but how much fiber for that day? I find net important but also equally important is total carbs.

[shunsweets]

Hi everyone. I have been reading about the optimum diet. Very complex with all these ratios but looks like 75% fat 20% protein and 5% carbs.

Is anyone still doing this? Any good results? I am looking for Blood Sugar control and weight maintenance like FreeIndeed. The menu suggestions on the site weren't too helpful - too many organ meats and stuff I've never heard of. I do <20 net carbs daily and keep fiber pretty low most days too. So I limit dairy a bit to avoid the carbs.
I also do IF/calorie cycling to keep my body guessing.

Guess I'm just curious how everyone is doing with the very high fat diet. I enjoy all the posts. CindyCRNA you have really been helpful in giving some specifics on what works for you. I lurk on the EFGT threads but they are pretty social and I need the nuts and bolts of actual menus, outcomes, and sources of fats!

Best of luck to all!

[CindyCRNA]

LOL, we are a social group but they are all great if you want nuts and bolts. My problem with this diet is I managed to get my percentages where they needed to be but felt hungry due to decreased protein, around 65-70 grams. Right now, it is about 100 grams and a bit closer to Protein Power but I still find this intriguing because, if we are doing LC and fat is our main source of energy, a diet with the most fat would leave us with the most energy. While maintaining at least 70% fat (I could only do this for a few days), my ketosticks went from trace to moderate and I could feel I was on the verge of losing 5 pounds in 5 min, I wasn't sure how long I could keep this up. Free has brought up some very good points about incomplete burning of fat and I am amazed by her success which makes me want to re-visit this.

Also, if you want to look at some menus, the EFGT April food recording/exercise thread (something like that!) has a bunch.

[shunsweets]

Thanks Cindy. I'll keep lurking on the threads and post if anything interesting crops up following this diet. Don't know if I can manage a high enough fat percentage without the dairy going too high and both carbs and protein seem to spike my BGL's but I'm going to give it a real try!

As they say - my body, my science experiment! I'd rather control blood sugars with diet than meds if possible!

[FreeIndeed]

Not much fiber at all and I overdid the protein and have stalled now.

Perhaps too many calories too. Haven't gained, but this is the first time I stalled. I'm going to use that daily plate and figure out what percentages and how many calories work for me. I think I'm going to quit being really silly about fat and just dumping extra olive oil on the salad too. I really have no idea how many calories I was adding when I just took the bottle and dumped away.

I'm going to really watch my protein and carbs this week and measure how much fat and find what percentages and calories work for me.

Oh, but I found a way to make sugar free jello (with no stealth sugar in it like the jello packages which have malodextrin). Yesterday, I used sugar free koolaid to make jello.

1/4 cup cold water add one packages of unflavored gelatin to soften
Add 3/4 cup boiling water
Stir until disolved and add Stevia to taste until sweet enough
Add one package of unsweetened koolaid

This will cut my calories down since I am not making pudding with cream with whipped cream on top, but eating whipped cream on top of jello that has no calories or carbs or protein.

[jem51]

i am a dairy eater and must watch my BG. for this reason i am a big believer of the 'yogurt exception. yogurt and my home cultured buttermilk have little effect. meat on the other hand increases my BG if i eat too much.
try eating some of these items w/o anything carby added and see what effect it has.
the longer cheese is aged, the less lactose remains. but i am able to eat mild cheddar w no ill effect.
if i didn't eat dairy (and some added CO), i'd have trouble getting enough fat because i cannot digest protein so well. that is the reason i stick to smoothies and yogurt for breakfast.

[CindyCRNA]

See, there's the problem! If I get my protein down to where it needs to be, I'm hungry all the time, even with my fat at 70%. To combate the hunger, I increase my protein, lower my fat so that my calories are the same but the ratios are differant and I'm out of ketosis and in a stall. For me, I should be <80 grams protein a day but I have to work to get under 90 and I'm closer to 110.

Free, you say you had too much protein but I see your protein is 18%. What should it be?

[FreeIndeed]

This weekend is when I overate protein. Ate a lot of it this weekend and other days I didn't list here may have when not keeping track.

I see what you mean...So far today...

Had 1/4 cup soy flour, 2 eggs, baking powder to make 3 soy pancakes
and ate 2 of those with two eggs for breakfast and one of them for lunch.

Ate 2 side salads with ranch dressing, and 5 oz can of albacore tuna for lunch.
Two tablespoons of olive oil added

31 grams of carbs. 64 grams of protein.

So I can have 12 grams of carbs, 14 grams of protein and ? fat for dinner - however much fat it takes to make me feel full. Have to figure out what is 14 grams of protein for dinner tonight. Let you know how it goes tomorrow. I am going to figure my fat on mydailyplate, but not limit my fat at this point and see what happens.

[CindyCRNA]

All right, I ahve mixed some things around for tomorrow and here are the stats:

Calories:1510
Fat: 120 grams 72%
Carbs: 29 grams 8%
Fiber: 6 grams (Very poor)
Protein: 79 grams 21%

We'll see how this goes.

[jem51]

did you say 14 grams? that's like one bite. i would still be hungry.
cindy even 100 g is not too bad considering what an atkins person might eat.
i think it must be the protein pwdr, right? my numbers go up considerably when i use it. one scoop is just under 30g for the whey i use...

[jem51]

oops, i was wrong. the whey i'm using now is 18 g/scoop.
i was looking at ****** from about a year ago and realized that my protein is near 100 regularly now and it averaged about 75 then.
the main change i made is in my morning smoothie; i was using cream cheese and i switched to cottage cheese because i wanted more protein for breakfast.
my fat was also higher due to the cream cheese and i also ate more salad which included avo and plenty of dressing.
these ratios were more EFGT friendly but my stomach is not happy w all those vegies....at least not now.
anyway on per meal basis, i am still not eating more than 5 oz protein so i'm pretty much okay w this. and my BG is also okay.
i'll be paying attention, though....to the scale, as well.
when you look at what barry and monica eat, it is usually just two meals. evenings is light and if it's just fruit and cream, there's no protein. even fruit and brie would not be much. when i was eating big salads, that was the meal!! usually not w protein
BUT (and this is big), i had some injuries to my wrists and hands that would not heal and i had developed some arthritis in one injured joint. that is not bothering me now, so i'm going to stick w this a while and see what happens.

[FreeIndeed]

Okay,well I finished off yesterday with chicken wings, salad with ranch dressing, and jello with whipped cream topping

According to my daily plate, I ate
2912 calories
-----------------
192 grams of fat x 9...............1729 calories
60 carbs x 4..........................240 calories
11 fiber x 4.............................44 calories
118 grams of protein x 4..........472 calories
Total of ...............................2912 calories

According to the spreadsheet I made in excel, however, deducting 11 grams of fiber from carbs, I only ate 49 carbs (went over my alloted amount by 19 carbs). And my spreadsheet also figures 5 calories per fat gram instead of 9, meaning I only ate 1628 effective calories instead of 2912.

192 grams of fat x 5.........................960 calories
60 carbs-11fiber=49 carbs x 4............196 calories
11 fiber not digestible..........................0 calories
118 grams of protein x 4...................472 calories
Total of.......................... 1628 effective calories


Mydaily plate tells me that I should only eat 1390 calories (for my personal info that I put in) in order to lose 2 pounds a week. So I went over in effective calories per my spreadsheet - 238 calories.

The dadgummed protein was over again, and my carbs were too, but I wasn't hungry at all and my scale was down 4/10 of a pound this morning which doesn't mean anything - won't really know til next Monday or Tuesday when I weigh.

Will try to ease up on the protein and carbs today.

[CindyCRNA]

So when you eat that much fat, you can fiqure 5 cal/gram for ALL the fat, not just the part that is above and beyond what your body can utilize? If you end up losing on 2900 calories a day, I'm switching over!!

I did a basic calculation of your percentages on the 2912 calories and I come up with 2485 calories but I can't get the percentages to add up to 100% I get 69% fat, 19% protein and 2% carbs which is 90%.

My protein powder is Optimum Nutrition's Casein protein. I love it because it makes you full for a long time. 110 calories and 24 grams protein.

[jem51]

that's right. last year i was eating over 2000 cal/day and never worried about gaining. it just didn't happen. my protein was around 80g and my fat percentage was in the 70's. so this winter i gained a few (3-4) and am trying to decide whether that's my winter coat or whether it's because i'm eating differently. it's not so much that i wanted to eat more meat and less vegies it's just that i've had so many digestive problems.
i am under 2000 now and my numbers are very different.
we'll see what happens this summer. it lingers around 100 degrees most of the time and is really not conducive to eating much. i tend to drop below 120 in summer.
i just can't imagine being happy w a lot of protein during that time.

[CindyCRNA]

I'm excited. I have started back on coconut oil. Tomorrow for breakfast will be a LC waffel (Maple Grove Farms) with 2 1/2T coconut oil and SF syrup. Todays protein is in the 70's and fat percentages are abot 72% so this is good. It takes some planning until you are used to it.

[jem51]

okay, i've revisited some of my past experiments; i tried to increase my fat to 80-90%. it was really hard and i ended up doing this by eating CO. after a month i had gained 2# which stuck like glue. i now eat about 1.5T CO in my morning smoothie.
i'm wondering about the 'fat o stat' theory....you can eat up to a certain amt then the excess causes weight to increase.
i think this must only apply when you are nearer to your goal weight.


so, as i said before, i increased my protein this year. not only the switch to cottage cheese in my smoothie but a scoop of protein powder along w some coconut milk as a snack. the 3-4# i have gained this winter is more than i've gained in years and it seems to have settled in.
today, i will not have that extra protein and save the powder for summer when i don't feel like eating. we'll see what happens.

[FreeIndeed]

I did a basic calculation of your percentages on the 2912 calories and I come up with 2485 calories but I can't get the percentages to add up to 100% I get 69% fat, 19% protein and 2% carbs which is 90%.

It is so weird and I'm not sure what to do about that. When one looks at a label, if you multipy the following

fat x 9
carbs x 4
fiber x 4
protein x 4

it should equal the total number of calories on the label. But it doesn't always. Labels are not accurate. Dr. Bernstein pointed that out in his book. Also I discovered that mydailyplate - people put those nutrients in and save them so anyone can put info in and it isn't always accurate.

Anyway it is such a chore that I am right now just trying to watch my protein and carbs carefully and be liberal with fat.

I changed my soy pancake recipe...I was having a terrible time with constipation (I know gross, but I was) and so I started taking magnesium and experimented with making my pancakes with ground flaxseed in them.

I cook the pancakes on low heat so as not to damage the oil in flaxseed and the following makes six pancakes (each about the size of a hamburger bun 4.25 inches) and they taste so much better (to me) than just soy pancakes.

This makes 6 pancakes
1 effective carb each

6 eggs
1 heaping teas of baking powder
1/2 cup ground flax
1/4 cup soy flour

Beat with electric mixer.

I coat the griddle liberally with coconut oil

Flax seed rocks! It has the same amount of fiber as carbs!!!!!! WoooHoooo.

I love 'em. Didn't think I would, but they work great for me.

[CindyCRNA]

Jem, I agree. There is a point where extra dietary fat ends up as gained weight and you have to find a balance between energy and hunger. I think I had my fat in the 80's before and yes, it took CO but it didn't help with weight loss. I think I had crossed that threshold. I think it is differant for everyone so I'll have to experiment.

Free, I love flax too. I'll have to try your recipe!

[kamills]

I am thinking of adding more fat into my diet, and I keep under 5 grams of carb a day. I don't like too much dairy (only once a week as a treat or it stalls me) - so the question is how do I add more in? Purely from animal fat? Or in oil?