Nutritional Ketosis (LC/HF/MP) Challenge Anyone?

[hippyatheart]

Originally Posted by svenskamae

I just finished reading the Performance book by Volek and Phinney and happen to have it with me. Here's what they said about good levels for blood ketones: "a therapeutic range of blood ketone levels for an athlete [comment by svenskamae: and presumably for the rest of us] starts at 0.5 BOHB at the lower end and improves up to 3.0 millimolar. There do not appear to be any benefits in pushing blood ketone higher than 3" (p. 91). They display the "optimal ketone zone" in the form of a graph, which makes it a bit hard to assess, but I'd say their optimal zone is around 1.5ish (maybe a bit above) to 3.0.

They also say that time of day of testing affects blood ketone levels. Specifically, "In people adapted to a very low carbohydrate diet, there also appears to be a small diurnal variation in ketones with lowest levels observed in the morning after an overnight fast with levels gradually increasing over the day." (p. 94) So doing morning fasting results will apparently give you your minimal level results, so your morning 1.4 might well have been within their "ideal" range.

Thanks for posting.

Thank you so much for this post!

[hippyatheart]

Originally Posted by svenskamae

I just finished reading the Performance book by Volek and Phinney and happen to have it with me. Here's what they said about good levels for blood ketones: "a therapeutic range of blood ketone levels for an athlete [comment by svenskamae: and presumably for the rest of us] starts at 0.5 BOHB at the lower end and improves up to 3.0 millimolar. There do not appear to be any benefits in pushing blood ketone higher than 3" (p. 91). They display the "optimal ketone zone" in the form of a graph, which makes it a bit hard to assess, but I'd say their optimal zone is around 1.5ish (maybe a bit above) to 3.0.

They also say that time of day of testing affects blood ketone levels. Specifically, "In people adapted to a very low carbohydrate diet, there also appears to be a small diurnal variation in ketones with lowest levels observed in the morning after an overnight fast with levels gradually increasing over the day." (p. 94) So doing morning fasting results will apparently give you your minimal level results, so your morning 1.4 might well have been within their "ideal" range.

Thanks for posting.

Thank you so much for this post!

[svenskamae]

Glad to help, hippyatheart.

Here are a few other snippets from the book that I found especially helpful:

"When trying to determine what you actually eat on a daily basis, keep these seven important principles in mind:
1. Low in carbs--enough to induce nutritional ketosis and accelerate fat burning and less than 50 grams a day for most people
2. Moderate protein--0.6 to 1.0 grams per pound of lean body mass
3. Enough fat--majority of energy, variable depending upon goals of weight loss or maintenance (paraphrase by svenskamae: eat more fat to keep your weight stable than you eat to lose weight)
4. Eat the right kind of fat--eat monos and saturates for fuel; limit high polysaturated sources (i.e., not soy, corn, or cottonseed oil)
5. Mineral management-- supplement sodium 2g/day, replace magnesium as needed to stop muscle cramps
6. When in doubt, eat less carbs
7. When in doubt, eat more fat."

The right stuff: "Here's a common list of items we have in our kitchen:
Avocado; Bacon; Broth; Butter; Cheese (hard); Cream (heavy or whipping); Eggs; Fish (salmon, tuna, sardines, and herring); Fruits (berries, olives, tomatoes, lemons, limes); Mayonnaise (made with oilive or canola oil, not soybean oil); Nuts and seeds; Oils (olive, canola, coconut, high oleic safflower); Pork Rinds; Salami; Salmon; Sausage; Sour Cream; Spenda liquid; Vegetables; Xylitol; whole milk Greek yogurt."

"Several factors act to increase blood ketones, including restricting carbohydrate, keeping protein moderate, exercise, and ingestion of medium chain triglycerides found in butter and coconut oil."

"Given the range in peoples' responses, however, some people need to stay under 30 grams [of carbohydrate per day], whereas others can consume as much as 100 grams per day of total carbs and still remain in nutritional ketosis. It is this variability that argues in favor of testing your blood ketones daily for the first few months of a low carbohydrate diet until you know how to keep yourself in the optimum ketone zone ..."

"If you test your blood ketones after exercise, they usually increase between 0.25 -0.5 millimolar indicating effective stimulation of fat burning. Ketone levels increase sharply during the 1-2 hours after exercise due to increased hepatic delivery of fatty acids and greater rates of fat oxidation. This will be attenuated if carbohydrate is consumed after exercise ... " (p. 94)

All of this comes from a short chapter on "Personalization"; if you don't want to read or buy the book but can look at it in a library or bookstore, I recommend reading that one chapter.

I just ordered a meter and test strips from American Diabetes Wholesale, so I hope to start testing next week ...

[RebeccaLatham]

Thanks for all that information! I don't want to buy the book, but I am interested in the parts that pertain to me, like the things you posted above. My library is buying it at my request, and I will be the first person who gets to check it out. I'm hoping for next week.

[RebeccaLatham]

Here is a question that I'm wondering about. Is it answered in the book?

If you are in ketosis and your blood sugar is normal, is it possible that you still will not burn body fat? And if so, why? Is it because you are eating so much fat for fuel that your body does not need to use any of its own fat for fuel?

I have been in ketosis (around 2.4 or so) for the past 9 days, and my blood sugar has been good (83 or so), but I stopped losing inches and even gained a little weight during this time. I'm wondering why.

Any hints from the book or anyone else's personal experiences?

[svenskamae]

Originally Posted by RebeccaLatham

Thanks for all that information! I don't want to buy the book, but I am interested in the parts that pertain to me, like the things you posted above. My library is buying it at my request, and I will be the first person who gets to check it out. I'm hoping for next week.

That's a good idea, to request that your library buy the book. I think that practically everything useful to a non-athlete is in the "Personalization" chapter. As I grumpily noted, the recipes are the same as in the authors' earlier book, so if you've read/own that "Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living" book, you can ignore that section. Similarly, the testimonies/personal stories of athletes at the end were of no interest to me. Much of the beginning addresses the advantages of NOT eating a high carb diet, and presumably we all know that, or talks about "carb loading," etc. for athletes, which isn't relevant for non-athlete dieters.

[RebeccaLatham]

I do own the first book. And I understand they are already working on the next one. Looking forward to that!

[svenskamae]

Originally Posted by RebeccaLatham

Here is a question that I'm wondering about. Is it answered in the book?

If you are in ketosis and your blood sugar is normal, is it possible that you still will not burn body fat? And if so, why? Is it because you are eating so much fat for fuel that your body does not need to use any of its own fat for fuel?

I have been in ketosis (around 2.4 or so) for the past 9 days, and my blood sugar has been good (83 or so), but I stopped losing inches and even gained a little weight during this time. I'm wondering why.

Any hints from the book or anyone else's personal experiences?

Hi, Rebecca. I think the answer to your question is yes, you can be in ketosis because your body is burning fat, but that fat is coming almost entirely from your dietary intake. That is what I take away from the sentence about the amount of fat one should eat depending on whether one wishes to maintain or lose weight.

There aren't the sort of stories about personal experiences that are found in New Atkins for a New You, for example. There are some personal stories by athletes and trainers at the end, but the only one who sounded remotely like any of us was a man who ran marathons, etc. at a non-elite level, and he was focusing on endurance while running for hours, not on weight loss.

[RebeccaLatham]

Originally Posted by svenskamae

There aren't the sort of stories about personal experiences that are found in New Atkins for a New You, for example.

Let me rephrase: What I meant was are there any people HERE who are doing nutritional ketosis that found they didn't lose weight until they dropped their fat intake.

My fat is really high, because I thought it needed to be to get into ketosis, but now that I know that I am, I am wondering if it would hurt anything to drop it down a little without leaving ketosis.

I started out at 187g of fat per day (85%), and now I have dropped it down 10g (but only changes it to 85.4%). I always make my changes on Sunday, so that I give things a fair chance before I make a change. I'm thinking that this Sunday, if I am still in ketosis, I might drop it down another 20g - to 157g. That would make it 82.7%, which is still pretty high...

[mom2zeke]

Originally Posted by hippyatheart

I am always over my 58 grams of protein a day. I am consistantly in the 90's for my intake. How in the word do I get a lower protein amount? I am 5'3" as well with an idea weight of 132. Can someone post their sample menu for the day with low protein amounts?

hippyatheart--I also find it difficult to eat lower amounts of protein. The majority of my protein comes from 2 eggs at breakfast and 3 ounces of protein food each at lunch and dinner. Fill in with fat and carbs. There is usually a bit of protein in those foods also. It's not easy, but it's becoming more doable the longer I'm on this routine.

I track on ****** which starts as a PITA, but I eat almost the same thing every day and there's a way to copy your previous foods over to the next day. Once you get the hang of it it's pretty easy to set up your menu for the next day and then tweak to get to the grams/percentages you want.

I didn't do this for the first 11 years of LC, but I didn't get all the way to goal either.

[mom2zeke]

svenskamae--thanks so much for the book review and the tips from the book!! It will be interesting to see how your testing goes.

[mom2zeke]

Originally Posted by RebeccaLatham

Let me rephrase: What I meant was are there any people HERE who are doing nutritional ketosis that found they didn't lose weight until they dropped their fat intake.

My fat is really high, because I thought it needed to be to get into ketosis, but now that I know that I am, I am wondering if it would hurt anything to drop it down a little without leaving ketosis.

I started out at 187g of fat per day (85%), and now I have dropped it down 10g (but only changes it to 85.4%). I always make my changes on Sunday, so that I give things a fair chance before I make a change. I'm thinking that this Sunday, if I am still in ketosis, I might drop it down another 20g - to 157g. That would make it 82.7%, which is still pretty high...

I think that if you don't see any changes it can't hurt to drop the fat a bit. That's the advice in the book. Your body will first burn the fat in your diet as fuel before accessing your stored body fat. As long as you keep your protein and carb grams constant you should stay in ketosis when you lower your fat intake.

[mom2zeke]

Lots of great posts last night! I was out with my girlfriends sticking to my planned menu and 2 cocktails (vodka soda) only! I had a great time and felt great about my choices (coconut curry clams and a wedge salad).

I was rewarded this morning to wake up to a scale weight of 157!! I really hope this sticks as I am now at 100 pounds lost! It only took 11 years.

I tested for ketosis and glucose this morning just to see how a night out effected me. Ketosis 2.0, glucose 74. So no harm, no foul!

This morning's stats:
Food 7/26/12
Carbs: 24 grams - 7%
Protein: 58 grams - 18%
Fat: 99 grams - 65%
Alcohol: 18 grams - 10%
Calories: 1335

7/27/12
AM fasting blood ketones: 2.0
AM fasting blood glucose: 74
Weight: 157

[mcchimento]

I finally tested today. Ketone count was .6 for the first time. I can't complain because I did lose 1.4 lbs this week so far and my official weigh in day is Sunday. I am having trouble keeping my count for fat over 70%. It is around 70-75% until dinner kicks in. I have to eat some protein with dinner or I am hungry all night. I also found that I have to keep it no higher than 1200 calories and keep my sodium no higher than 2500 mg if I want to lose. I am going to try for a higher fat count for the next three days and then test again. I have only one test strip left while waiting for the others to come.

[mom2zeke]

Originally Posted by RebeccaLatham

My fat is really high, because I thought it needed to be to get into ketosis, but now that I know that I am, I am wondering if it would hurt anything to drop it down a little without leaving ketosis.

I started out at 187g of fat per day (85%), and now I have dropped it down 10g (but only changes it to 85.4%). I always make my changes on Sunday, so that I give things a fair chance before I make a change. I'm thinking that this Sunday, if I am still in ketosis, I might drop it down another 20g - to 157g. That would make it 82.7%, which is still pretty high...

Rebecca,
I am wondering where the 85% fat to get into ketosis came from? I was just rereading the book and that high of a percentage of fat is really for athletes who are trying to maintain their weight without increasing protein and carbs.

I got this from the "Fat" chapter of the book:

• To maintain nutritional ketosis, as a proportion of total calories, your fat intake will need to be high (~65 to 80%).
• Since your amounts of carbohydrate and protein are locked into a relatively narrow range, the amount of fat you eat will vary depending on whether you want to lose or maintain weight.

If about 20% of your daily energy comes from protein and 5-15% from carbs, where's the other 65-75% of your energy supposed to come from? The answer, of course, is 'fat'. Yes, when you are losing weight (i.e. shrinking body fat stores), some of what your burn does not need to be supplied by your diet, but this is necessarily temporary. Once you get to a stable body weight, all of your daily energy needs must be met by your dietary intake.

I kind of take this as you can go as low as ~65% of calories from fat and stay in ketosis. This is still a "high-fat" diet, but the energy balance is tipping towards weight-loss instead of maintenance.

[mcchimento]

I was wondering that myself. If I provide all the fat I need to sustain myself through diet, why would it use up my own body fat stores? I know that I can't eat more than 75% fat and still feel satisfied. Most of my days are between 68-73% and I have lost a 17.6 lbs. in 33 days.

[mcchimento]

Mom2zeke - Congratualtions on your success

[RebeccaLatham]

Originally Posted by mom2zeke

Rebecca,
I am wondering where the 85% fat to get into ketosis came from? I was just rereading the book and that high of a percentage of fat is really for athletes who are trying to maintain their weight without increasing protein and carbs.

I kind of take this as you can go as low as ~65% of calories from fat and stay in ketosis. This is still a "high-fat" diet, but the energy balance is tipping towards weight-loss instead of maintenance.

Thanks for your answer and for sharing more stuff with me out of the book. I got the 85% thing from Jimmy Moore. He told me that he had read the book, and that he was doing 85%, so I took that to mean that that is what the book tells you to do.

I'm going to take another look at my numbers and see how I can adjust it to bring down the fat somewhat and see if that helps.

I remember that Colette Heimowitz (the Atkins nutritionist) once told me that we do not burn dietary fat first, then body fat, but that there is a constant flow of fat in ond out of fat cells, so that a mixture is burned when fat is being burned. She used the analogy of gas in a car. If the car already has gas in it, and you add in more, the car does not run on the original gas first and the newer gas later, but a mixture.

In the same way, we run on a mixture of body fat and dietary fat. Of course, if you are eating more fat than you need, part of that mixture will be stored again and you will not lose weight.

The thing that I still question, though, is that there are so many people who can eat all they want and their bodies are so efficient that they just burn off whatever they eat, even if it is an excess. Lucky them!

And there is also the thing said that if you have your protein and carbs where they belong, eaten excess fat should not be a problem - your metabolism should just increase to utilize it. I guess it does not, in my case.

[mom2zeke]

Originally Posted by RebeccaLatham

In the same way, we run on a mixture of body fat and dietary fat. Of course, if you are eating more fat than you need, part of that mixture will be stored again and you will not lose weight.

This makes sense.

Originally Posted by RebeccaLatham

The thing that I still question, though, is that there are so many people who can eat all they want and their bodies are so efficient that they just burn off whatever they eat, even if it is an excess. Lucky them!

And there is also the thing said that if you have your protein and carbs where they belong, eaten excess fat should not be a problem - your metabolism should just increase to utilize it. I guess it does not, in my case.

It's frustrating not to have a perfect metabolism! I know that I would never have gotten to 257 pounds if my body was working the way it's supposed to.

[svenskamae]

Wow, congratulations on your impressive recent losses, Mcchimento, and congratulations on hitting the 100 pounds lost mark, Kristn!

Thanks for posting some more of the relevant bits out of the Volek and Phinney "Performance" book, Kristn. I have my copy of the book with me, and I'll try to post some other potentially relevant bits from the book this evening. Between the two of us, we may manage to post just about all the relevant bits from the book, since so much ISN'T relevant to dieters who aren't athletes.

There's some interesting discussion of different recommendations for protein intake, especially a recent post by Auntie Em, in the Rosedale Diet thread on the main board, so consider checking that out, folks.

Your discussion of having 2 eggs for breakfast and 3 oz of protein at other meals was very helpful to me, Kristn. I may have to adopt a slightly different approach--right now I'm skipping breakfast except for iced coffee with a couple of tablespoons of half and half--since so much of the food that I like to eat at meals or for snacks is protein-heavy (e.g., cottage cheese/Greek yogurt/nuts/cheese/pepperoni chips/sour cream). I find that my skimpy protein servings are easier to take if I make at least 1 meal a day to be a big salad, with the protein mixed in with lots of raw veg, and lots of high fat dressing and some avocado added. I'm still hungry at lot of the time, now that I've cut back on protein, but I think my hunger is tapering down a bit ...

[mom2zeke]

Originally Posted by svenskamae

Wow, congratulations on your impressive recent losses, Mcchimento, and congratulations on hitting the 100 pounds lost mark, Kristn!

Thanks for posting some more of the relevant bits out of the Volek and Phinney "Performance" book, Kristn. I have my copy of the book with me, and I'll try to post some other potentially relevant bits from the book this evening. Between the two of us, we may manage to post just about all the relevant bits from the book, since so much ISN'T relevant to dieters who aren't athletes.

There's some interesting discussion of different recommendations for protein intake, especially a recent post by Auntie Em, in the Rosedale Diet thread on the main board, so consider checking that out, folks.

Your discussion of having 2 eggs for breakfast and 3 oz of protein at other meals was very helpful to me, Kristn. I may have to adopt a slightly different approach--right now I'm skipping breakfast except for iced coffee with a couple of tablespoons of half and half--since so much of the food that I like to eat at meals or for snacks is protein-heavy (e.g., cottage cheese/Greek yogurt/nuts/cheese/pepperoni chips/sour cream). I find that my skimpy protein servings are easier to take if I make at least 1 meal a day to be a big salad, with the protein mixed in with lots of raw veg, and lots of high fat dressing and some avocado added. I'm still hungry at lot of the time, now that I've cut back on protein, but I think my hunger is tapering down a bit ...

Thanks!

I agree that between us we can probably post the most relevant parts of the book (we probably already have). I've been eating low-carb paleoish for a few years so I tend to just skip the parts about types of fat, quality of food, etc. I know this is important, but I feel like I already have that part pretty well wrapped up.

I have to admit that for the past few days I've been eating just cream cheese (along with my salty broth) for lunch in an effort to keep my protein down. There are circumstances where I tend to overeat and I'm using cream cheese to counter this tendency. Going out to dinner last night and grilled ribeye tonight are definitely danger zones for me in terms of protein consumption.

I can't actually have cream cheese in my house as it's a trigger food. But it's free here at work and comes in nice little 1 ounces containers so I don't need to weigh and measure.

[RebeccaLatham]

Originally Posted by mcchimento

I was wondering that myself. If I provide all the fat I need to sustain myself through diet, why would it use up my own body fat stores? I know that I can't eat more than 75% fat and still feel satisfied. Most of my days are between 68-73% and I have lost a 17.6 lbs. in 33 days.

Good for you!

[svenskamae]

Here are some more bits of text I marked in the Volek and Phinney Performance book:

"The suppression of fat oxidation lasts for days after carbohydrates are consumed, not just the few hours following their digestion when insulin levels are high." (p. 7) (Note by Svenskamae: Eating enough carbs to take you out of ketosis will take you out of ketosis for days, so there's lots of incentive to stay on plan.)

"If you start exercising lightly and gradually increas the intensity while simulraneously measuring the contribution of fat and carbohydrate to energy use, you will find that the peak rate of fat burning (grams of fat oxidized per minute or per hour) occurs on average at about 50 percent of maximal energy consumption if you are untrained and at 65 percent V02 max if you are trained. Exercise harder and although power output increases, the contribution of fat decreases ..." (Note by Svenskamae: For those of us who work out/do cardio, maximum fat burning requires pushing yourself a bit, but NOT to the max.)

"The process of keto-adaptation (switching over primarily to using primarily fatty acids and ketones) can't be done 'on the fly'--it takes at least 2 weeks of preparation for this strategy to work." (p. 19) (Note by Svenskamae: It's not clear how much of this adaptation relates to getting used to eating fewer carbs, but it might apply to increasing fat relative to protein intake, too.)

"Keto-adapted individuals can do resistence training, and show profound improvements in body composition." (p. 19) Later, page 27, reports on a study of obese men who were put on high versus low carb diets and did or didn't do resistence training; those who did both low carb and resistence training had the most fat loss and the least muscle loss. "Thus, the combination of a very low carbohydrate diet and resistence training had a profound effect on body composition by maxximizing fat loss while increasing lean body mass."

[Tatsnook]

Mom2zeke

Congratulation on weight loss!

[svenskamae]

More from the Performance book:

Here's some information that was new to me: When we lose fat cells, we are going to lose some of what measures as non-fat/lean body mass, because fat cells have both fat and non-fat components. At least that's how I interpret the following text:
"Factoid: Body fat (aka adipose tissue) consists of cells that are roughly 15% lean tissue (i.e., cellular machinery like mitochondria and the nucleus) and 85% fat in one big central droplet. In the past, it was assumed that fat cells live 'forwever,' but now we know that they die off intermittently and are replaced by new fat cells as needed. Thus losing body fat means reducing not just the fat droplet size, but also the amount of associated 'machinery.' This means that for each 10 pounds of body fat you lose, about 8.5 pounds is actual 'fat,' while 1.5 pounds of lean tissue based on various tests."

p. 39-40, a discouraging sidebar: "There are 4 well-controlled, inpatient, metabolic ward studies (the gold standard for human research) published from 1982 thru 1997 that showed statistically significant reductions in resting metabolic rate when overweight subjects performed 300-600 calories per day of endurance exercise for weeks at a time... Humans vary one-from-another in how their metabolism responds to endurance exercise, and much of this inter-individual variation is inherited (genetic)...Although genetically lean people as a group do more than one hour of endurance exercise daily, resting metabolism on average declines between 5 and 15%. ... We are not saying that exercise isn't good for people. Both of us are committed to leading vigorous lives, and enouraging others to consider doing the same. What we object to, however, is misinforming the public as to what and how much benefit they can expect from exercise, particularly as it pertains to losing weight. From our perspective, telling heavy people to exercise because it speeds resting metabolism (and thus markedly increases one's rate of weight loss) is about as credible as selling them the Brooklyn Bridge." (pp. 39-41)

p. 54 "In addition to reducing your dietary carbs, an important factor for getting into nutritional ketosis is to not over-consume protein."

p. 65 "Too much or too little protein can be problematic in the keto-adatped state. Aim for a protein intake between 0.6 and 1.0 grams per pound of lean body mass. Rather than consume large portions of meats or other protein foods, focus on small to moderate protein portions and combine them with generous portions of good sources of fat (e.g., sauces, butter, olive oil).

p. 66. Regarding RDA recommendations for protein intake: "These recommendations, however, were developed for the average weight stable, unstressed individual. Add any degree of energy restriction (i.e., for weight loss) or physical or emotional stress, however, and the RDA/DRI values become inadequate. Thus consuming somwhat more protein than the recommended dietary allowance [set by the RDA, not by these authors] is probably justified if you are losing weight or frequently doing high stress exercise. That said, however, significantly over-consuming protein can be problematic because some of these extra amino acids can be converted to glucose in the body, raising insulin levels, and thus driving down ketones and suppressing fat burning ... For all these reasons, we recommend aiming for an intake in the range of 0.6 to 1.0 grams per pound of lean body mass."

p. 68 "To determine the protein content of bulk foods, it helps to use 'the rule of sevens.' As a general estimate, one ounce of meat, fish, or poultry contains 7 grams of protein. A cup of fermented dairy (yogurt), an ounce of cheese, 2 ounces of nuts, a cup of home-made broth, and a large egg each contain about 7 grams of protein."

[svenskamae]

Originally Posted by mom2zeke

Rebecca,
I am wondering where the 85% fat to get into ketosis came from? I was just rereading the book and that high of a percentage of fat is really for athletes who are trying to maintain their weight without increasing protein and carbs.

I got this from the "Fat" chapter of the book:

• To maintain nutritional ketosis, as a proportion of total calories, your fat intake will need to be high (~65 to 80%).
• Since your amounts of carbohydrate and protein are locked into a relatively narrow range, the amount of fat you eat will vary depending on whether you want to lose or maintain weight.

If about 20% of your daily energy comes from protein and 5-15% from carbs, where's the other 65-75% of your energy supposed to come from? The answer, of course, is 'fat'. Yes, when you are losing weight (i.e. shrinking body fat stores), some of what your burn does not need to be supplied by your diet, but this is necessarily temporary. Once you get to a stable body weight, all of your daily energy needs must be met by your dietary intake.

I kind of take this as you can go as low as ~65% of calories from fat and stay in ketosis. This is still a "high-fat" diet, but the energy balance is tipping towards weight-loss instead of maintenance.

Kristn already posted the main points about the amount of fat to consume, from the Volek and Finney book, but I see the point reiterated on page 70.
"As you adjust your body weight and training intensity, your consumption of carbohydrates and protein will remain fairly stable despite changes in goals and activity levels, whereas how much fat you consume will be directed by your energy demands, body weight and composition goals, and satiety. If you want to lose weight, the total amount of fat consumed will be reduced. If weight loss is not your goal, your dietary fat needs to be maintained at a level that matches your energy expenditure, thus holding your body at stable weight. This sounds like getting the right amount of fat could be complicated, but interestingly, it's usually not necessary to count fat calories. Once keto-adapted, most people report that hunger and cravings are reduced. If you want to reduce your percent body fat, this increased satiety gives you the freedom to cut back a bit on how much fat you consume."

The rest of the "fats" chapter addresses what kind of fats are best to eat, and the authors stress saturated fats and monosaturated fats. "Omega 3s in conjunction with exercise were recently shown to maximize fat loss." (p. 73) "The human system doesn't seem to tolerate a high-fat diet prepared from high omega-6 oils (like soy and corn oils), but does just fine on one consisting mostly of monosaturated and saturated fats (e.g., olive oil and animal fats." p. 75 "The best oils to use are those that are low in PUFA, such as olive, 'high oleic' saffflower, coconut, and palm. Steer clear of corn, soybean, cottonseed, peanut, and safflower, as well as margarines and mayonnaise made with any of these oils. Buttern and fat from beef (tallow) or pork (lard) are also excellent choices, as they both occur in natural foods and as fats added in cooking ...Animal fats such as those in meat, eggs, and dairy are relatively low in PUFA and good sources of SFA and MUFA. Other good sources of fat are olives, avocados, heavy cream, sour cream, nuts, seeds, and cheese." p. 78 "Fish from cold water are the richest source of the main omega-3 fats that we need to maintain healthy membranes. Good souces of these fatty acids are salmon, tuna, sardines, and herring. Ideally consume them 2-3 times a week."

p. 94 In the discussion of what affects ketone levels:
"Medium chain triglycerides. Unlike most of the fats we eat ... medium chain triglycerides are made from smaller fatty acids that range between 6-12 cabon atoms in length. In respect to their metabolism ... they are absorbed more quickly... Second, MCT don't get stored in fat cells, so once consumed, they need to be processed immediately. Third, MCT are not dependent on the same regulatory factors that control LCT entry into cells and mitochondria; so MCT are promptly oxidized in muscle cells or used by the liver to make ketones. Thus, depending on the dose, ingestion of MCTs can result in rapid elevation of ketones. Natural sources of MCT are dairy fats (e.g., butter and cream) and coconut oil, so you may find that your ketones go up after more ingestion of these foods."

Other factos mentioned as affecting ketone production: Exercise (increases fatburning) , carbohydrates (decrease ketosis), and also time of day for monitoring (as noted in my earlier post quoting this).

That is basically everything I had marked as relevant in the book, along with what I already posted and what Kristn posted about fat intake ... I believe if you read through these snippets, you can pretty much skip the rest of the book.

[mom2zeke]

svenskamae--Thanks so much for posting all of this!

[mom2zeke]

Originally Posted by svenskamae

"This sounds like getting the right amount of fat could be complicated, but interestingly, it's usually not necessary to count fat calories. Once keto-adapted, most people report that hunger and cravings are reduced. If you want to reduce your percent body fat, this increased satiety gives you the freedom to cut back a bit on how much fat you consume."

Does anyone find this to be true? I know that I'm keto-adapted but I still have to make an effort to reduce fat. I'm not starving, but I would definitely eat more if I wasn't trying to lose.

I try to think back to when I was eating low-fat and I was starving all of the time. That is not what I experience now, but I am not full either.

[paulabob]

Hi ladies, joining in!

I recently dropped protein amounts, after reading about the Optimal Diet and Rosedale's article about protein. I've dropped 5 of the 9 pounds I had recently regained since my low in March.

Still searching for the optimal protein amounts where I lose best and don't lose muscle mass, I have so little as it is. I was at 80-90 grams before - that felt satiating and good. So when I changed my diet I first dropped protein to 50-60 grams and this last week to 40-50. I am 5'2" and have 90 pounds LBM - so I have quite a small frame. My goal weight is 110 (50 kg) - I'm 17 pounds away.

Dropping the protein was kind of hard at first and I had several hypoglycemic episodes, but I think those are past now. I don't really know much about nutritional ketosis, but hope to learn from you ladies.

I normally keep fat lowish Monday-Friday, then up it on the weekends and include red wine. Not the cleanest diet but keeps me sane.

[mom2zeke]

Welcome paulabob!

Nutritional ketosis is described in the Phinney/Volek book The Art and Science of Low-Carbohydrate Performance. svenskamae has a bunch of posts on this thread about what's in the book, and I have a few myself.