Hello everyone,
I have been on again/off again with keto and even done carnivore a few times. Looking back I realized that I was eating 225 - 300 grams of protein a day, maybe even more on occasion.
Would this prevent or hinder fat adaption? Even if carbs were 0 - 20 grams a day.
I would appreciate any insights. Thank you.
Very high protein intake can reduce ketone levels for some people, but it doesnât necessarily stop fat adaptation. Total calories, carbs, and consistency with low carb matter too
I think it is possible that 225 - 300 grams of protein a day may prevent ketosis and consequently, fat adaption. This is because excess protein can convert to glucose. Too much glucose - no ketosis. If you were doing this amount day in and day out⌠no fat adaption.
I am a person who needs to keep protein intake to 80g or more per day and have to really plan and be diligent about getting that level. I am in wonder that you can consume 225 - 300 grams per day!!! That is a massive amount of food!
Of course itâs good to remember that ketosis (and fat adaption) is much easier to achieve by consuming fat, moderate protein and low carbs. If there is a need for âextraâ protein, fat and carbs should also be considered.
No, lack of carbs takes care of that. Around 225 or so is my normal day, thatâs really not that high especially if youâre doing weight training.
GNG (protein getting converted to glucose) is VERY overblown, and if thatâs happening, you usually know it. You feel like garbage when thatâs happening. Thereâs also other tells when your protein is too high for you aside from that, BO, pee that smells like ammonia etc. Even IF those were happening, most of that time itâs more underhydration for most people. I wouldnât worry about it.
Worry about your carb intake and not âfat adaptionâ. Our bodies adapt to anything we throw at them. Is the real goal here the assumption of how your bodyâs fat metabolism is becoming more efficient, or is it fat loss as is shows itself on the scale?
I thought most gluconeogenesis consisted of fat (triglycerides) being converted to glucose in the absence of carbs as the body demands, much less so from protein. Are we effectively saying the same thing?
I looked into this for a short while, and â as always â itâs complex. This is a pretty good article, until it gets to the P:E ratio (which I think is basically garbage):
I keep wondering more about protein and insulin. I see people all the time who say that when insulin goes up, you gain fat. Protein causes insulin to increase, but I canât figure out exactly what that means.
I also wonder if insulin secretion is similar to glucose and carbs: two people may ingest the exact same food, and one will have a short-duration insulin response, while the other has a long-duration insulin response?
Nope, can come from a handful of things, but mostly lactate, glycerol and aminos. Triglycerides are a source of glycerol, but thatâs a drop in the bucket and an even harder fuel to use vs all the glucogenic aminos weâre already getting from protein already.
Iâd assume that would only come into play if you were really lean and drastically under consuming protein. Your body would be way more efficient at fat as a regular fuel source and making glucose from the lower hanging aminos that youâd be consuming either way. Body always goes with the easiest option!
Mmm⌠This flies in the face of understanding GNG as the pathway through which one burns fat when restricting carbs.
Thereâs far more fat in a âketoâ diet than protein.
Are you saying that when restricting carbs most of the bodyâs energy needs are being met by metabolizing protein?
If so, where is all that dietary fat going when weight is lost? ⌠and how does one lose that much fat over time even while exercising which builds muscle tissue?
Either Iâm grossly confused or am missing something else? 
I donât connect those two things at all. Ketosis is switching to a fat fueled source when carbs arenât available, and GNG is the body making glucose it needs from other substrates when itâs not coming in directly.
No, I think youâre conflating ketosis and GNG?
Youâre burning it as fuel, but not connected to the GNG side of things. Two totally different metabolic processes.
Ultimately youâre right, But this one varies widely, many of us are eating much higher protein than fat. Some people even aside from the medical side of things eat really high fat, but many of us realized we were shooting ourselves in the food doing so given how fast that adds up. I still eat a descent amount of fat, but thatâs not even half of what I eat for protein. My fat floats around the 75-100g mark while protein is around 200-225g.
I think in reality a lot more of us (now vs years ago) are more realistically doing what Dom DâAgostino would call a âModified Atkinsâ vs true Keto.
Donât think soâŚ
When someone refrains from consuming dietary carbs, they ultimately go into ketosis. The glucose their body requires to function then comes from other sources. That source is typically through GNG.
Different words with different meanings? Of course. But theyâre inextricably connected.
If youâre not connecting these two things youâd be missing something. And having read many of your excellent posts over the years, I find it hard to imagine youâre missing anything.
Perhaps weâre just talking past each other.
Hmm⌠From what we know, simply eating a lot of protein doesnât appear to prevent fat adaptation if your carbohydrate intake stays consistently low. That said, 225-300g of protein is more than most people need, unless thereâs a specific reason based on body size, muscle mass, or training demands. Iâd be less concerned about whether you were âfat-adaptedâ and more focused on whether your approach was helping you feel, perform, and stay consistent long-term- thatâs usually what matters most.
Everyoneâs situation is a little different. If youâd like personalized guidance, feel free to reach out to us at Basics and Beyond fitness & nutrition.
I donât understand what is the source of misunderstanding. Of course our body likes to use fat for fuel on keto. Making glucose is another thing entirely and itâs not a huge amount when one is fat adapted⌠Excess protein seems a good source to make glucose, itâs not so great as fuel as far as I know. But the two thing are vastly different, one is getting a lot of energy from our food to function, the other is just making a little glucose we didnât get from foodâŚ
Yep, keto is just low enough carbs to trigger ketosis, the protein easily can be more than fat, it depends on the person, their goals⌠I suppose itâs not very common that protein is way more than fat but just a little, that canât be uncommon either. I want to lose fat and itâs almost impossible for me if I donât eat more protein than fat. I used to eat as much fat as protein on my best days and it was enough for maintenance. More fat means overeating in my case, it canât be helped, my energy need isnât high but I canât undereat protein. But if one has a high energy need and a modest protein need, thatâs very different. And we know there is therapeutic keto with 80% fat.
I think maybe itâs a case of ânot being able to see the forest for the treesââŚ?
At some point, we may make glucose out of protein, but my gut feeling is âso what?â
The body does need some glucose, and it can make that from fat as well as protein.
In practice, when eating low-carb that is happening, all the time - we break fats down into glycerol and fatty acids. Glycerol isnât much of the fat molecules, only like ~10% or something, but we donât need much glucose, and our bodies make glucose from the glycerol.
The fatty acids - we canât make those into glucose, and thatâs fine. We turn them into acetyl-CoA and then into ketones, and most of the body runs on those, with a good bit of it running better on them than on glucose.
@S_o If youâre eating 0 to 20 grams of carbs per day, I think thatâs 99% of the battle. Or 100%. 
Doing that, you are fat-adapted. 300 grams of protein (or less) a day - I donât see a problem. Youâre still burning fat for energy, and your body is getting more and more used to it. If, on a given day some protein gets made into glucose, I donât think itâs a big deal.
The good effects from eating so low-carb like that is HUGE. Any little side worries⌠
That is not the case. Glucose is only produced on demand, not by available protein. If it keeps you from reaching ketosis, itâs not because of conversion.
I may be behind on the subject but there is lots of support for the idea that it does indeed convert to glucose and I think it is more nuanced than just that simple explanation but generally a good thing to consider when planning your diet.
The other mitigating factor is how full one makes their stomach. According to Dr. Bernstein (a type one), an overly full stomach will trigger insulin and insulin is the antagonist to ketosis. As Hyperlipid says, âI resist insulinâ and that is clever but also useful to keep in mind.
The original poster says 250 to 300 grams of protein per day is being consumed. That is a massive amount of food and I canât imagine it not triggering insulin at very least.
Nope, theyâre connected in the sense of making glucose from something else, difference is whether itâs from fat or protein. Even if itâs coming from protein which just like muscle wasting, itâs a last resort, Iâd still consider that GNG though.
UPDATE:
Just had to look a little deeper into that as I wasnât sure the chemical pathway differences, itâs still GNG either way, seems itâs easier for GNG to use protein than fat, as thereâs more glucogenic aminos there, vs the tryglceride route it can grab the glycerol which has a bad conversion rate, but it can break the other fatty acids down into acetyl-CoA which then can burn as fuel and become ketones.
Presumably you are referring to dietary protein as a preferred source for GNG over dietary fat?
OTOH, if youâre referring to muscle wasting as the preferred protein source, then â absent dietary carbs â dietary fat would accumulate even as muscles are being consumed for daily energy. Obviously, thatâs nonsensical.
In short, although metabolizing dietary protein is chemically easier than metabolizing dietary fat, GNG and carb-restriction (i.e., âketoâ) go hand in hand and are tightly connected.
Having tried to bridge the gap between us, at this point Iâll leave it to you to decide whether you believe in the connection between the two. 
I donât think so but I may be biased with my overeating history. But if itâs not even eaten at once, it may be super far from making the stomach full⌠Eaten at once, it may or may not reach that, it depends on the food eaten, among others. My stomach could stretch to a very common size, 2 liters and 250-300g protein isnât hard to eat in less volume. While I rarely eat 250g protein (as I hold myself back) and never at once, it can be only 700g food using one of my staples (I would get bored but even with alternatives, it still wouldnât be hard to do it below 1kg).
Never heard about this insulin triggering, itâs odd to me, why would the body act this illogically (I donât mean a tiny trigger, surely a small keto meal does that too especially if it has sugar as it usually does)? Not using insulin when needed but according to some random signâŚ? If I drink 2 liters of water at once, can I expect more insulin too? It definitely fills my stomach (used to fill, my stomach had a very common capacity. it seems it got smaller in the last years).
But what is âoverly fullâ? If I reach full, thatâs it, I canât eat or drink anything (maybe some people do)⌠Or itâs the feeling, not the fullness of the stomach? I never think about that as it makes no sense to me, I often feel âfullâ with an empty stomach, I just call it being very satiated instead as itâs more correct and clear and makes more sense.
Correct, if itâs gone to muscle given how metabolically inefficient that is, then the person would have to be starving themselves at that point, or WAY underconsuming (Iâve done it).
I donât know the answer about fat adaptation. At some point I had not eaten a carb in weeks, felt fine, had plenty of energy and kinda shrugged and went, âokay, guess Iâm adaptedâŚâ I kinda felt like it should be more like going through the Star Gate.
The first time I went Carnivore, before I had surgery (which is why I didnât stay Carnivore - had a delay back) - I had a period where smells were stronger, colors brighter and I felt like I could commune with trees. That was wild but didnât last. At the store if someone had eaten garlic I knew it.
My husband went KETO and stayed on it for a few months before heading back to his mistress Little Debbie and her snack cakes - but his allergies which were uncontrollable and horrible went completely away.
Really if you have the discipline to count grams of protein youâre leagues (or light years) ahead of where Iâm at. I just canât ever seem to stick with tracking.