Carb thresholds

#1

If you eat carbs, but not enough to go into ketosis, what happens if you don’t get enough, and how much is enough? Do we know?

(Doug) #2

The more carbs you eat, the more likely it is that you will not go into ketosis, or drop out of it if there previously.

I’m not sure what you’re asking. For most of us, there is no lower limit on carbs, no “not getting enough carbs” since we can make our own glucose from fats and from proteins, if need be.

To go into or stay in ketosis, it’s pretty common to eat less than 20 grams per day of carbs. Some people do it with 30 or less, and some claim even higher figures, like 50.

#3

i have never understood how you can function if you are still bruning sugar as fuel (ie not in ketosis) but eating low carb. Is there a minimum carb amount that a sugar burning body requires?

(Doug) #4

Past a point, low blood sugar is a big problem for the body, and unless things are really screwed up, the liver (and to a much lesser extent, the kidneys, from what I read) make sugar (glucose) from other things. It’s called gluconeogenesis, and it’s basically the making of glucose from non-carbohydrate sources.

“A sugar burning body” - when we don’t eat carbs, or eat very low amounts of them, the body will eventually run out of sugar and other sugar-like stuff (glycogen) to use as fuel. Switching to fat burning is what makes for ketosis - the body burning fats makes ketones. Most of the cells in our body can run on ketones, and they do fine without glucose. For the cells that require glucose, the production of it by the liver should be plenty.

If insulin levels are too high, the body cannot access stored fat, and thus does not go into ketosis easily. A good way to lower insulin levels is to not eat carbs. This usually lowers blood sugar levels, and so insulin levels will hopefully be going down too. It may take a while for an individual’s body to go through these changes, to get to a lower insulin state and be able to more easily burn stored fat, become less of a “sugar-burner,” and more “fat-adapted.”

If one is unable to burn stored fat - due to high insulin levels or other causes if they exist - then it can be tough, especially at first. The cells need energy, and the body can’t get at the stores of fat to provide it. The body thinks “starvation” and will often start lowering the metabolism, substantial hunger normally accompanying this. One big aim of a ketogenic diet is to fix high insulin levels, if they exist, and get the body into the fat-burning mode.

(Ethan) #5

I don’t see this as an issue. Look at it a different way…

We are always capable of burning glucose or ketones. When you are a carb burner, you will not be burning ketones though, except for those times when you are fasting (overnight). That is the body’s natural rhythm–especially in a healthy person with a normal metabolism. Such a person will eat carbs, burn the glucose, store excess glucose as fat, and then burn that fat when carbs are not consumed for a while (such as overnight).

Now, if you eat low carb, you will just burn fat sooner in that cycle. However, if you have a deranged metabolism, such as I do, and you have a ton of insulin production and are highly insulin resistant, the cycle won’t work properly. Even if you eat low carb (but not low enough to force ketosis), you should burn the carbs into glucose and use it for fuel; however, you won’t use it well. You will store fat, but not be able to draw from that fat later. You will be tired and starving.

(KetoCowboy) #6

This is exactly what I did on the Atkins diet decades ago.

I was a low-carb sugar burner without understanding it at the time. I ate lots of protein, which my body converted into glucose (gluconeogenesis).

As a result, I stayed in glycolysis pretty much the whole time I was on Atkins–even though my carb intake was generally under 20g/day.

(Khara) #7

This is something I’ve been thinking about lately. As a hyper responder I’m aware that some day I may end up needing to increase my carb intake in an effort to lower my lipid panel. I really do not want to do this, am very much on the fence about it, and for now am avoiding the decision. I feel too great in ketosis. In addition to possibly reducing the many benefits of Keto I am worried about something I read early on… essentially, if you eat low carb but not Keto you will always be brain foggy and hungry and fatigued because you aren’t being fueled by fat and your carbs are too low to fully sugar fuel. That’s the gist anyway. Does anyone know about this? Is it one of those low carb myths? Anyone actually eat this way for an extended period of time and if so how did you feel? I’m worried about the brain fog and constant hunger.

(Ethan) #8

@KBG, I have heard that you may be able to alleviate the hyperresponse by limiting saturated fats in favor of unsaturated ones.

(Khara) #9

Thank you. I’m sort of playing with this right now to a small degree in that I’ve greatly reduced my drinking of fats… much less heavy cream, no BP coffee. So we’ll see if that has an effect and then I can take it another step and look at my meat sources.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #10

What is the issue with your lipids?

(Khara) #11

Oh, I seem to be a hyper-responder. My numbers sky-rocket with Keto. Doesn’t seem to be an explanation yet for those of us with this. I’m reading and researching and following along with those at the forefront of this so hopefully we will start to get it figured out soon!

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #12

There is a condition called “familial hyper-dislipidemia,” in which people have abnormally high levels cholesterol in the blood. One might expect them all to die young from heart disease, but over half of them live perfectly normal lives and die at perfectly normal ages and never develop heart disease at all. So it would seem that cholesterol is probably not the health risk that it’s made out to be.

(Khara) #13

TOTALLY agree. Still have to watch and be diligent though and connect the dots with the other associated risk factors. Thanks for pointing out the healthy lifespan of those with the familial form. I may have already read that once and forgotten. My brain is pretty overwhelmed at this point. There is excellent work being done by @DaveKeto and @siobhan along with other contributors to this subject. I am thankful these guys are devoting so much time and energy towards this and their sharing of their knowledge is really just awesome. Hopefully I can contribute a fraction as much with my own experimenting and passing along what I’ve learned here. I got all geeky with a friend the other day trying to explain my most recent readings on the subject. I need more practice :neutral_face:; one of the best ways to really learn something is to explain it to someone else!

(Kate) #14

Ivor Cummins had a really good talk on YouTube called the cholesterol conundrum. One of the studies he presents goes through why higher cholesterol can be protective. Before keto I had low cholesterol and a very deranged metabolism as well as almost no hormones (which you need cholesterol to make).I brought them up to normal with Keto but my triglycerides always were high. It wasn’t until I did a little n=1 experiment 2 weeks before a blood test cutting out milk (they don’t often have cream at Coffee place in Australia) and reduced my cream level and started having bulletproof coffee. My cholesterol went up high and my trigs went down!
Maybe have a play around with what you eat and see if it changes anything. You could also always do the Dave Feldman experiment to see if you cholesterol changes after eating a lot of fat.

(Khara) #15

Thanks @Ketoteak. I’ll re-look into Ivor. It’s been a while and I should catch up and do a refresher.
So you cut out cream/milk (but probably increased coconut or mct oil in the form of BP coffee - please verify) and saw cholesterol go up and trigs down? I am currently reducing the cream just to try something/anything and see what happens. My consumption had been pretty darn high previously. Looking for a long term solution I couldn’t imagine testing an increase with it. It’ll be interesting to see if I have similar results as you though I have not increased any other oils. And yes, the Feldman protocol does interest me for some point in the future. I want a bit more stable of a Keto timeline beforehand (fell off the wagon for a bit earlier this year). My last test was sort of a new starting point as I’d been high carb prior to it and my numbers were down significantly from last years numbers while Keto. Just getting back into this I’m fully expecting to see my numbers skyrocket again but it’ll be interesting to see if they end up at the same level as before. Then, for more self experimenting! Thanks for your thoughts!

(Ken) #16

Intensity of response to carbs is also determined by degree of lipolytic adaptation. It’s an adaptive response, as hyperinsulinemia drops, response becomes less noticible. The goal is to get the insulin-glucagon secretion pattern into balance, so there is no noticible difference between being lipolytic (ketogenic) or lipogenic, in terms of hormonal secretion pattern. It can take quite a while for some people, which is why it’s important to be fairly strict initially, especially if overweight/obese.