Carnivore More important?- fat percentage in diet or caloric intake?


#1

Still learning how to properly carnivore myself, and watching a lot of videos. One guru says to make sure I eat enough and advocates using an energy expenditure calculator to determine how much I should eat.

All of them promote 80% calories from fat.

I use FatSecret to track my diet. I have to struggle to meet my daily recommended intake. I’m usually just not hungry enough. Even though my TDEE is supposed to be about 1700 cal/day, some days I’m lucky to make 845 and still feel comfortable. I also struggle to reach 80% - I rarely meet 75%! I add butter to my coffee, use my homemade mayo (avocado oil & egg) with my meat, etc.

So which is more important? Following my hunger cues and eating less, but making sure I’m getting more fat into my menu? Or focusing on not undereating and feeling uncomfortably full? The scale isn’t budging and my blood sugar numbers (I’m prediabetic) are not as low as I’d like, though they are better than before I started carnivore almost 3 months ago.

Perhaps I should cut back on the meat and just eat sticks of butter. /sigh/

For a while, anyway.


(Peter - Don't Fear the Fat ) #2

Most of us don’t count anything. Luckily most of what we eat naturally comes with the correct % of protein, fat and carbs.
Bacon for exampe has just the right proportions. As does and steak, sardines etc etc … nice to add some butter just to make sure :slight_smile:


#3

Whatever works for you. I find it an extremely stupid idea that we all need the same percentages. Of course we don’t. I shouldn’t go over 65% fat personally. Lowish energy need, high protein need, a higher percentage just would make me overeat and I better stay below, like, 1800 kcal (that’s already little food, I can’t stand too lean items and fat is dense. it’s good the right carnivore items can be pretty satiating despite the small volume - I am no volume eater - but other items aren’t so satiating, they may be your allies…?).

Most carnivore don’t track as far as I know. It’s not even possible with my fatty meats though I try :wink: I am not always very off and that’s enough. My tracking is just checking if I do it right, I know how I should eat (but I had to track to figure it out).

You shouldn’t starve yourself, that isn’t healthy. The occasional low-cal day is fine but regular starvation… That’s bad. Try out different items, different timing, eat many meals if you must, eat without hunger if it’s what helps… And if you already eat lowish calories, you need to have a much higher protein percentage. 80% fat would give me at least 3000 kcal as I need my protein… Your protein need may be much lower than mine but still, eating 1700 let alone 845 kcal with a very high fat percentage, that’s little protein. So it’s very good you don’t even reach 75% often when eating that very little food.

Definitely not. You need nutrients. Not just energy from fat. Get your protein! And enough food, whatever that means. I dislike forcefulness so I would try out things. Different items, timing, eating a dense tempting bite without hunger… Maybe more sugar, that is not satiating to me. It’s cream or something for me but even zerocarb cheese satiates me poorly while I love snacking on cheese. Many of us have not particularly satiating meat options. It’s chicken for me, pork for some others… Experiment! :slight_smile:

By the way, while I easily overeat on any diet, an extremely fatty one is a great way to drastically drop my calories. Fat without much protein can be super satiating (that’s why I like fat fast days. my only chance for a decent, even big deficit without any hunger). And of course, not anyone can stomach such meals. If the added fat is serious, I would rather starve (I mean with strong hunger and everything) and I LOVE fat with a passion, always did. So don’t eat too fatty for multiple reasons. Though who knows, maybe it would work occasionally for you? One can never know. But don’t do it for long, you need your protein and various nutrients.

Butter is nice, I totally would use it as a delicious tool in my toolbox. Liquid and soft stuff would be another. I could drink way more than your occasional 845 kcal in a single drink in minutes if I wanted I am pretty sure… You probably don’t but it’s easier with liquid calories for many of us. I like very soft-boiled eggs, they probably aren’t so bad either but it depends how satiating eggs are for you. Decently satiating to me (not as good as red meat) but still, it’s easier to drink them than eating them, day after day. And I love eggs in most form. Most of my dairy items are liquid or soft too and not satiating. I couldn’t add much butter to my coffee (I don’t like that so I usually don’t add any) but cream? Mmm, that’s nice.
Maybe you don’t want even that amount of sugar though, I don’t know.

Good luck!


(Megan) #4

I don’t follow any gurus, nor do I try to eat 80% of my calories in fat. I’m not chasing ketones and I’d rather use up some of my fat stores than eat a lot of fat every day. I eat fatty meats, cheese, eggs, unsweetened natural greek yoghurt (often with a generous pour of cream) and cream in my coffee. I eat until my appetite is satisfied and stays satisfied for hours.

In regards to your question, especially as the scale isn’t budging, make sure you are eating enough. I recently had a 3 month period of undereating (just no appetite) and the scale barely moved. Thankfully my appetite has returned and the slow, steady weight loss has restarted. I’m in this for the long haul and slow, steady weight loss is exactly what I want. I try not to weigh more than monthly now and just live my life. I feel a lot better weighing 20kg less and I’m looking forward to how I’ll feel when I lose another 5-8.

Some people say our bodies prioritizing healing can interfere with weight loss at times but who knows. The rate at which we lose weight is very individual and weight loss isn’t a linear process. I’ve had a couple of crazy-making stalls, and weight loss at the beginning felt very slow. I’ve learnt that other peoples’ journeys can be inspiring, but they can also make us think we’re not doing it right if ours isn’t following a similar path. I did myself a favour when I stopped reading and watching so much stuff on the internet.

All the best and let us know how you’re doing. This forum can be a great place to get support and information.


(Bean) #5

Depends on why you are carnivore. I’m doing it for multiple health reasons where chasing ketones has some benefit. If that’s you, eat your fat first. If not, don’t count, just eat fatty meat until you are not hungry.


(Alec) #6

This is why I love carnivore. I have one rule: don’t eat plants. That’s it. That’s all you need to do. Eat to satiety (comfortably stuffed) whenever you feel hungry. It is that simple.


#7

Key word there… CALCULATOR…ie… guess!. If you want to figure out your TDEE and have no clue where it is, those calcs are only a starting point, you gotta tweak from there to actually find it.

I’m not a fan at all of eating to percentages, it doesn’t scale.

That depends on whether your hunger and satiate queues are trustworthy or not. There’s no shortage of us that they aren’t. If I ate to my hunger queues, I’d be getting cut out of my house. I was like that when I was 300lbs and over 50% body fat and fixing being diabetic, I’m like that now at 210lbs, 10% body fat and very insulin sensitive with an average A1C of 4.8-5.1.

You’ll see no shortage of people (especially here) that tell you not to count cals, they don’t matter, etc. Well, I did that for a while, and I went nowhere. Cut out all the middle troubleshooting, and I got my RMR tested and started tracking using what that gave me as a starting point, and after over a year of NOTHING, I started losing again. Been tracking ever since, had no stalling out issues since. So that’s your call.

100% not!


#8

Simple but impossible for some. Or if they do this, it doesn’t end well.
The OP undereats when following this… 845 kcal can’t be right for anyone.
And some people easily overeat if the food choices aren’t right. I still don’t think I could ever unlock the magic where I eat way over my normal energy need and lose fat but even if I did, it’s wasteful and burdensome to overeat.
It works for many but not all…


(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #9

You ask some reasonable questions. To answer them, look at the following facts: First, for all practical purposes, we can say that a gram of fat contains 9 (kilo)calories, whereas a gram of protein and a gram of carbohydrate each contain 4 (kilo)calories. These are by no means precise figures, but they commonly used when discussing diet. Note also that the “calories” we use when talking about food are what a physicist would consider a kilocalorie, or 1000 x the amount of heat to raise the temperature of 1 cubic centimeter of water by one degree Celsius.

Second, the implication of the first fact is that eating equal amounts of fat and protein by weight is a diet of 69% fat and 31% protein. Note that dietary percentages are always calculated as percentages of total calories consumed, not by percentages by weight or volume.

So I offer the following table as a guide:

Total calories 2500
Fat % Protein % Fat grams Protein grams
80.00% 20.00% 222.22 125.00
69.23% 30.77% 192.31 192.31
60.00% 40.00% 166.67 250.00
50.00% 50.00% 138.89 312.50
35.00% 65.00% 97.22 406.25
20.00% 80.00% 55.56 500.00

Twenty-five hundred (kilo)calories is about what the average man eats, so it is a good place to start. If you want to eat more or less, adjust from there.

The easy way to do this, of course, is to eat what feels right. You may be one of those people who need more protein than recommended, so you’ll want to eat proportionately more and proportionately less fat. You may be one of those people who need less protein, and will want to eat proportionately more fat. But if you are eating the right amounts, you will feel healthy and vital, just from listening to your body. It will tell you if you are eating enough, or whether you need more or less of something.

Remember that protein is actually metabolically neutral, because the body uses the amino acids it contains to build and re-build tissue, and to generate nitrogen (we have to get our nitrogen in the form of amino acids; we can’t take it from the air we breathe) to regulate blood pressure. The fuels the body uses are glucose (carbohydrate) and fatty acids. So eat accordingly.

BTW, “satiety” means “I’ve had enough; I don’t want any more.” The opposite, which we generally do on the standard diet, is “Boy, am I stuffed; why am I still hungry?” The answer has to do with the insulin response to the food we eat. A keto/carnivore diet lets us eat enough, and not need to stuff ourselves. A high-carb, high-insulin diet is what has made us unable to survive on three square meals a day and need to go to six meals a day and/or continuous grazing. This is a fact of biology, and not a matter of will power.


(Bob M) #10

Though I’m down to my lowest weight since I started keto and don’t count anything. I’m lower now than when I was fasting a ton, and I’m stronger now than then.

Though I will admit I have no idea why I’m losing weight, as I seem to be eating a ton. I hypothesize it may relate to the biome (been drinking raw milk, which supposedly helps this; been drinking more bone broth; taking in some inulin), but I have no idea.

I did want to get my resting metabolic rate tested, though. It’s just hard to do where I live.


#11

If you’re willing to track what you eat, which if you got your RMR tested, that numbers useless if you have nothing to put it up against, you can accomplish that with MacroFactor. Kill two birds with one stone. Cost is usually around $65-$80 to have RMR done, that app more or less figures you out in 3wks. Which would then be confirmed by being able to hold you there when you were eating maintenance. My cost for the app (yearly) is cheaper than getting the RMR tested, and realistically better since like everything, the RMR is a snapshot of right then, that’s then assumed to be a constant. Mine was damn close and got me losing again, but it’s easy enough to effect if up or down as well. Could always just do monthly for a few and get a hold if where you are if you don’t plan on changing, but it’s nice when things change and it picks up on it to keep you on track.

I noticed mine start dropping after 2 wks of not going on my dog walks, after a week of getting in my cardio again I see it start giving me more cals again, sleep is real good or bad, if it persists you’ll see the number move sometimes by a little bit too. Tons of things effect our metabolic rate we don’t consider, but most keep eating the exact way regardless, which is probably why people don’t get why they lose, stall, gain, lose again etc. Also nice to see the trend lines vs the scale weights.


(KM) #12

Wow is this useful! For practical purposes I’d just add that if you’re seeking a certain percentage of fat and looking to hold steady calories, the number in the last column is what you have left to work with in grams of protein and carbs combined.


#13

It’s easy for me as my tastes tend to bring me to 1:1 in grams and I know I just should eat a bit less fat than protein or if it’s the same, be really careful (keeping the carbs and protein as low as possible). My tracking program helps with the grams anyway.
Indeed, let’s don’t forget about the carbs, they aren’t negligible for most of us. They may be low but sometimes they still matter. Especially when the fat is high. 80% fat and 20% vs 10% protein, very different. 10% carbs is probably too much for keto for most of us but not always. And even 5% can make a huge difference in many ways. The numbers are just numbers, we need to be able to eat the food and preferably enjoying it too.


(Geoffrey) #14

I’m another who didn’t track anything. I just made sure there was plenty of animal fat with every meal of protein.
When I hit my maintenance stage I got curious and downloaded Carb Manager app just to see if I was eating enough. It showed that I was eating about a 70-30 fat to protein ratio. It also showed that I need to eat more which I have done. Funny thing is when I started eating more I dropped another five pounds.