Confused About Fat Loss?

newbies
fat
bodycomposition
metabolism
#1

I am avid weightlifter (roughly 5 times a week) and for years have tried many differently styles of CICO diets to drop my BFP. However, I have not been able to break 11-12% BF. So I have decided to give Keto a try. I currently have been on a Keto diet for 6-weeks and Im not 100% sure that I am fully keto adapted. I know it takes time and I probably have some metabolic damage from my previous calorie restrictive diets.

QUESTION: I have listened to the 2KD podcast on metabolic rate. I believe that I have some metabolic damage from my previous calorie restrictive diets. I have been trying to increase my MR by eating more fat. However, how can increasing my MR (by eating more fat) allow me to burn more BF? I think where I get confused is that I am caught up in the CICO theory. If I eat more fat my body will not need to tap into my stored fat therefore how is it possible to lose BF? I understand that my total energy expenditure will rise as a result of eating more fat, but how will this contribute to burning BF if the energy I am burning comes from the fat I eat? what makes sense to me is to cycle the amount of fat I eat on some days to increase my MR and then lower the amount of fat I eat on the following days and then repeat the cycle to burn BF (e.g. 3 days high fat eating 3 days lower fat eating). This is exactly like CICO but how else can I lower my BFP? or will simply increasing my MR by eating more fat cause my total energy expenditure to increase and when this happens my body will still utilize my stored fat as energy and overtime I will lose BF?

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #2

The way it works at the beginning is different from later on, I’m told (I’m still fairly new at this myself). The essential theory behind a ketogenic diet is as follows: insulin is the primary hormone that stimulates your fat cells to hoard fat and your muscle cells to burn glucose. Therefore, to lose body fat you need to lower your insulin level, so that the fatty acids can leave your fat cells and your muscles can burn them. Since the primary factor that determines the level of insulin in your blood is dietary carbohydrate, the key to getting into fat-burning mode is to lower the amount of carbohydrate you eat.

Dr. Steven Phinney, a researcher who has been studying this for decades, says that in order to enter nutritional ketosis, we need to eat less than about 100 grams of carbohydrate a day, but there are a lot of people out there with severe insulin resistance who find it impossible to eat that much carbohydrate and enter ketosis, so these forums recommend eating no more than 20 grams a day of carbohydrate. Almost everyone can become ketotic at that level of carbohydrate. So start by restricting your carbs to that level, and then, once you’ve become fat-adapted, you can experiment to see whether you can actually eat more and stay ketotic.

The carbohydrate you are no longer eating needs to be replaced with fat, because if you increase your protein too much it will stimulate insulin production (and other bad effects, if it really gets too high). Fat in the diet has a minimal effect on your insulin production, because it does not get metabolized into glucose, but rather ketones (actually, ketones are a sign of incomplete fat metabolism, but most body cells can metabolize either fatty acids or ketones with equal facility).

In the absence of insulin, the fat in your fat cells floods out into the bloodstream and gets metabolized. We say “eat fat to satiety” because that way your body is assured of an energy supply large enough to meet all its metabolic needs. There is no need to count calories; just let your body tell you when you’ve eaten enough. There are documented cases of study participants who ate 3500 calories daily and lost fat at the same rate as everyone else in the study, so your caloric intake can go surprisingly high and you can still benefit. Most of us find, of course, that our caloric intake is much lower than that.

The key is learning to listen to your body. It helps that fat is so satisfying that it is extremely difficult to overeat if most of your calories are coming from fat. As a weightlifter, your mileage may vary. This is the outline for beginners; start with these principles, and ask for advice from the other weightlifters here, if you don’t get the results you’re looking for. There are tweaks you can implement once you’re fat-adapted. I’ve been reading about them, but I’m not a weightlifter myself, so better you get the info from someone who knows what he or she is talking about.

#3

Do you have any blood work to inform you better what is going on metabolically? If not, maybe it would be worth getting some because that will give you some clues as to how your body works. Where you are on the insulin resistance/sensitive scale would be useful in judging what carb level would work well for example. I would suggest getting the following as a start…

HbA1c
Fasting Insulin
Fasting Glucose
Cholesterol
Trigs

Possibly some others like an iron panel, B12, folate, D.

Factor in all the other things that go on in your life too…
stress
mood
sleep
how you feel when you exercise
health issues past or present
what do you eat and when?
do you snack between meals?

When you say you have tried different methods, have you stayed reasonably consistent or have you gone up and down in weight?

There is no set number when it comes to how much fat you eat. It is not a case of having to eat a certain amount to get into ketosis or to lose weight. It’s more what you use to give you energy and keep you satiated. How much BF you can access and how readily is so variable depending on your own make up which is why I suggested trying to get a bigger picture first.

#4

Hi Paul, you seem to have some pretty comprehensive knowledge on the subject. Here a couple questions I posted in another thread yesterday and I’d be curious to hear your thoughts:

•If eating “fat to satiety” happens when a fat-adapted person eats around 800 calories a day is that person damaging their metabolism by not eating more?

•If the body, when fat adapted, is just as content using your love handles for fuel as it would be with using consumed coconut oil then why does it not make sense that eating less coconut oil would result in the loss of more body fat?

•If aspects of keto mimic fasting (lower insulin, stable blood glucose) then why are the protein sparing & metabolic rate maintenance benefits of fasting not also realized to some extent on keto? In other words: if fasting doesn’t damage/slow metabolism then how could a keto diet which mimics fasting lead to a decreased metabolic rate if ample calories aren’t consumed?

#5

Thank you for taking the time to reply. I am glad you provided the example of some people eating 3,500 calories. I am currently 5’7, 153 lbs at roughly 10-11% BF, and on some days I consume well over 3,000 and I still don’t feel full. my net carbs are always less than 20 and I’m eating 80g of protein. I thought I might have been doing something wrong.

I just have one additional question about your comment: “In the absence of insulin, the fat in your fat cells floods out into the bloodstream and gets metabolized.” - This is where I am confused ? from my understanding of this so long as I am in ketosis my BFP will drop regardless of much fat is consumed (Satiety being the limit) ?

#6

No I currently do not have any blood work. Thank you for the advice, I will definitely look into getting it done.

with respect to my other “diet methods,” I have gone up and down multiple times within the range of 11% - 14% BF over the course 5-6 years.

My diet for the past 6 weeks has primarily consisted of the following foods: eggs, bacon, avocados, coconut oil, coffee, butter, broccoli, broth, walnuts, cheese, sausage). I am confident that I am reading the nutritional labels and ingredients correctly. I have been consuming less than 20 Net carbs daily for the past 6 weeks. I do tend to have some snacks (i.e. avocado, nuts, coconut oil and butter in a coffee) in between meals. my strength in the gym took a hit when I first started keto but it came back around week 3.

#7

Things are rarely as linear as that. “Regardless of fat consumed” isn’t the same as “to satiety”. The former suggests throwing unlimited amounts of fat at your system whereas the latter is something that you end up naturally regulating - or you should in theory. What it assumes is that you have no behavioural issues that mess up those signals or override them.

It sounds to me like you are eating pretty well and that your energy levels are back up which implies that your system is now on board! The two things that I would potentially look at changing would be the snacks - if you feel you need a snack between meals then maybe the last meal was not sufficient? The second would be to drop carbs further although I would be tempted to wait until you a) have been going a bit longer with this and b) have some blood tests. If you have a low fasting insulin level then restricting carbs further won’t necessarily benefit you. Some people do better on 20 total then net. It’s all about tweaking and figuring out what suits you best. I would probably just KCKO for now though and see what happens.

#8

I don’t think I have any behavior issues. On some days Ive been hungry constantly and have had to control myself from eating more than 3,000. Now, I think I’m just going to let my body do its thing. If I am hungry, I am going to eat. perhaps these high calorie days could have had something to do with the adaptation process.

do you have any comments with respect to my original question on increasing MR and losing BF (in my original post)?

(Richard Morris) #9

We are all subject to a homeostasis. It used to be called the weight set point but it’s really the amount of stored energy that the body is willing to defend to optimize for survival. If you elevate insulin through diet, or you just make a lot even when you eat nothing you metaphorically stick your thumbs on the scale of that homeostasis in favour of storing more energy.

Dr Phinney who coined the term nutritional ketosis designed the diet as an ad libitum diet that uses satiety to balance the contribution between dietary energy and stored energy spontaneously. As you lower insulin and your body fat begins to contribute to your energy ledger, your satiety signals will cause you to eat less. As you become lean (or if you meet your fasting insulin level) your body fat contribution drops and you spontaneously increase your dietary energy. So that’s the basis of a nutritional ketogenic diet.

Here’s the question - does your body prioritize for less than 10% body fat. If it doesn’t (and we’re all different) then you can’t get there using satiety as a fueling signal. So does it make sense to short cut satiety?

If you have low fasted insulin then your body fat percentage is supported by a caloric surplus - eating more than you use. You can manhandle it lower by eating fewer calories, and stopping before satiety.

If you have high fasted insulin then your body fat is supported by a hormonal floor. In that circumstance and you manhandle your dietary intake below satiation, your body has 2 options … it can make budgetary cuts or it can find some extra energy down the back of the couch. The only source left for a low carbohydrate diet when fat is restricted before satiety is protein. So in this scenario you are using increasingly less energy so you need to caloricly restrict more to maintain.

So it all depends on your personal hormonal milleau. If you have low fasted insulin then you can try restricting before satiety but that wouldn’t be a nutritionally ketogenic diet. It would also be a case of having to maintain the restriction to maintain below set point, unless you are genetically endowed with a set point down around your ideal goal.

#10

It depends IMO on what you are going from and to re levels. It depends on how you feel on any given day - although guys are way more static with their hormonal status than women! It depends on your insulin resistance/sensitivity level. I would guess that you are fairly insulin sensitive but that is based on assumptions only. I do think that allowing your body to find its level would be the best way forward for now - to trust your hunger and satiety signals and work with them regardless of fitting the levels you want to set with your brain. If you have no behavioural issues getting in the way then this should be a reasonably straightforward process. I get mixed messages, for example, between what my head is saying and what my body is saying. Keto has drastically helped and given me a really decent range I can work within and maintain weight easily but I am not totally in sync - yet! Once you feel like your are stabilised and feeling good you can start tweaking things. You want to achieve a fairly low BF level so it might be that you need to manipulate what you eat to reach the goals you have in your head. That is completely outside my knowledge and comfort zone! I want to achieve a balance between eating how I want to sustainably and being healthy and happy. Part of me would like the abs and the rad body but most of me is not that bothered! I am happy with the weight and shape I am at and I will continue to experiment with my diet to get my health to the optimal level but a specific BF level is not a goal of mine.

#11

Thank you so much Daisy. Your comments have been very helpful. I wish you the best in your keto journey !!!

#12

I may be totally off with this comment. From my understanding (assuming I have low fasted insulin), if my body’s ideal composition is 10% I cannot get below 10% without short cutting satiety which in turn will have a negative impact on my MR. How is it possible for me to get below 10%? what methods do I need to implement? should I cycle my fat intake on some days to raise my MR and then subsequently reduce the amount of fat I am eating the following days (e.g. 3 high fat then 3 low fat) ?

#13

I found this pretty interesting. If you get impatient you can watch the first few days and then skip to day 21 (spoiler: things go really well for him).

(Richard Morris) #14

If your body will defend going below 10% then yes. I suspect in that case you’d be able to dip under by reducing calories, your MBR would take a hit and then you’ll bob back up again unless you double down on the caloric restriction.

Insulin is part of the calculus of how much the body defends. So if you had low insulin then the point the body puts up a defense would necessarily be lower.

I don’t know. I have never had body fat percentage below 10%, or to be honest wanted to. Well I tell a lie. My legs are at 9% but that’s functional muscle for cycling. I am still profoundly insulin resistant and have 24% body fat overall.

I do know of several people who borked their metabolism chasing caloric restriction, they reduced calories in advance of satiation signalling and their bodies just made budgetary cuts so their results would stop … and then they’d reduce calories more, and the bodies would reduce output again, eventually they ratcheted themselves down to a point where any meal over about 800 kCal would result in them gaining weight.

The solution was to increase fat for a few days and all of a sudden their weight gain stabilized as their bodies recognized an end to the famine and their metabolic rate increased. It’s counter intuitive, but that is often the case when we are subject to a homeostatic regulation.

#15

That is interesting Richard. So you would basically cycle different ways of eating, maybe include some fasting too? But it would be necessary to cycle n some high fat days to stop the MR slowing down. That makes sense to my logical brain!

(Richard Morris) #16

To be fair I don’t know if that would work for @MKKeto. I don’t think anyone does but he, and probably only with a bit of experimentation.

But I have seen that strategy work for multiple people who got into trouble with caloric restriction slowing down their metabolism.

#17

Yes I think I am going to have to do a bit of experimentation. I am trying to think of way to minimize the negative effects associated with caloric restriction while at the same time keeping my body stabilized (i.e. preventing the down regulation of my MR). Perhaps I could alternate 2 days of eating to satiety with 1 day of eating short of satiety. The weight loss may be very slow, but I think that over the long run this could result in a reduction of my BF. It’s like the example of Keto being the backstop preventing the boulder from rolling back down the hill. I may only get 6 inches up the hill each day, but over time these small fat losses will add up. My MR may eventually decrease as a result of this approach or my body may adapt to the pattern of eating. Thus, I will probably break up this pattern of eating with a longer period of time eating to satiety. I may gain some fat during this phase because of the down regulation of my MR (or perhaps because I’m new to keto (6wks) my insulin levels will continue to drop over time and I will gain less weight over time during these periods) but if my losses overtime outweigh these minimal gains I should be able to make progress while keeping my MR high and my body stabilized.

#18

I’m on the fence about Jason Whittrock, he’s either juicing or eating more carbs then he lets on…OR he’s just a genetic freak. I’d like to see his program though.

#19

Jason’s weight/height are very similar to mine. He has far less BF so his muscle mass is a lot greater. However, a year before he did the 21 challenge he was only eating around 200g of fat per day just over 100g of protein and less than 30 net carbs. I personally think that the reason for his weight loss on the 21 day challenge is that for the year prior he was calorically restricting himself. Thus, his body for the year prior was making budgetary cuts. When he finally ate calories in excess during the 21 day challenge the other functions essentially “turned on.” although his BFP decreased after challenge this could be a factor of the additional muscle mass that he put on over the 21 days. His total muscle mass could have reduced through his caloric restriction the year prior, and 21 feast could have allowed him to pack this mass back on very quickly (muscle memory). Jason himself mentioned that his “muscles felt more full” during the challenge.

(Jennifer) #20

You didn’t mention fasting - that could be the tool to get you over your hurdles. I would start with IF (18-20 hours) and see if that helps.

I don’t track my food, just eat very low carb and eat to satiety. I listen to my body on protein and fat - no idea what my percentages are. I only lose by fasting and do 2,4 or even 7-day fasts. But these last two months have been very stressful. I’m a stress eater so I have been eating as needed (a lot) and I am amazed that I didn’t gain any weight. I was too stressed to fast during that time - sometimes cortisol is just too high to fight.

Stress has gone down these last two weeks and I am fasting again. Works like magic and I feel awesome fasting. Down 5 pounds already…