Do calories matter? For me atleast the answer is yes

(Hannah Conway) #1

Over the past 4 weels I did an experiment because several people told me that calories don’t matter as long as you’re doing clean Keto.
So for 2 weeks I ate between 1000 and 1500 calories and under 10 carbs which all the carbs came from green leafy vegetables. Then for another two weeks I ate between 2000 and 2500 calories same conitions as above. All4 weeks i did the same amount of excersize. The two weeks that I ate under 1500 calories I lost four pounds and the two weeks that I ate over 2000 calories and I gained 2 pounds. I don’t know how it is for everybody else but for me even if I eat perfectly clean calories still affect my lifestyle.

(Heather Meyer) #2

I dont know what age you are but its not as simple as you made it seem :slight_smile:

For example:

Did you have a bowel movement every day or every 2 days or 1x week? Your intestine is over 25 fert long and can hold up to 5-10 pounds of waste alone.

Are you somewhere in your menstrul cycle? Or menapausal? Because cycle changes can account for 5-10 pounds of water retention.

Did you have more fibre in 2 weeks than in the other? Plant matter creates more waste…

Did you hydrate more than normal in two of the weeks? That cab account for fluid retention or loss.

Are you intolerent or sensetive to different foods you are eating or struggle with systematic inflammation? That can cause water retention.

Are you ill? Were you sick or have an auto immune condition? That can cause water retention or loss.

Point is- All of these factors can play into a number on the scale. I can eat 4 pieces of bacon and be up on the scale by 5lbs easily. I can also lose 5lbs by not hydrating and eating differently. It all depends on your body.
While a short term anectdotal study that lasts for 2 weeks each time, is good… it wont accurately show how your body is responding. You would need a longer term study. You would have to factor in all the variables that could make up for the changes(such as above) and then you would have to find a way to form a baseline of health and have a control study. Then account for a margin of error and find the statistical deviation of it.

(squirrel-kissing paper tamer) #3

Hanna, it sounds like you figured out what works for your body right now. Congratulations!

#4

For me I count both net carbs and protein grams. Excess protein gets converted to glucose and well if you are really insulin resistant (I’m HOMA-IR 3.61) it makes it harder to get into ketosis. So if I wasn’t counting protein then I’m sure I’d have to count calories as a way to help restrict the protein. But since I count both net carbs and protein, I pay no mind to calories or fat grams. I get into a nice ketosis with 15-20g net carbs and 60-70g protein.

(Robert C) #5

Hi @Snolepurd,

It takes a while to become fat-adapted and to get your metabolism up - that amount of time depends on how beat-up / slow your metabolism was to begin with.

The point is that your goal is to get your metabolism and hormones to a place where you lose weight on more calories.

The experiment you just ran says that calorie restriction works - and it does - but, since the metabolism and hormones are not fixed by calorie restriction (and in fact worsened) they weight always comes back.

You move to 1000 to 1500 calories a day to lose weight - plateau - then 800 to 1200 per day to lose etc. eventually it will be a case of another killed metabolism.

The keto way is to get metabolism raised and insulin low and naturally drop weight due to times where satiety hits (stopping food intake) and body fat is burned (due to the raised metabolism).

(Hannah Conway) #6

Im 36. I started and ended on my cycle just to be sure. I ate roughly the same veggies. I drink about 4 20oz bottles of water a day, im not sick, i dont do inflammatory foods like nuts and Dairy and i have a BM everyday religiously.

(Hannah Conway) #7

Yeah i have the same problem with protein. I was really hungry today and had boneless pork ribs for lunch and a bunless bacon cheeseburger for dinner and somehow that amounted to 260g of protein!!! Opps…:no_mouth:

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #8

Let me break it to you not-so-gently all you folks who mistakenly think eating a few grams of protein more than you absolutely need to avoid Kwashiorkor. No it does not automatically turn into glucose. That is a very outdated understanding of protein/amino acid metabolism - it’s wrong. Please stop spreading this nonsense.

#9

I am not spreading nonsense. Ready any book by Dr. Phinney, Dr. Fung and many other Keto book authors and they all say the same thing.

I’ll read the article you linked but I don’t even know this person who wrote this.

#10

I haven’t read the above article yet about protein and gluconeogenesis yet.

But let me get this straight. I am a type 2 diabetic, who doesn’t inject insulin, who went from an A1C of 10% down to an A1C of 4.9% and am waking with fasting blood glucose of 75 mg/dL and peaking at 98mg/dL (caused only by dawn phenomenon) for the day, eating 15g net carbs and 65g protein. Are you saying if I add a 16 oz steak on top of what I already eat, I should still wake with 75 mg/dL every day and not say 110 mg/dL with a Dawn Phenomenon of 132 mg/dL?

Also have you heard about autophagy? Reuse of protein. Catabalization of excess protein, say like excess skin during weight loss? When I lose all this weight I don’t want to have lots of sagging skin, I rather the protein in the skin be utilized as I lose all this weight. This is one reason I don’t go beyond 60-70g of protein, especially since that’s all we need. With the amount of weight I am losing I’m probably getting lots of protein from the skin as well as muscles (heavier people have stronger muscles than thin people)… it all comes out of everywhere at the same time as insulin lowers, including the skin. This is one reason I don’t really eat after 4PM. All the protein I ate earlier int he day (the 60g) is used up within 8 hours… so I get at least several hours of autophagy… catabolizing skin for protein.

(Justin Jordan) #11

Saying calories matter is a heretical notion here.

The extent to which they matter is going to depend on the person.

I, for instance, don’t have much if any satiety mechanism, and left to my own devices I can eat 5,000 calories in an hour. And continue to eat for the rest of the day.

That is not hypothetical. I did that last month.

And my metabolism can (apparently) rev up to match a certain calorie intake, but it can’t keep up with that. I was perfectly capable of maintaining a 280 body eating literally only meat and cheese. To lose weight, I had to cast an to intake. This is still the case.

But, of course, despite years of experience, someone is going to come along and tell me no, I was doing it wrong.

#12

My only satiety mech is to eat 15-20g net carbs and 60-70g protein. Which keeps me in ketosis from like noon until the next dawn phenomenon around 5 am – insulin levels rise due to increased cortisol to wake ya up and get ya going. I never feel hungry because my blood ketones are like 1.9-2.5 mmol/L (measured at 9 pm) every day, and body is happily feeding off adipose tissue for energy. But I have a lot of weight to lose. I don’t know what happens once someone is their ideal weight on keto… I’ve never been less than 300 lbs my entire adult life.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #13

@Jennifer72 I replied to your statement that ‘excess protein gets converted to glucose’ which is incorrect. Protein gets utilized for many things other than tissue repair and replacement, which Amy Berger describes in the article I linked. Gluconeogenesis is driven by demand for glucose, not supply of raw ingredients which can be glycerol from fatty acids as well as amino acids from proteins. Just having ‘excess’ amino acids does not induce gluconeogenesis any more than having ‘excess’ fatty acids floating around your system. If you remain consistently in ketosis, gluconeogenesis will synthesize only a small amount of glucose for those few cells and organs that need it.

Restricting protein or multi-day fasting to achieve autophagy is a different issue.

Of more concern for you with T2D would be why protein consumption seems to raise your BG. Whether or not the rise in BG is significant enough to warrant action and/or whether or not that should be protein restriction. I would be especially curious whether the BG rise from protein is really a symptom of something else. Restricting protein may reduce the symptom, but would not eliminate the underlying cause.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #14

PS: I should note also that being TD2 and/or insulin resistant to any degree complicates everything. Including ketosis, gluconeogenesis, glucose, insulin, protein metabolism, fatty acid metabolism, et al.

#15

I’ll read the article sometime soon, it’s pretty long and new. I need a break before I read it :). I just don’t know where say an extra 200g of protein goes then if it isn’t used or converted to glucose… does it get excreted? A lot via the kidneys? or stool?

(Rebecca 🌸 Frankenfluffy) #16

I get what you’re saying.

However, my own n=1 experience is that if I have a high protein, low-carb meal, my demand for insulin spikes like a skyscraper 6 hours later and for a duration of about another 4 hours.

I’m T1D, and appreciate we’re all different. But for me, a blood glucose spike/increased demand for insulin seems to be related to the supply of protein in the absence of carbs, rather than a demand for energy.

(Natasha) #17

Do you mean 260g of protein or 260g meat? X

(Polly) #18

I like the way you put this @RobC. This is why keto not CICO for me!!

(bulkbiker) #19

Have you found a difference between say fish which is high protein lower fat and say beef which has a high fat ratio?

(Robert C) #20

Thanks

This kind of post always makes me think of Dr. Fung’s quote:
“All diets work and all diets fail”

Just as with the OP - calorie restriction “works” for a short time but is not sustainable - always supplying the rebound (and probably to a higher weight).

I prefer to think of keto as not included in Dr. Fung’s quote for 2 reasons:

  1. I think of keto as a way-of-eating vs. a diet
  2. I think Dr. Fung’s point is really directed at diets that eventually boil down to calorie restriction (where keto is about raising calorie intake and measuring ketone levels)