Does this mean fat adapted?

(Gavin) #1

Hello folks.
I started going keto about 6 weeks ago…maybe 7… and in the month before that I had done a handful of 24hr fasts.

Anyway, last night I had a cheat meal of 10 grilled chicken wings and a portion of Chinese spare ribs. The ribs were without Chinese sauce but I did use my own sauces (Nandos hot sauce and Cesar dressing) which are keto.

After hearing so much about too much protein kicking people out of ketosis, I genuinely thought that this amount of protein would have done it…nope!

Blood ketones were 2.5 about 3 nights ago and then I did a 36hr fast which ended yesterday. I ate a keto meal but was a little more protein that I typically would. Then I ate the 10 wings and portion of ribs about 6 hours after (10pm).

This morning my ketones were 1.4… so does this mean I am officially fat adapted?
Or does it mean that I can eat far more protein than I assumed?

(bulkbiker) #2

Just means that you aren’t that susceptible to being kicked out of ketosis by too much protein. I’m not either.

(Gavin) #3

Hi 5 buddy! (Uses hand that is not full of meat)

I would like to test this next time.
I’ll check blood levels prior and then…how long afterward do you reckon it would take to make a difference? 2hrs? Or just wait till morning?

Waiting till morning might muddy the test though as ketones are typically lower in the morning…if my memory serves me right.

PS: I must have eaten 170g of protein in that cheat meal… which is making me suspicious of gluconeogenesis knocking people out of keto… unless they are barely in it of course but can that really be called full on ketosis? If my ketones were .3 to .9 then I’d class that as me doing something wrong

(bulkbiker) #4

I tend to test before eating then 2 hours after and try to have a rise of 20 ish in US terms or less. I’m UK based to try for less than 1mmol/l rise which I usually manage with high protein meals because I am about 80% carnivore.

(charlie3) #5

Last Friday my employer catered lunch for all 200 of us. It was quality hotdogs and hamburgers. When I got to the front of the line I noticed a couple of the guys were showing interest in what I was going to take. I’m recently nice and lean with flat abs, unusual on the shop floor if you’re not one of the teenagers. I took 3 hamburger patties, passed on all the pasta salads and grabbed a fist full of celery and cauliflower sticks. Then I went back for a 4th hamburger pattie so I ended up eating a pound of hamburger for lunch. All I needed to do for dinner was leave the protein off my dinner salad to keep that macro reasonable. I’m sure that lunch had little or no influence on fat adaption or ketosis but I don’t try to measure them.

(Ron) #6

I have tested my personal reactions to protein level consumption and found that as my levels increase above suggested macro’s, my ketone levels gradually decrease according to the point that for me 175g+ and I no longer show ketone readings until my body processes it back to normal BG levels. This also takes longer to reduce than if it were a carb overload. The BG increase with the protein is considerably lower of an increase than what a BG carb increase would be however. Either way once the process is completed, my ketone level increase exponentially.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #7

You will see many posts, even on these forums, suggesting that excess protein is converted into glucose and spikes insulin, but now we are hearing from researchers that gluconeogenesis is driven by the body’s need for glucose, not by the supply of protein to be converted. Also, some of these researchers are now suggesting that higher levels of protein than the standard recommendation (1g/kg LBM/day) may be beneficial. It sounds as though your experiences are bearing this out.

In any case, remember that ketone meters (whether urine, breath, or blood) all measure the amount of ketones not being used by the body, so they are not entirely accurate indicators of how fat-adapted we may be. Dr. Phinney mentions some highly fat-adapted athletes in one of his studies who barely registered ketones, but who were clearly in ketosis and fat-adapted; they were simply efficient metabolizers of the ketones their bodies produced.

(Gavin) #8

Thanks for the input buddy.

OK, so since my ketones are registering in at 1.5 to 2.5, that pretty much indicates that I’m not yet fully fat adapted as my body is not yet efficiently utilising available ketones. In fact, probably not even close to it with those levels…

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

At seven weeks in, you probably are, actually. I think the point I meant to make was simply not to stress about your ketone level. You are probably right about being able to eat a bit more protein without having to be concerned about getting kicked out of ketosis. And of course, once you are fat-adapted, sliding in and out of ketosis isn’t that big a deal.

It’s the carbohydrate we have to be most careful about, in any case. Some people have a higher level of carb-tolerance, some a lower; we just need to be aware of what our personal threshold is and stay beneath it.

(Gavin) #10

Gotcha.
I’ll proceed with both eyes open and pay attention to what my individual needs might be.

Thanks