Eating More than Protein Goal - How Bad Is This?

#1

What happens if you blow by your protein daily macro goal? A lot of folks mentioned that protein is a goal and fat is for satiety. But if I eat too much protein, will I screw this whole thing up?

FWIW, my fat goal is 169 and protein is 100. I guess I had way too much protein today (a protein shake for breakfast; leftover chili for lunch; filet mignon for dinner with some cauliflower mash and spinach). Myfitnesspal is infuriating because there’s so much conflicting data, but I think I ended up around 143g fat and 136g protein.

Let me know how bad this is in general, and what the ramifications are for going over my protein goal.

Thanks!

(Roy D) #2

Different people have different tolerance levels.The amount of protein that is best for you can only be determined by you, and if you are achieving your goals/objectives.

Not everyone using keto for the same objective. Some use it for weight loss, some for body building, some for endurance training. (BTW, the Atkins Diet (which is close to the keto diet) is low carb, but has higher protein goals.)

My recommendation is to continue to track your macros (and calories), and see if you are achieving your objective. If you are not achieving your objective(s), then make adjustments as appropriate.

If all else fails, just Keep Calm and Keto On (KCKO)

(Sarah ) #3

In general, high protein ican be hard on the body. For some people with very insulin resistant type 2 diabetes, it also interferes with their metabolic health, but that’s not the norm. But the problems generally only start with much higher amounts of protein. The real issue is that the body needs some protein every day to repair muscle and tissues and such, but feeding it more is just extra work since the body can’t really do anything with it, just break it up and are it as fat. And the process of doing that, creates waste products that are hard on your kidneys in high amounts. Plus can mess with your insulin levels. Plus you are taking away from your consumption of other healthy foods that you do need to be eating, like fats fiber viramins minerals etc…

So part if a healthy diet is eating things you enjoy, and your body can generally handle some excess every now and then. Humans are incredibly flexible, in how they can digest so many different things. But in the long run, sub optimal, or very sub optimal eating, day in and day out, will catch up to you. Which is probably why you are doing keto in the first place.

(Stan Brooks) #4

I honestly can’t figure out the protein marcos. It worried me until I decided to just start weight lifting at the gym a couple of times a week.

I figure if I am getting too much protein I might as well use it.

(Rob) #5

You are unlikely to ruin things though you may slow things down. If you are just starting the major thing is to fat adapt and starving the body of carbs in job 1 which you seem to be doing.
As you get a little further in (if you are in the startup phase) you might want to consider Intermittent Fasting soon at which point you might want to give up the shake and breakfast in general. This would slash your protein totals. Shakes are processed food and usually poor quality nutrition regardless of the label values.

I do 2 meals a day most days and this is vital in controlling the protein, so I can have a fair amount in each meal and not go too high. The thing that trips me up is when I do lean meats (like chicken… even with the skin) and I end up with more protein than target which seems to correlate with a stall in weight loss (though I can’t prove it).