This blog post by Amber O’Hearn appears to be saying that it is better to eat more fat rather than more protein if one wants to burn body fat.
I’m curious about your experiences. Since my ketones have been low (glucose in 70’s and 80’s), I wonder if this might help me burn more fat. Thoughts? Experiences?
Hope this link works!!
I recommend trying it.
For me, higher fat does not sate me. I can eat very low fat, very high protein keto meals and be sated 7, 8, 9+ hours.
Edit: For those who can follow her principles, however, they supposedly get great energy and feel wonderful.
This is individual.
If I want to burn fat, I merely need to eat little enough calories… Really high-fat definitely keeps me fat. (Extremely high-fat is special but that’s fat fast level, almost no protein so it’s not sustainable.)
What to choose, higher-fat or higher-protein? I think it depends on our energy need, protein need, extra fat mass and personal things. Some people can’t or shouldn’t stray too far from their fat/protein ratio, it’s a small range where they feel right… For me, it’s a smallish range that is realistic and even smaller that doesn’t result in overeating.
If I want to minimize my calorie intake (and still avoid starving, not like it’s a realistic danger in my life as long as I have access to food) or just to feel normal, I eat high-protein using my satiating protein sources. Adequate protein almost always result in overeating fat so I can’t lose any fat (and anyway, overeating isn’t a nice, polite, hedonistic thing to do). But it’s me, tons of people are fine with only adequate protein. Sometimes even I am but I need carnivore OMAD for that or something close to it.
Many of us experienced a total lack of fat loss on keto while eating much fat and therefore not having any need to use up our precious fat reserves. IDK how other people work, they may lose fat eating a ton of fat, I definitely can’t.
Oh another thing. I can’t eat enough on low-fat. I go over 220g protein and just… Stop. That’s around 4g/kg for LBM for me, already way too much protein for most humans to handle it well, I only reach that occasionally, I never had any problem.
I probably can go higher in extreme cases for a single day but it doesn’t feel right. I desire FAT there. But too high-fat (like, 75% though it’s surely not this simple, the grams and my needs matter too, probably even my actual preferences) just doesn’t work, I overeat to get satiated.
So it’s important to know how our body works, what are our own preferences. A lots of advice are simply unrealistic or wrong for us. There are no method right for everyone.
I will try to understand the article later, I am tired now. But my own experiences are pretty clear about what I should do.
Thank you both for responding. Her article says that eating more fat won’t interfere with your bodies burning our own stored fat. I’m not sure if I understood her correctly. 
This is from observational data. Apparently, the explanation is that the metabolism increases, so that even with a goodly amount of fat in the diet, the body can also metabolise excess stored fat as well. Part of the reason is that, in the absence of insulin (such as occurs on a low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet), the mitochondria in fat tissue actually metabolise more fatty acids than the fat cells need in order to do their job, and the extra energy is wasted in the form of heat. The body can also excrete excess fat and ketone bodies, as well.
The key to all this is lowering the insulin level, since serum insulin above 25 μU/mL inhibits the action of hormone-sensitive lipase, thus trapping fat inside our fat cells.
Please note, however, that a well-formulated ketogenic diet does not involve stuffing one’s gullet with as much fat as possible. Rather it involves eating enough fat to provide the body with adequate energy. When insulin is low, most people’s appetite hormones signal the brain to stop making them hungy once the fat tissue has taken on enough energy to last several hours until the next meal.
Thank you, Paul, for that clear explanation. I always appreciate how clear and easy to understand your responses are to me.
Ok, but if I’m eating 130+ grams of protein in a meal, doesn’t my insulin go very high? If so, why am I losing weight?
I always lose weight when I eat at a deficit (obviously, that’s how it works. I actually know I eat in a deficit because I lose fat but my tracking clearly shows I eat less than usual too), I can eat lots of carbs, they can’t stop that, the energy must come somewhere and my body definitely doesn’t slow down its metabolism when I eat well…
On the other side, if I eat too much fat (and it’s extremely easy, close to unavoidable for me), I never ever lose fat as it makes perfect sense. So many ketoers experienced the same. The carbs may be close to zero, protein may be anywhere, overeating result in fat gain - or metabolism quickening but we still lose no fat as why would we?
I am the latter unless I overeat insanely but I can’t do that without great efforts. My metabolism quickens so I maintain even longer term (I can’t know what my metabolism does directly but as I don’t gain any fat while eating much more and change nothing else, obviously that happens). But many people must eat in a smallish range or else they gain. Keto can’t do anything about it for them.
But it’s possible there are other types of people. It seems there are. It’s similar to not losing fat when eating certain items or more than little fat… Very odd, I don’t understand how the body can do it but it does, apparently.
one doesn’t try carnivore and manipulate for any reason.
one eats zc as you want every day cause that is what draws one to more fat wanted in your day or one might wanna go leaner cause your body requires it thru our heal/adaption and changes.
eat more ‘fat’ is a real thing…in that fat is the satisfying factor mostly to shut down appetite but TIME ON ZC plan come into play, you can guess you need xyz or abc but in the end…just eat as you need!
this is the ultimate factor…eat as you need cause who knows when on Amber’s plan and her personal changes does one ‘get this’ as a real deal and what they need. Don’t think that Amber’s advice is set in stone from day one this carnivore plan, it is not, it was learned thru what it took for her personally…so believe me DO yourself at all times is the best advice one can ever follow.
On ZC eat all ya want, what you want, when ya want it.
there is no denying fat is a wonderful inclusion and factor but if ‘one puts it as some kinda mantra one must’ do handling carnivore, you will lose.
key is eat what you want. all you want at all times.
after that then put more stance into what is our fat/ratio per our meat intake and more but in the end, hell most of us carnivores don’t do that…only those trying to manipulate some ‘kinda wanna be control’ to ‘do better’ thru other’s experiences ain’t gonna find what suits them ever.
another carnivore’s time non this play will NEVER be anothers so…
just thoughts
Bikman says his data show that actually, insulin does still rise, but, in a low-carb context, it is matched by a compensatory release of glucagon, as well (which does not happen if the protein is accompanied by a large amount of carbohydrate). We talk as though insulin is the only hormone involved, but glucagon is equally relevant. (They are both secreted by the Islets of Langerhans in the pancreas, glucagon by the α-cells and insulin by the β-cells. Each inhibits the other.)
In the case of metabolism, a low ratio of insulin to glucagon promotes catabolism in general, and gluconeogenesis and ketogenesis in particular; whereas a high ratio inhibits gluconeogenesis and ketogenesis and promotes anabolic processes. So it is not surprising that you could still be shedding fat while eating high protein.
I did see this too. Thanks for reminding me! I feel like I go around and around on “more fat/less protein” and “more protein/less fat” and get confused. But I did hear Ben Bikman that.
Yeah, we need an amount of fat sufficient to meet our body’s energy needs (and the easiest way to determine this is to eat to satiety). We also need an amount of protein to meet our irreducible daily nitrogen loss plus whatever structural needs our body has. The protein requirement is particularly variable from person to person, as evidenced by the various studies done to determine our minimum daily protein requirement.
My own best guess is that a deficiency of either protein or fat is going to leave us hungry. People have to experiment to determine their ideal protein intake, and from that, it should be easy to eat enough fat to satisfy hunger.
Not sure I understand your logic. Eating high amounts of protein cause high insulin levels. Your argument above was that high insulin levels cause one not to lose weight. Ignoring glucagon, what is the difference?
Glucagon is more complex. But if I’m eating a ton of protein, my insulin/glucagon ratio will be bad, at least initially.
And I’ve seen Dr. Bikman’s famous video showing that glucagon goes up, which is why blood sugar stays stable even while insulin rises. (For some of us, including me; note that Amber O’Hearn thinks this does not apply to everyone, or at least there are those who benefit from her theory benefit even though they have a flat blood sugar response to protein.)
But I think in general, it’s more complex than this. For instance, the Diet Doctor (the actual Swedish doctor) used Ted Naiman’s techniques and went higher protein, lower fat, higher carbs – and lost weight. That’s why, if you go to Diet Doctor, you see a big, recent shift to this idea, and a shift away from higher fat.
So:
Anyway, I think we get lost in details like insulin/glucagon ratios, when the reality is a bit different.
Well, as Bikman puts it, it is not so much the actual insulin level as it is the ratio of insulin to glucagon that makes the difference. He presented data in support of this claim at a Low Carb Down Under event a couple of years ago, citing a study that his research team had just published at the time. The gist is that a low ratio is supposed to promote fatty-acid metabolism, gluconeogenesis, and ketogenesis; whereas a high ratio is supposed to inhibit them and promote glucose metabolism instead.
A low ratio occurs when carbohydrate intake is low enough that glucagon secretion is not inhibited. So excess protein in a high-carb diet appreciably increases the ratio, because insulin goes up, but glucagon does not. Whereas in a sufficiently low-carb diet, excess protein does not raise the ratio, because both insulin and glucagon rise proportionately. Fat causes a negligible insulin response under all circumstances.
Does that make sense? I certainly find the notion plausible, the only question being whether the data are replicable.
If Raubenheimer and Simpson (the source of Naiman’s P/E idea) are to be believed, we have an instinct for the amount of protein we need, and we will not stop eating until that need is met. This would be the satiating effect of protein.
However, the body also needs a certain amount of energy to function properly, and eating enough fat should satisfy that hunger, which is, as I understand it, a separate matter from our hunger for protein.
So it would make sense for you, who need more protein than the average, to find a moderate protein, high-fat diet to be less satisfying than a higher-protein, slightly less fat diet. Does that not make sense? It’s hard to speak about this properly, unless we are speaking in actual gram amounts, because percentages of calories are misleading. Not to mention the fact that protein, under normal circumstances, provides no energy to the body, but rather provides structural materials (amino acids).
Isn’t there a limit to how much bile the liver produces per day to emulsify dietary fats in the gut? Due to that biological limitation the amount of available dietary fat available for absorption is limited. So, losing stored body fat comes back to how one’s energy metabolism is using and accessing body fat as a fuel source.
Bile is an aqueous, alkaline, greenish-yellow liquid whose main function is to emulsify fats in the small intestine and to eliminate substances from the liver. The liver produces 0.25-1L of bile per day.
Some thoughts:
First, how much bile is required to deal with how much fat?
Second, even if there is a limit to bile production, it seems to be quite adequate to the need, given that Phinney’s research indicates it is possible to supply our daily energy needs entirely from dietary fat, once our store of excess fat has been depleted. And of course the gall bladder is there to store bile for future use. So ensuring an adequate supply appears not to be a problem.
Lastly, forum members whose gall bladder has been removed report no difficulty with the amount of fat they consume. Some find they have to spread out their fat intake over the course of the day, whereas others find they don’t have to worry about it at all.
I was reading that circulating active Vitamin D is a hormonal regulator of bile production and thus absorption of dietary fat. More bile produced when circulating and active Vitamin D is low.
This leads me to think that it is best to have a bacon and eggs breakfast out in the sunshine. Convert cholesterol into circulating active Vitamin D, get good regulation of body fat flux and sharing, reduce any excess dietary fat absorption (that might require storage as body fat) by limiting bile production. If the body senses the stored body fat is rich in Vitamin D it will ask for it from the cells, one would hope.
Eat keto in the sunshine 
Pretty please can we break this down in grams as you noted. I’m quite curious.
I find I can keep eating protein and not be full. But in reverse when I eat higher fat, I do get full.
I keep yo-yoing with the last few pounds, goal is to lose a few more and then reverse diet to help fix my metabolism.
I just thought I would provide an interesting (well, I find it interesting) anecdote about me and meat.
I have this stuff called Thinking Putty. It’s just a putty that comes in different colors and you can play with it to give your hands something to do. The version I have is red in color and when it gets warm, it turns yellow.
I keep it in my office which is airconditioned and I am frequently on the edge of being cold when I am at work. I usually wear a sweater. When I have the Thinking Putty in my hands, I can never get it to turn yellow. Even a tiny piece will stay red. Except when I’ve had a meat filled lunch. About 30 minutes after eating a carnivore lunch, my furnace turns on and I can turn the entire blob of Thinking Putty yellow.
Yesterday, I had pork belly for lunch. I have to admit, it was a little too fatty and didn’t sit well, but I turned that Thinking Putty yellow. It seems a lot of protein or a lot of fat gets my internal furnace going.