Has anyone read this blog by Amber O'hearn? Eat Mostly Fats

(Fran adkins) #13

Believe it or not it’s true…healthy fats , low carb, LOW PROTEIN.

(Bob M) #14

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:

  • I think even if we have flat blood sugar response, some people can benefit from eating higher (animal) fat then eating lean meat, according to Amber O’Hearn
  • Some people (including me, I think) benefit from higher protein, lower fat keto
  • Some people (again including me, I think) benefit from higher protein, lower fat AND higher carbs (at least at times).
  • Protein appears for many to have a satiety effect (again, me). Fat may or may not (does not, for me) have the same effect. Not sure why or how to tell, other than to try higher protein, lower fat. My guess: exercise has something to do with this.

Anyway, I think we get lost in details like insulin/glucagon ratios, when the reality is a bit different.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #15

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).

#16

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.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #17

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.

#18

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 :smiley::sun_with_face:

(Diana) #19

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.

(Edith) #20

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.

(Robin) #21

Oh, now you have done it! :wink:
Another way to chart, measure, and track!
Thinking Putty!

#22

Yep! I often get “meat sweats” too. After I consume a lot of protein, my skin flushes and I feel warm on and off for a while. I’m certain it is connected with the protein. It feels like my whole body warms up and I want to sit in front of a fan. Sometimes my husband has asked if I was “OK” because he noticed my red face.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #23

The average daily nitrogen loss of the people studied in the experiments used to determine the RDA was an amount equivalent to 0.6 g of protein per kg of lean body mass. So the “average” 100-kilo man with 10% body fat would lose 0.6 × 90 = 54 g of protein daily. The RDA was set slightly higher than this, at 0.8 g/kg/day, so our “average” man is supposed to eat a minimum of 72 g of protein. And of course, if meat is the protein source, then he’d be eating 72 × 4 = 288 g of meat each day, or about 10 oz.

Now there are two problems here. The first is that the research subjects whose nitrogen loss determined the RDA all had quite different rates of nitrogen loss, and 0.6 is the average protein equivalent. But some of those people lost quite a bit less nitrogen than that, and some others lost quite a bit more. So our hypothetical “average” man might actually need, say, as little as 40 g of protein a day, or possibly as much as, say, 70. In the first case, the guy is going to be satisfied with less meat, and in the latter case, he’s going to need more.

In either case, our hypothecical guy is going to need an amount of fat sufficient to meet his energy needs, possibly somewhere in the vicinity of 150 g. (I’m making up all these numbers, so please don’t take these and say that “Paul said I needed, . . .”) Regardless of his protein intake, he’s probably going to need about the same amount of fat, since protein doesn’t normally contribute energy to the body, being needed for structural purposes. But if he’s eating more protein, then his fat intake is proportionally less, and if he’s eating less protein, then his fat intake is proportionally higher. Which is why I said it gets confusing to talk in terms of percentages. And it’s also why we say eat fat to satiety, because it’s an awful lot easier to let the body determine how much is enough, than to try to calculate all these numbers.

And the second complication, of the two I mentioned, is that we need quite a bit more protein than the RDA in order to thrive. The RDA should be considered the minimum necessary for survival. Richard Morris, one of the founders of this site, follows Dr. Stephen Phinney in recommending 1.0-1.5 g/kg LBM/day as a goodly amount of protein to be eating on a well-formulated ketogenic diet. Other experts recommend as much as 2.0 g/kg. But if our “average” guy is one of those people who loses less nitrogen, perhaps he doesn’t need even as much as 1.0 g/kg to thrive—and if he’s one of those people who loses a lot more nitrogen, then perhaps he should be eating far more than 1.5 g/kg. The only way to find out is if he experiments a bit to find the protein intake that makes him feel best.

So those are some (made-up) numbers in grams. Does that make it clearer?

Also, the reason I hypothesised an average man is that women’s hormonal cycles make everything a lot more complicated to suss out. It’s the price we all pay for the fact that women get to be the ones to bring new lives into the world. And quite apart from her regular hormonal cycle, there is also the fact that a woman’s protein needs go up drastically when she is pregnant or nursing, since then there is a second being involved, whose needs have to be taken into account. (And it’s not just protein, either, since the brain of a growing baby also needs a lot of saturated and mono-unsaturated fat, in order to develop properly.)

(Diana) #24

It’s starting to make sense. I find eating to satiety dangerous as even with clean keto foods I can easily eat past the full point. So I have to establish parameters to in essence confirm I’ve had enough ans should be full.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #25

I’d be curious to know how you know you are eating more than you need. What does the “full point” feel like, and why do you eat past it? Do you know? If you are not satisfied at the “full point,” perhaps it’s not the “full point”?

These are just some questions that come to mind, since my own experience is that reaching satiety is a quite definite sensation. I do find it possible (though not entirely pleasant) to eat past that point, but when I do that it is because of an emotional need to eat, not from hunger. And my weight stays stable, even if I occasionally go past the point of satiety, because my metabolism ramps up and my body starts wasting heat.

#26

It’s not just proportionally for me. If I eat more protein, sometimes I can get away with little fat (it happened once) but at least I can lower it, theoretically (tricky as more protein means more fat if I use my preferred food) - but if I eat less, I definitely need a ton of fat to avoid being hungry (definitely more calories than with high-protein and the fat grams must go even higher than that).
To my body protein seems to fit just fine into that weird calorie requirement (I need about 1500-1600 kcal from fat and protein to be okay if I do everything right. the two substitute each other to some extent, I obviously need a decent amount of protein and fat either way… but there is wriggle room). I understand protein isn’t for energy but I still experienced this many times (whenever I could manage to stray from my somewhat fixed fat percentage)…

Maybe I need more experiments… But it’s super hard for me to eat even less fat. It’s already below 150g lately and it’s a very small amount, I wonder how long I can stand it… I don’t want to experiment with high-fat, it wouldn’t be nice, very fatty food is very bad at satiating me - unless the protein is almost zero but that’s not something I like to do.
But I don’t want to overdo protein either, it’s already around 2.5g/kg for LBM now that I never get bored of meat anymore but I eat as little food as I comfortably can…
Maybe I should try OMAD where I eat less but Carnivore Quick Satiation keeps me from it.
I want to experiment though.

Oh yeah, some of us are prone to do that*… It’s not typical, it seems but that doesn’t help us.
Timing and good food choice helps me out :wink: I must avoid added fat and very fatty items as much as I comfortably can to avoid overeating (or eating at my maintenance minimum so not losing fat ever). The same with plants. And I shouldn’t eat too many times either but if I wait for proper hunger (not like I can do that…), it’s easy. But if I use these few rules, it’s pretty enjoyable, satiating and satisfying to eat just below my energy need. I feel best when I use these rules too.

*I mean satiation here, not fullness. Full means different things to different people. To me, it’s reaching my maximum stomach capacity (it’s still 2 liters, probably. I never go even close to it anymore) though I often “FEEL full”, typically when my stomach is definitely empty as my last meal was 16-20 hours ago. So I am uncertain with this word. Satiation, I get that.

#27

Nope, not for me. Carnivore can do that sometimes but not always. Without carnivore it’s never so clean. I can stop eating - or I can eat 1000 kcal more easily, I always was like that.
Sometimes it’s hard. I don’t know when to eat and when to stop as I don’t have very clear signs for either. Sometimes I do but usually not. I can get satiated and 2 minutes later hungry.

My body is the same but it’s the minority of the population as far as I know. Maybe less so on keto but probably people just don’t often overeat on it…? I definitely did this metabolism quickening all the time on high-carb, it was useful but my overeating was even more severe so I gained at a snail’s pace for decades… And now I still possess my overeating skills. I need to be somewhat strict to avoid it.

Going over satiation doesn’t mean one overeats, actually that is a very good way for me to eat less. Hmmm, just effective, not “very good” as I don’t like to do that and it’s harder when much meat is involved and that’s how I eat nowadays :slight_smile: So TMAD it is now.

(Diana) #28

So let me backpedal a bit….what I mean to say is to stick to my calorie goals to maintain a slight deficit. I know on normal days that calorie value makes me feel adequately nourished (I.e I’m not constantly thinking what else I can eat). But I don’t know if that’s the fullness point. In my mind being full is the thanksgiving feeling.

(Robin) #29

Thanksgiving feeling to me used to mean near coma. :face_with_hand_over_mouth:

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #30

Stuffed to the point of bursting is not satiety. I would regularly do that with pasta and still be hungry, even though I seriously worried about stomach rupture if I tried to cram in more (“just wan waffer-theen meent,” anybody?)

By “satiety,” I mean the feeling, “I’ve had enough,” which on keto comes when my belly is no more than half-full, near as I can reckon. I started out keto by eating portions the size of my regular carb-laden rations, until one day, in the middle of lunch, I was done, and had to put half a plate of food in the fridge till later. I had plenty of room in my belly for more; I just didn’t want any more.

After years of carb burning, it was an odd feeling. I figure my body must have been needing the great quantities of meat (and salad) I had been eating up till that point, and then felt it was time to cut back on the appetite. (We know that elevated insulin interferes with appetite control, thus promoting constant hunger on a high-carb diet.) This last Thanksgiving, I noted that I was well-satisfied with only one serving of meat and gravy, a couple of small servings of vegetables, and a small slice of sugar-free cheesecake. Historically, I was known for heaping my plate with food at least twice, and then munching on more stuff for the rest of the evening (including lots of pie, of course).

#31

My goal is being nicely satiated practically all day. This is my “I borderline CAN’T eat without mild force” state and it’s important because if I CAN eat, there is a big chance I will. It’s not safe for me to be able to eat without force when I don’t need more fuel.

I HATE being stuffed as it’s beyond perfectly satiated, it’s not so comfortable, blissful, energetic. It’s too much (even if I am just normally stuffed and could eat more).

IDK what it is as we may have other holidays (like Christmas) where people feel the need to stuff themselves but I never understand it as my stomach was just like on any other way. I still ate more but I often ate more than ideal… I just didn’t understand why Mom makes a ton of food when she eats little and I am just me on every day of the year… It wasn’t nice at all.

#32

It’s called the thermic effect of food. It takes around 25 calories to digest 100 calories of protein