How to compromise between keeping ketone-levels high and not losing weight?


(Erik Olsson) #1

Hello!

My name is Erik, I´m 33 years old, from Sweden, and this is my first post on the forum!

I´ve been on a calorie restricted ketogenic diet since april this year to keep a couple of (benign) tumors from growing, or at least slow them down. Having watched and read a lot by Thomas Seyfried on battling cancer with the ketogenic diet i thought i´d give it a try. I also mailed him and asked if the diet would have effect on benign tumors as well, and he thought it would. I´m doing a MRI and a gastroscopic ultrasound early/mid-january and the results will be very interesting!

As a very nice side-effect I´ve gone from 104 to 85 kg (229 to 187 pounds, I think) since starting the diet. I´ve been more or less overweight since childhood, so the weightloss is most welcome. According to Seyfried and CO, you should ideally reach a glucose/ketone-index of around 1 for the diet to be effective against tumors, but i can only reach that number while calorie-restricted, which he also points out. As of now, I have approx 7-8% body fat, and really don´t feel the need to lose any more weight :smile:.

I´ve been doing IF (approx 16/8) since the start but i am now finding it hard to squeeze all the calories in to the eating window, so i have kind of abandoned it.

I did a DXA-scan in october, and it showed the highest fat-free mass since i started doing DXA:s back in 2005, so i am obviously not losing muscle-mass (eating 80g of protein/day).

I started out around 2100 kcal/day, increased to 2500 a couple of months ago but i still kept losing weight, so now i have increased to a minimum of 3000 kcal/day, and it SEEMS to keep me from losing weight, at least so far. But it also seem to inhibit deep ketosis.

My macros are currently approx 10-15g carbs, 80g protein and min 300g fat.

I have tried MCT-oil, but I can´t say I´m very impressed, at least not by any VISIBLE results on my blood-ketones. Plus it´s expensive.

Does anyone have any experience in this situation; trying to compromise between NOT losing weight and still wanting to keep your blood-ketones high?


#2

Remember, your body will become efficient at burning ketones so although in the beginning you may have experienced deep ketosis, that will be much harder to obtain after many months.

The only way to obtain that would be to fast and then perform some cardio like a 2 hour bike ride. So long as you are producing ketones, your body is using them.


(Dan Dan) #3

I think Autophagy is what you want?

once you become fat adapted your blood ketones go down but it still induces Autophagy.

Here are exerpts from a few articles of those way smarter than me :wink:

The Main Processes that Turn on Autophagy:

  1. Fasting
  2. Ketosis
  3. Exercise
  4. Acute Stress (which includes fasting and exercise)

Autophagy: The Real Way (Science-Backed Way)to Cleanse Your Body

First of all, autophagy is a response to stress, so you’re actually going to want to put your body through stress in order to drum up a little extra auto-cannibalism.

As is often the case, short-term discomfort can bring long-term benefits. Here are three main ways to boost your autophagy.

  1. Exercise

In case the sweating, grunting, and post-workout pain didn’t tip you off, here’s a reminder: Exercise puts stress on the body. Working out actually damages your muscles, causing tiny microscopic tears that the body then rushes to heal, making the muscles stronger and more resistant to any further “damage” you might put it through.

  1. Fast

Skipping meals, it turns out, is another stressful act that the body may not immediately love but ultimately benefits from.

  1. Lower Your Carb Intake

It’s called ketosis, and it’s an increasingly popular diet among bodybuilders and anyone seeking a longer lifespan. The idea is to reduce carbohydrates to such low levels that the body has no choice but to use fat as a fuel source instead. “Ketosis is like an autophagy hack,” Champ says. “You get a lot of the same metabolic changes and benefits of fasting without actually fasting.”

The Takeaway

There’s a pretty strong case to be made that stress and self-destruction lengthens your lifespan. “It’s our ancestral and evolutionary response to dealing with feast and famine in times of stress,”

The Power of Fasting: How it Fights Disease, Improves Health, and Builds Muscle

The process of autophagy and its importance in cleansing is the main reason why some researchers are speculating that intermittent fasting can improve neuronal function and overall health in a way that is unique from any other style of dieting or calorie restriction.[xv],[xvi]

The research on fasting and neuronal diseases such as Huntington’s and Alzheimer’s is also beginning to look very promising, as fasting has been found to cause a rapid and profound upregulation of autophagy in the brain.[xvii],[xviii],[xix] The translation: This has the potential to remove toxic molecules and damaged mitochondria from your neurons.[xx], [xxi],[xxii],[xxiii]

It is also the reason why some people think that intermittent fasting can help regulate and fight against the aging process.Broadly defined, ‘aging’ refers to the biological changes that occur during a lifetime that result in reduced resistance to stress, increased vulnerability to disease, and an increased probability of death. Autophagy can improve many of these areas.[xxiv]

And the benefits of understand how to turn authophagy “on and off” even extends into the health of your muscles. That is, when you have excess levels of autophagy, you can experience a loss of muscle mass, skeletal fiber degeneration, and weakness.[xxv] In other words, you wouldn’t want autophagy “on” all the time, but you do need a healthy balance of autophagy and growth for the optimal functioning of the human body.

Remember: It’s not just your workouts that break you down and build you back up - your diet does the same thing, and this break down is just as vital to your long term health as the building back up. Here’s what you need to remember:

By allowing for growth when we eat and the autophagic process of repair maintenance and cleansing when we are fasting, we help restore a balance in the cellular maintenance process, not to mention the possible prevention of muscle loss as we age.

The key is there needs to be a balance - You can’t overeat all the time or fast all the time without expecting some sort of negative repercussions. It is the optimal balance of these processes that allows for the breakdown of damaged pieces and their replacement with new well-functioning pieces.

By allowing for growth when we eat, and the autophagic process of repair, maintenance, and cleansing when we are fasting, we help restore a balance in the body that may be a missing link in the prevention of many of today’s deadly and debilitating diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s disease, liver disease, and even loss of muscle size and function.

“May the Force (fat adaption) be with you”

IF/EF Keto WOE is Self-Discovery :wink:

Good luck and much success in your journey in IF/EF Keto WOE :grin:


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #4

How tall are you? Even if you are 173 cm, you could still afford to lose a few kilos more, perhaps.

That’s really all I can think of that might be helpful. You certainly don’t want to increase your carbohydrate, your protein seems to be at a good level, and you appear to be getting plenty of fat. The one bright spot is that at least you’re not trying to keep a malignancy at bay, although that may not be of any real comfort to you.

Have you checked out Dr. Andreas Eenfeldt’s site, www.dietdoctor.com? There might be something helpful there for someone in your position.

P.S.—I got so focused on answering your question that I forgot to welcome you to the forums! Regardless of everything else, keep calm and keto on, as we say, and please keep us posted about your progress. It would be great to know how things work out for you.


(Erik Olsson) #5

I disagree. If I keep very carb-restricted (which I obviously do :sunglasses:) and have a large calorie-deficit for a day or two, my BOHB-level will still rise to concentrations above my blood glucose, which puts my glucose/ketone-index to where I want it to be.

I have this activity-/pulse-measuring watch, and if I and have a 6-700 kcal deficiency according to it compared to what I eat, my GKI will still go under 1. But that also means losing more weight.


(Erik Olsson) #6

I´m a skeptical towards fasting with low body fat (see Richard’s Math on protein loss during fasting; http://blog.2keto.com/protein-loss/) and then trying to put the weight back on again. That would mean stuffing my face with maybe 4000 kcal worth of fat per day, which seems a little over the top… The way I see it, all four points above result in a calorie deficiency, which means more weight loss. Plus I have been intermittent fasting, excercising and staying in ketosis for 8 months now, so basically I have been doing the autophagy-thing for the same amount of time, right?


(Erik Olsson) #7

I am 186 cm tall and currently weighing 85 kg with 76 kg of fat-free mass according to my last DXA.

Regarding dietdoctor; No, not much. But i will, thanks!

And since, as you point out, there are no malignancies involved, I´m not really worried. Just curious if anyone else have been in the same situation in trying to stop weight-loss.


(Dan Dan) #8

Keto is all about stuffing your face with fatty foods :wink:

Its not necessary to restrict calories to induce autophagy :grinning:

IF induced Autophagy starts at 16 hrs and the sweet spot is 20 to 24 hrs :grin:

So a IF/Keto dense calorie WOE is very doable :thinking:


#9

While not applicable to everyone, for some people (myself included), calories effect the state of ketosis. I dunno, but it may correlate with the degree of metabolic derangement.

The value of the GKI, is it provides info about total energy (glucose + ketones). A person efficiently burning fat with low ketones readings should also have low glucose levels, thus maintaining a relatively low GKI. I think the metabolic efficiency of someone with ketones of 1.2 mmol and glucose of 65 mg/dL is substantively different than ketones of 1.2 and glucose of 115. If your FBG is high, you may have a significant amount of IR, even if you’re at ideal weight. Thus, making it more difficult to maintain a low GKI, when consuming high calories.


(Andrew) #10

That’s probably too much protein. I can only do 60g or so (and I weigh a lot more than you) or my liver has a party and starts making too much glucose. I have to go vegetarian every other meal. What’s your BG? Any clue?


(Erik Olsson) #11

How would limiting my protein further keep me from losing weight?

My fasting BG usually lies between 3,9 and 4,4 mmol/l unless i have “experimented” with too much carbs, then it can go up towards 5,0.


(Andrew) #12

In theory, eating less protein than you need would result in your liver making less glucose and you would make more ketones. Your bg is super low so i wouldn’t sweat it.

If you aren’t getting enough reduction wrt tumors, then just try fasting.


(Bwo Hoon) #13

Has anyone tracked ketone levels after certain meals? I tracked it on a 3 day water fast and kept it pretty high. But now while eating on intermittent fast
If so what you eat and how did it affect your levels


(Cancer Fighting Ketovore :)) #14

My results are usually all over the place. Last night I had good results with some teryiaki chicken and cauliflower Mac& cheese, and heavy cream w MCT powder. Glucose dropped and ketones went up. I’m doing it again today, but leaving out the chicken. Tomorrow I’ll drop the cream w MCT powder (as I’m out of that particular one)

Last night:

Today: