Is a calorie deficit really required on a ketogenic or zero carb diet?

#1

Discussion Point

Is a calorie deficit really required on a ketogenic or zero carb diet?

Test

For the past four weeks I’ve eaten a surplus in terms of calories on a ketogenic diet. I have pounded my body with steaks, burgers, chicken breasts, bacon, ham, etc. and I know without a doubt that I ran an ongoing surplus during this four week period.

In order to ensure I wasn’t getting any insulin spikes I cut out anything with artificial sweeteners for the same period of time and stuck to drinking water. It was tough but I didn’t want something like aspartame or stevia to possibly interrupt things.

The only exercise I’ve done during this time is lifting weights and some short walks. I spend most of my time working in an office.

Outcome

  • During this time I’ve continued to lose weight and also add lean tissue to my body
  • During this time I also experienced a lot of diarrhea (don’t usually experience this)

Questions

  • Was my body dumping the excess fat I was feeding into my body rather than storing it?
  • Was my body dumping the excess protein I was feeding into my body rather than storing it?
  • Does the body dump excessive energy when there is no instruction to store it for later? (insulin)
  • Does the control of insulin levels remove the need to maintain a calorie restriction?

Other

Could it be that fruits and other high carb/sugar foods were used during hunting days to not only fuel a hunt but to spike insulin to tell the body that once food (animal fat/protein) had been located, to store some of it? And that the entire purpose of such foods was to trigger such a response to help build fat reserves to utilize as energy until the next hunt?

This is just speculation. It’s just interesting to me how I’ve been pounding food like there’s no tomorrow and yet I’ve still lost weight, put on muscle mass, and feel great other than having more trips to the bathroom in one month than I had in a lifetime beforehand.

(Dan Dan) #2

It is most likely you do not have the right gut flura (bacteria) :thinking:

Taking a prebiotic with a probiotic increases the frequency of bowel movements, and improves stool consistency :hushed:

Eat sour Kraut or pickles in addition to your veggies :yum:

Quick fix Eat Plain Yogurt and Black berries :yum:

Another problem is too much saturated fat which can cause too much bile :astonished:

:slightly_smiling_face:

(VLC.MD) #3

How much food ? How much weight ?

Some people could lose weight with excess calories. Many cannot.

#4

I started tracking in the second week so I only have three weeks worth of data at this point but will continue on with it as it’s pretty interesting to me.

In terms of calories, I’m eating between 3,500 and 5,000 per day.

weight
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(Ken) #5

IMO, you’re still very much in an adaptive state. I experienced much the same thing my first two years, but I was massively obese. I ate like a horse but continued to lose fat. I often even had a piece or two of fruit once I got hungry in the late morning, but ate meat and fat (65/35%) when eating again in the evening. Eventually, I plateaued and had to restrict food intake, always simply by not eating until actually hungry. I did eat fibrous veggies, this may have prevented loose stools.

(Cathy) #6

Keto is not a calories in/calories out concept. It is however, a plan to eat to your appetite so the question that I would have is, are you doing that and discovering that you need that much food to feel satisfied?

Weight lifting may also figure into the equation as it presumably builds muscle which likely raises your basal rate.

I would add that people often find that they are actually eating less (calories) once adapted but that is mostly because the carbs that had been part of the diet were driving appetite. Once those carbs are no longer at work, a person can learn that the amount of food is actually less than prior.

(OM) #7

It doesn’t work for everybody. My husband is 6’ 3’’, 216 lb and he is trying to lose another 20 lb. He usually eats at 2000 calories per day but lately he started to feel tired and cold so we increased the calories to 2600 for the last 2 weeks. Now he says his belt started to get snug where it was loose previously.

(Ken) #8

Perhaps rather than an increase in daily calories, he should just add in periodic Carb based meals. He could eat carbs on one or both of the weekend days, but eating them at a maintenance level. If he’s training, he could go for a full glycogen recompensation. He needs to experiment, he’s experiencing one of the symptoms of a starvation response. IMO, he should alter things periodically, rather than chronically.

#9

Nice topic, I have been wondering about this myself.

I wonder if the difference is in overall body weight, and once you start getting to a lowered BF% / BMI you may need to ‘crack down’ to maybe bust through a plateau? I definitely found when first starting keto that just by limiting carbs (and by rights, controlling insulin) the weight came off really easily.

Judging only on your BMI # in your table above (thanks for sharing! nice data!), looks like you might still have some body fat to lose? Could be an explanation.

For me… I’ve plateaued" for a few weeks, I’m wondering at what stage it becomes more necessary to have a caloric deficit to continue to see changes in BF / weight… but also, at what point would one’s rate of muscle gain balance out body fat loss?

This is where people usually step in and say ignore the scale, use other measures etc… but humour me please?

As an example we can discuss, assume we have “John” with base metabolic rate of 2000 kcal per day… and John consumes enough protein let’s just say 100g or so for lean tissue sparing. The remainder of John’s kcal requirements come from fat, consumed up to his 2000 total daily requirements.

I believe means John would not lose any body fat here, as his energy needs are being met by his diet.

Where I’m unclear is whether any new muscle being built would have an impact, perhaps it would slowly get packed on and increase the base metabolic rate up to say 2100 kcal / day. Daily energy consumption continuing at 2000 kcals would cause 100kcal deficit thanks to the new muscle, and some body fat energy (~100kcal worth) would be used to supplement dietary intake (2000), and as we know 3500 kcal is 1 lb of fat… in 35 days John could lose 1 pound of body fat, but harder to tell how much muscle he built in that time as well, probably showing no change in the scale?

This still would mean that metabolic rate is the driver of FAT loss, and as we gain muscle mass our caloric requirement increases. If our diet doesn’t supply enough caloric energy (let’s again assume 100% fat after all protein needs are met) then our body should be pulling from body fat.

So in the same example, if John reduced his fat intake to have a total of only 1500 kcal coming in, will his body pull 500 kcal from body fat? Or would his metabolism slow down instead (the nightmare situation).

Sorry… this is just such a gray area for me and anybody with links / info on what happens at ‘maintenance’… ie: does your body re-adjust itself to have more muscle? Strategies to ensure we aren’t restricting calories too much to drop our metabolism (last thing we want to do).

I just plugged in my numbers to the keto macro calculator with a 15% deficit… and want to know if I will just be damaging my metabolism (slowing it down) by following what sounds like essentially is calories in vs calories our, just without carbs. Is that what fat loss on keto is actually? ie: CICO is correct, but the carbs are what screws everybody up?

Help! :smile:

(Liz ) #10

I want to mention that if you spread the 1500 calories over a whole day, eating every two hours say, then you will constantly be spiking your insulin preventing access to body fat, & possibly slowing your metabolism, getting that “starvation effect”.

If you eat your 1500 calories in one (or 2) meal(s) & fast the rest of the time, you allow your insulin to drop so you can burn the extra 500 calories you might need for energy from body fat, & your metabolism stays humming.

So I don’t know for sure how important calories in turns out to be, still figuring that out for myself, it seems to be a bit different for each person, but I know for sure that WHEN you eat however many calories you’re going to have is super important.

#11

Thanks - I understand the spiking of insulin at meal times prevents the body from using its own internal fat stores (so eating in a time restricted window is ideal for accessing body fat) I can’t wrap my head around the point our bodies may start slowing metabolism down due to lowered daily caloric consumption.

Is there a limit to how much fat energy the body can access in a given amount of time? ie; 100 kcal / hour of fat?

Another thought experiment, if one consumes enough protein in 1 meal to handle your lean tissue requirements, there should theoretically be no need to consume any fat (or carbohydrate) as long as your body has sufficient body fat to supply your remaining energy requirements.
ie: John consumed 100g calories of protein (equal to say 1000 kcal of calories for example) to support his lean tissue requirements, and relied on his body fat to supplement his remaining 1000 calories (overall 2000 kcal daily need). Would John be able to pull all 1000kcal from fat or would his metabolism slow down?

Or is there a minimum dietary requirement based on body fat % remaining that you one should keep to ensure your metabolism does not slow down?

The insulin piece and time-restricted eating / IF seems key to allowing the body unhindered access to its ‘virtually unlimited’ energy available in body fat, and I know in water fasting all of your energy requirements are met purely from body fat breakdown, but understand that after ~72 hours you begin to experience modest metabolic rate reductions.

(Liz ) #12

So @richard has a calculator he’s posted re: max amount of calories accessible from burning body fat & it’s finite. Also it’s a percentage, so the more fat you have on your body, the more calories you can access. Which is why thinner folks might feel lousier fasting.

My guess is the minimum number of calories you can consume before you start slowing metabolism is highly individual. But it’s a great question! Thanks for laying out your thoughts, very interesting.

(Richard Hanson) #13

Over the holidays I ate quite a bit more food, all keto, than was my norm. I indulged.

More fat, more keto coffee, more protein, and more good red Wine.

12 more pounds as well,

Calories in / Calories out has an impact, at a minimum for my personal n=1, but energy balance is not the only factor, likely not even the most important variable.

Keto for Life!

Best Regards,
Richard

(jilliangordona) #14

This will almost always happen at first, but if he were to give it more time, his metabolism will rev up and drop the weight that was gained. Bodies do NOT want to gain weight, it just takes some time for the body to realize the surplus is here to stay, and they begin up to rev up making more hair follicles, keeping the body warmer, etc.

#15

Interesting… So a newly “thinned” person with say only 20 lbs of body fat is only be able to supply a fixed # of calories from body fat… Difference would need to be made up by dietary intake or slowing of metabolism.

Earlier in this individual’s weight loss journey they may have had 40lbs of fat mass to pull energy from and fasting alone could have at that time supplied all caloric needs.

Anybody have a link to this calculator? It would help me with how much energy I could pull from my current body fat, and help me decide a maximum caloric deficit so I don’t exceed what my body can provide via body fat burning alone.

This would also demonstrate most weight loss calculators simply using cico (ignoring what your body fat can contribute to your daily energy needs) to achieve a set weight (xx kg) by certain date (8 weeks in future) are setting you up to fail if you actually don’t have enough body fat to lose! ( Ie: there is a threshold where one’s body fat level can’t supply you with the daily energy expenditure and that’s the point cico restriction type dieting will fail if too aggressive.)

(Liz ) #16

Here:

Yep, and calorie calculators that fail to factor in insulin levels affected by meal timing & carbohydrate percentages will always fail.

#17

Liz already posted the link but the short answer is 31 calories per day per pound of excess body fat.

Dr. Jason Fung explains all this very well IntensiveDietaryManagement.com, read the blog from the start.

If your insulin is not low you cannot access stored body fat no matter how much you have, when it is low you can and then assuming you have enough, your body supposedly does not care whether it is coming from stored fat or olive oil

(Rob) #18

Over feeding of fat in metabolically healthy people on Keto seems to echo your results - no weight gain even though they took in an extra 2000kC of fat (butter and olive oil) a day for 3 weeks - so in that experiment your theory on the body’s self regulation of fat usage vs disposal would seem correct.

#19

This is where I believe the info I have on fasting falls short of the complete picture.

Assumption: we have full access to body fat stores all 24 hours of the day thanks to minimal carb intake and insulin at a low point (for many, we likely don’t have full access to body fat but let’s continue assuming we do).

So 2000 kcal required daily. I have 30 lb fat so my body “can” supply 30lb @ 31kcal = 930 kcal.

So, now I fast.
That means my body needs 1170 kcal from diet. If fasting, it gets none of this energy so we would expect metabolic slowdown… Where else can the energy balance be seen unless other energy is being used in addition to fat burn?

Does energy from glycogen stores add to your daily caloric “consumption”?

(Liz ) #20

Jason Fung explains that there is no metabolic slow down while water fasting, in fact the metabolism speeds up. This may have diminishing returns over the course of many days, I see mixed information about that. But there is a complete difference in metabolic reaction between eating some calories and eating no calories.