I have been eating “Keto” since January 2017. I originally lost about 45 Lbs in the first five months. Since that time I have been stalled with weight loss and even recently started gaining. I’ve gained back about 20. I’ve never really tracked what I was eating. I don’t eat bread or pasta or anything like that but I have drank some more beers lately and been eating more fruit Because of summer. I’d say I have been more on a LCHF diet lately and not necessarily Keto. I started eating this way to lose weight. I don’t really have any outstanding health problems. I guess I am wondering what the mechanisms between actually being in ketosis are compared to just eating low-carb? I have also fasted in the past but it made me very anxious, Which I know is the opposite for many people. I also feel like my depression has gotten worse the last few months, and he hears it gets better in the summer. Any help is appreciated
Ketogenic vs LCHF
Ketogenic is an ultra low-carb diet, which causes production of ketones. Ketones are produced when the body runs out of sugars (carbs). The blood glucose is saved for the brain, and the body converts fatty acids into ketones. These can cross the blood brain barrier to fuel the brain. The muscles do not use ketones – instead they can directly metabolize fatty acids.
So you can still follow a low carb diet but not be ketogenic. You do not necessarily need to be ketotic to lose weight, but it is something that people can measure through breath testing or urine testing to ‘confirm’ they are following a low carb diet.
Dr. Jason Fung
So what I interpret that to mean is that if you are eating low carb, you’re still fueling your brain with the carbs you’re eating, so your body doesn’t have to make ketones, because ketones are only actually necessary if the brain is running out of glucose, your muscles can use the fat in your diet directly.
I realize that many people make a distinction between LCHF and keto, but Dr. Phinney, who coined the term “nutritional ketosis,” does not. In his view, which I have adopted, the point of a low-carb/keto diet is to keep your insulin level low enough to permit the manufacture of ketone bodies by the liver, with the ultimate goal of fat-adaptation, or “keto-adaptation,” as Dr. Phinney calls it.
To keep one’s insulin level “low enough,” one must keep the level of carbohydrate in the diet below some threshold, a level which appears to vary considerably from human being to human being. We do know, however, that the greater one’s insulin resistance, the lower one’s carb tolerance is.
So @MiKetoAF, it appears that you have been consuming carbs at a level that is above your personal threshold. Therefore, you might want to consider cutting back to a level which will allow your body to lose that 20 lbs. again. I’d start by going back to the 20 g/day carb limit that we recommend on these forums, since that seems to get everyone but the most insulin-intolerant into ketosis. Once the extra fat has been metabolized, you could possibly do some experimenting to determine what your personal carb limit actually is.
By reverting back to burning glucose as the main fuel source your bod will replenish the depleted storage cells as well as build new ones and this will cause the weight gains as well as water retention for those storage cells that will also increase weight.
Good to know. Thank you. I need to get more strict again, despite not wanting to. I want to be healthy more than I want beer though.
I appreciate your response. For someone who is well fat adapted how important is actually being in Ketosis as opposed to just keeping insulin low? Or are they synonymous?
Once we are fat-adapted, the muscles are burning whole fatty acids, by and large, so the β-hydroxybutyrate can be saved for the brain (which can’t burn fatty acids, I believe) and other organs that prefer it.
There are mechanisms that tell the liver when to produce ketone bodies and when to stop, so I don’t think that, once the muscles are burning fat, it needs to keep on producing ketone bodies around the clock; my guess is that intermittent production would be enough at that point.
Nevertheless, it doesn’t really matter; we still want insulin to stay low, because of how it causes fat to be stored in the adipose tissue if it gets above a certain level.
I think that may be my issue. I’m eating high fat but also I’m sure eating too many carbs causing it to be stored as fat. Does that sound right?