Low Fat Keto?

food
(saud) #1

Is it okay to eat low fat (60-70 grams) on Keto, or will this increase my hunger? I want to lower my fat consumption to allow myself to eat more meats and protein. Because im doing a low calorie diet (1500 - 1600 calories), eating alot of liquid fats doesnt allow me to eat alot of solid food and meats.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #2

You are no longer getting calories from carbohydrate, so they need to come from somewhere. A very high-protein diet is not particularly healthful. A ketogenic diet consists of low carbohydrate, moderate protein, and enough fat to satisfy hunger. Eat fatty meats, and cook with butter/ghee, lard, tallow, or bacon grease, and you should be fine. Avoid vegetable oils, since they can be nauseating in quantity.

Fat is not a magical keto substance, it is merely the type of food that stimulates insulin secretion the least. The idea of this way of eating is to avoid damage from too high blood sugar and insulin.

(Ken) #3

No. You should eat at least 60% of your calories as fat. It becomes your primary food source, and allows you to be Sated.

It is a common Noob mistake to think that eating lower amounts of fat will somehow be beneficial or speed up fat loss. What it does is cause both overeating and metabolic issues, actually slowing beneficial effects. Protein should not exceed 35% of calories, especially in the beginning. If in doubt, eat more fat.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #4

And note that that’s 80% of calories, not 80% of food by weight. Since fat contains over twice as many calories per gramme as fat and protein, it takes less to get the same amount of calories.

(saud) #5

Decreasing my fats allows me to eat ALOT of food, which helps me feel full and I feel like I can enjoy a full meal. But when I increase my fat, my meals are so small that I feel like I want more food so I fail on the diet.

Scientifically high protein does not effect insulin so im not worried about that. Can I get my calories from high protein while still being healthy and satiated? Why is high protein not healthy?

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #6

Protein is not generally used for nutrition. It is proteolysed into its component amino acids, which are then used for building new proteins. On a low-carb diet, a small percentage of the amino acids get deaminated and the remnants used to create nitric oxide to stabilise blood pressure and glucose (in a process called gluconeogenesis) to feed the few cells in the body that cannot metabolise either fatty acids or ketones. Since the body has a very limited capacity to store amino acids, an excess of protein can cause a toxic ammonia build-up or get wasted in the urine.

You may need more protein than other people in order to feel satiated, but it is not likely that you want to live on protein exclusively. A diet consisting of, say, ribeye steak alone, would give you roughly equal amounts of fat and protein by weight, which means you would be getting roughly 69% fat and 31% protein in terms of the caloric value. Remember that nutritional percentages are always given in terms of a percentage of total calories, for historical reasons.

Our recommendation is to eat between 1.0 and 1.5 g of protein per kg of lean body mass per day. So if you weighed 100 kg, 70% lean mass and 30% fat mass, you would want to eat between 70 and 105 g of protein a day, or 280-405 g of meat (since most meats are about 25% protein). The rest of your calories would come from fat, in the form of cooking grease, gravy, etc. When getting enough protein, you probably would find yourself stopping eating after less fat than you might think. If 1.5 g/kg LBM is not enough protein, you could safely eat up to 2.0 g/kg, but more than that is likely to be wasted.

Also, as I mentioned before, stick to the solid fats (at room temperature) and avoid vegetable oils. It’s not that hard to eat foods rich in protein and fat, that are also low in carbohydrate. If you do that, you should be fine. Do not restrict calories, but eat until hunger is satisfied.

(saud) #7

Ok thank you for replying and all the information, I will try this for a week and see how I feel…

I tried not counting calories many times and I always gain weight. I can easily overhead, specially that im 330 lbs and have binge eating disorder.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #8

A requirement for shedding excess stored fat is to lower serum insulin, which requires strictly limiting carbohydrate intake. Another requirement is not eating so little that the body thinks there is a famine going on. A lot of people on a ketogenic diet find that bingeing becomes far less of a problem, once their body sorts itself out. Dr. Virgina Ede, a psychiatrist who works with university students, finds that a ketogenic diet is useful for treating her patients with bulimia and anorexia.

(saud) #9

Yeah I can easily limit my carb intake which helped me alot. A Doctor told me I was pre diebetic, but after Keto, my blood sugar is back to normal! And yes lowering insulin helped with hunger and eating disorder issues alot, but its still an issue. If I dont count my calories I will overeat even if I feel full and satiated, I still want to eat more.

#10

Do whatever works for you. I never tried to keep some percentages, my fat intake does whatever the hell it wants as long as I eat well, feel well.
60-70g seems a bit low for 1500-1600 kcal though - but if it works for you… I understand we can’t just eat any amount/percentage of fat, I don’t have a wide possible range either and if I am hungry, I never choose fat that makes me nauseous and not satiated, I choose protein. (Fatty protein but I love fat too. It just can’t be too high in percentage. 65-70% is my sweet spot and it’s almost impossible for me to leave that range, no matter what. So I only eat adequate protein on my rare low-cal days, I often eat at least twice as much. It works well, I eat high-protein since many years and I am sure I always will. Not every day but often. But it doesn’t work for everyone and your protein intake would be way higher than mine for this energy intake and mine is already high and I will need to learn to eat fattier eventually. I can eat huge amounts of fat, I love it, it just raises my protein too…)

No one can tell what will happen with your hunger, it’s very individual. Protein helps me way more but probably the fat in my protein is okay as well…? I can’t test it, lean protein isn’t my thing. Pure fat doesn’t satiate me so I avoid that.

If you can’t even handle 50% fat, I don’t even know why you try to do keto, probably the benefits of very low-carb… If you can’t avoid low-fat for a while and need very low-carb, do this but make attempts to raise your fat intake.
1500-1600 kcal with 65% fat still contains lots of satiating protein, I know that as these numbers happen very frequently in my life :slight_smile: BUT other factors matter too. Maybe change your food choices, maybe timing if you find your food too little? Or eat more if that works for you, I can’t possibly know. [Then I’ve read you gain fat if you just eat until satiation. What if you count but raise the calorie limit a bit? For 330lbs, 1600 kcal should be super little! I slowly but steadily lost fat while eating 2000 kcal as a 160-170lbs short inactive woman - not on keto but it doesn’t matter to me. My metabolism may be a tad quick but nothing extremely quick.]

If you want a bigger meal, maybe eat fewer meals? I know it’s not always possible, I experienced that but maybe it’s an option for you… At least on some days?

(saud) #11

Thanx for sharing your experience, and yes I think ill add more fat but increase my calories to allow myself to eat more.

One last question, how do I know what 60% fat is? it says 60% of a 1600 calories is 1000, so I think im calculating it wrong?

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #12

As already noted, on keto keeping carbs very low is the most important thing. That’s what keeps you in ketosis and enables your metabolism to release and burn stored fat. I think you’ve got that.

When your metabolism consumes your own stored fat for a portion of its daily energy requirements, then you don’t feel as hungry and tend to eat less. This is normal. BUT, there’s a limit to how much body fat you can energize each day, which varies individually. Thus when you eat too little you still get hungry and feel unsatisfied. At 1500-1600 calories you are eating too little. It takes a lot of energy to carry 330 pounds around all day every day. If you don’t believe me try picking up 3 100 pound sacks of anything at the same time. Walk around with them. That’s what you’re carrying around all the time!

When you eliminate carbs as your primary energy source, you must eat more fat to replace it. Eating more protein will not, even if eating more protein makes you ‘feel full’. A low carb, low fat, high protein diet is the recipe for protein poisoning. This because it takes more energy to digest/metabolize protein than the amount of energy it contains. You may think: “That’s great, I’ve got all this body fat to use!” But because of the limits of utilizing onboard fat for energy I noted above, you will not be able to digest the protein fully. You will end up with your innards awash in partial protein breakdown products, like uric acid, and suffer malnutrition/starvation even though you weight 300+ pounds.

There’s nothing wrong counting calories if you need to use them to keep track of how much you’re eating overall and to help avoid binging. It will probably take some trial and error to determine just how much to eat such that: (1) you’re not hungry all day, although hungry before meals is OK; and, (2) you’re losing weight gradually and fairly consistently over time.

If your current primary fat is olive oil, that might explain your OP statement: “eating a lot of liquid fats doesn’t allow me to eat alot of solid food and meats”. My suggestion, as per Paul’s advice above, is replace most or all of the olive oil with solid fats, from meats and dairy. These contain more saturated fats and might help you feel more satiated when eating. Eat very fatty cuts of meat, including so-called processed meats like salami that contain lots of fat. If you can’t eat pork, look for beef/lamb sausage.

Hope this helps.

(Laurie) #13

Correct. 60% of 1600 calories is about 1000 calories. Fat has 9 calories per gram; therefore, this means about 110 grams of fat.

A gram of protein has 4 calories. So if you eat 110 grams of protein, that’s 440 calories from protein.

So, 1000 calories from fat + 440 calories from protein = 1440 calories, which leaves 160 calories from carbohydrates. Since carbs (like protein) contain 4 calories per gram, this translates to 40 grams of carbohydrate.

The usual guideline is to keep carbs below 20 grams. So you want to lower your carb intake and raise either your fat or protein (or both).

If you check the fat and protein content of keto foods, you will find that many contain more protein than fat. So you might or might not want to eat extra fat with your meats, etc. Some of us use nutrition trackers; others (like me) just pay attention to our body’s signals. I can tell when I need more food, and when I need more fat.

#14

You can, you just need to make sure you’re still getting in enough fat for your body to run correctly, fat IS an essential nutrient! When I need to loose fat, I can’t have my fats any higher than 100g.

However, if you’re 330lbs and only eating 1500-1600 you’re asking for serious metabolic problems, there is no way in hell that’s going to sustain you! Do you know how many calories it takes to just keep you running and moving around? A LOT! I wouldn’t eat ANY less than 2500 if I were you and that’s probably still lower than you need to be to loose fat. You’re going to slow down your RMR and loose muscle, which is another thing, you realize you have a LOT of muscle by default right? Muscle equals higher RMR which equals more calorie burn. Your shooting yourself in both feet at the same time!

Use this calculator, put it all your stats, when it comes up with macros just drag the carbs down to where you want them and it’ll readjust the others based on that. You never want to be drastic with your deficit. The more drastic the quicker it “adapts” and the quicker you can’t loose weight anymore. I can tell you from experience that rebuilding a metabolism is NOT fun!

(saud) #15

The calculator you gave says I should eat 2800 calories to lose weight! This would be amazing as I would feel satiated and I can easily do the diet, but I dont think I will lose weight? Because when I go a little but over my daily 1600 calories, I stop losing weight! It also says 180 grams of fat which I think is an impossible goal to reach, and will I lose weight with that high number of that?

Im low calorie because EVRYONE told me obese people can lower their calorie and still be healthy.

#16

The calculator you gave says I should eat 2800 calories to lose weight! This would be amazing as I would feel satiated and I can easily do the diet, but I dont think I will lose weight?

As long as you gave it accurate info, I’d try it. At your size you need a lot of fuel, I eat that many days and loose and I’m 5’9" at 215lbs. It’s all about what your metabolism can do. The way I fixed my metabolism was reverse dieting which is a constant RISE in calories. It’d be better to gain a little and slowly drop until you find your actual balance point than it would be to drop too drastically and screw everything up and then have to eat even less than that!

Fat is never a goal, it’s a limit. The only one you want to make sure you hit is protein. As long as you’re hitting 1g/lb of LBM in your case you should be good. Typically I’d say 1g/lb of bodyweight but as you get higher that becomes less accurate as a quick guess.

That’s because having a working metabolism isn’t part of their equation. I’d ask them to define “healthy”. They’re thinking that way under the assumption that you have enough “stored” to be ok… which you do. But that is a separate thing than having a metabolism that can’t burn much more than children sized meals without weight gain.

Mine got so bad I couldn’t loose without eating under 1000 cals a day… NOT a place you want to go!

#17

As far as I know, yep, people with more fat to lose theoretically can afford a huge calorie deficit - if they feel okay that way… It works wonderfully for some people and not for others. Sadly, it’s impossible say what is best for you…
But it’s very weird if you can’t lose fat without eating this very little. You should have a way higher energy need. But your energy need can’t guessed from your stats and activity only, there is a very big personal factor. Still. Many people weighing half as much as you (and having way, way less muscles) lose fat with eating more (I did that without exercise too)! Fat-loss isn’t all about calories, if something interferes, find that, eating this little may or may not work. I personally would decide according to my body signs but they aren’t reliable enough for everyone. So it’s tricky.

What’s the problem with 180g fat? :slight_smile: But you can choose your intake, you don’t need to follow a calculator or anything else.

(saud) #18

Honestly ive been struggling and failed with weight loss because im always hungry. I hope the information you gave will help me sustain my weight loss journey while still losing weight.

Ill increase my calories to 2500, 120 gram fat, 30 gram carbs, and the rest from protein. Does this sound good?

#19

Sounds good, prioritize protein and make the others top end limits and you’ll be good. Make sure if you gain that it’s a trend and not just a day or two on the scale. When you add 1000 cals to a day, the scale will reflect that but it doesn’t mean you’ve actually gained fat. Take measurements as well.

(saud) #20

Sorry English is not my first language, I did not fuly understand what you said… you are saying that I might gain weight at first, but I shouldnt take it seriously?

One last question if you dont mind. Because im only eating 120 grams from fat, the rest must come from protein. So I calculated my meal for tomorrow and it shows that im eating 200 grams of protein, this isnt a problem right?