I’m doing keto with a low protein macro - about 10% of total calories. This week I’m water only fasting from today through some time on Saturday, so about 4 days. (Sorry I missed all that support from the official ZF, it just didn’t fit my schedule at all.) My question is, is it advisable to up my protein macro for a few days after doing the fast to … I’m not sure what, I guess to provide boosted nutrition to my body as I rebuild cells, or should I stick with my ordinary macro profile?
Protein in the refeeding period after a zorn fast
Karen,
How many grams of protein is that 10% ? Have you calculated to your LBM ? As far as the fast goes, someone can correct me but I don’t think varying from the norm is needed.
About 30 grams. I know I know I know I know. But I’m 55 years old, 5’ tall, 125 pounds, female and basically sedentary. My maintenance calorie level for 125 is ridiculously low, about 1250, and I can vouch for that - at a steady 1250 and no exercise I don’t gain or lose. I’m hoping to boost my bmr by increasing lbm with some exercise, and I am experimenting with whether keto / eating fat to satiety is workable for me; at the moment the 10% macro on 1200 cals seems to be working. I’m just a little uncertain about how autophagy works and whether the body / immune building needs extra nutrients after clearing out the crap.
That level of protein is probably going to lead to some severe frailty. You should increase it.
I would still suggest upping you protein % and you can reduce fat % should you choose. As @Dread1840 suggest, your current level could be unhealthy.
Ok, I’ll take it under advisement. It would be very convenient because trying to stay at 30 is really challenging. I wanted to get fat adapted before I started fiddling with my macros, I think I’m getting close, working with fasting, tight carb and protein macros and IF to push things along.
Ummm you are 125lbs, or about 57 kilos. Let’s say 20% fat - gives 45 kilos LBM. 30 gms is 0.7 gm/Kilo of LBM. isn’t that within the window of 0.6-1 gm/kilo of LBM?
Why the panic?
I am used to lbs and they convert to 2.2 kilos so that would be
45 x 2.2 = 99
99 x .6 = 59
So the minimum should be 59g … right?
According to my nasty scale, I’m 30% body fat. I hear they’re notorious for being over and that would be nice, but for the moment I’m going with that. So 87 lbs of non-fat * .6 = 52. (Rajseth, I think it’s .6-1 per pound, 1.5 per kg.)
This diet started primarily about cancer, and the recommended macros on an anti cancer diet are different. As far as I know I don’t have cancer other than skin cancer, but three of my relatives have had cancers that started around my age. So I decided to go with a round of more intense keto and then ease up after a while. The question about fasting is because although I’m willing to go low for a while, I don’t want autophagy from fasting to break down a lot of old weak cells and then find I don’t have the ability to build healthy new ones.
But I’ll admit, my science is definitely an N=1 and I will take it to heart to do more research into what protein deprivation might do.
"In general, a ketogenic diet used for weight loss is about 60-75% of calories as fat, with 15-30% of calories from protein and 5-10% of calories from carbs.
However, when a ketogenic diet is being used therapeutically to treat cancer, the fat content may be significantly higher (up to 90% of calories) and the protein content lower (6)."