Most people here are probably familiar with Ted Naiman’s approach to formulating macros based on hitting protein targets, which are on the “high” side compared to a more traditional keto macro ratio. He asserts that our bodies have a gauge of sorts to tell us to keep eating until we meet that target. And we will continue to receive those signals, even if we have eaten a large number of calories, until we consume the amount of protein necessary to quiet those hunger signals. So for example, one reason he feels there is so much obesity is because people (in places with lots of chronic illness) consume most of their energy from carbs, which are low in protein. So they keep eating until they get the signal that they’re full because they finally hit whatever amount of protein their body is seeking. He advocates a 2:1 or 1:1 protein to fat ratio depending on one’s body composition. More fat as you lean out…anyway, I was thinking about this in relation to the discussion around raising fat and lowering protein to encourage weight loss or break a stall. Wouldn’t our bodies tell us to keep eating if we intentionally dial down protein, even after increasing fat, so it gets the amount it feels is sufficient? And if that’s the case, that would interfere with the attempt to lose weight because you’d be eating more to get the satiety signal from consuming enough protein…
Protein leverage hypothesis and hunger
That’s interesting. Am I correct to assume the satiation signal occurs with each meal or not? If so, then eating to protein macro per meal would seem advantageous. For all those who don’t want to weigh and measure, I suppose they’d could eat the protein first, or most of it, until starting to feel ‘full’, then finish up with the fat. @ctviggen eats high(er) protein so maybe he has some observations to add.
I did test Ted Naiman’s theory, and I did transition to eating higher protein. For instance, if I’m still hungry after a dinner, I’ll eat ham (gotta watch the carbs though) instead of pepperoni or other high fat food. I’ll eat london broil (top round) after a workout, which is quite lean. In fact, my highest protein intake I’ve recorded was when I fasted 32+ hours, worked out (lifting to failure then HIIT), then waited until I got hungry and ate something like 1 3/4 pounds of top round. It was some ridiculously high amount of protein.
For me, I feel better if I eat higher protein, lower fat in general.
However, I’m different from Ted in that I only control my lunches and my “snacks” (meaning things I eat if I’m still hungry after dinner). If my wife makes chicken thighs with the skin on and wrapped in back, I don’t take off the skin and the bacon. We also purposely make keto meals for the family, as often they taste good and are easy to make. Also, since I ate low fat for so long, I have a very difficult time eating chicken breast without the skin. You might as well make me eat rice cakes or fat-free cheese, and then pass the gun so I consider ending it all. 
The issue I have with his theory, and particularly his P:E ratio, is that he’s implying that if you hit a low P:E (protein to energy, which by the way freaking drives me crazy, since the units don’t match!), you instantly begin to gain weight. I don’t think that’s correct, or at least it’s simplistic.
Furthermore, it’s unclear to me whether everyone needs to do this. I personally think if you’re lifting weights or even possibly just exercising, more protein might be better. I theorize also that if you’re male, more protein might be better. But I think everyone should try it and find their own protein thresholds (if such a thing exists).
His protein leverage theory, which is that if you don’t eat enough protein, you eat more overall, is interesting. Is it true? It’s super hard to tell, and there are no to few carefully controlled studies of low carb/keto people eating different protein levels. I do think that if you eat more protein and, say, your morning blood sugar goes up, might that be a good (not a bad) thing? Maybe, especially if you’re active and exercising a lot, your body wants a higher morning blood glucose, and you were previously starving it of protein (or not eating as much).
I know that I can eat a high protein, low fat meal and not be hungry for many hours. But what if that’s all I ate (and did not compensate most nights with higher fat dinners)? And what if I calorie matched my meals and varied the fat content? Would I find a range where higher fat (but maybe not really high fat) would mean the best satiation? I’m not sure.
You may be right Erin, maybe it’s also because before you ever eat your appetite will be a reflection of what your body thinks it needs. I did see some science behind the Nieman approach. Many write him off as not having a scientific base, just his own n=1 but this seems to back up his ideas. Peptide YY is secreted in the gut in response to protein consumption and sends a satiety signal to the brain. This isn’t emphasised in keto as much as fat being the signal sender for satiety. I read fat and carbs do send that same signal to a lesser degree than protein. 
The protein-leverage hypothesis is the brain-child of Raubenheimer and Simpson:
@David_Stilley it’s of course more complicated when you’re referring to someone eating a LCHF diet, since there won’t be the kind of excess energy consumption if one were overeating carbs- you can still overeat fat but not like you can carbohydrates (or more accurately a combo of carbs and fat characteristic of a SAD). I have found I tend to keep eating in an attempt to “fill up on fat” when I’ve tried to “moderate” protein in the past. My satiety is much better when I just eat fatty protein to satiety. One definitely becomes more in tune with listening to what the body wants when you’re metabolically healthy. I find after years of eating this way I don’t always eat all the fat on say, a ribeye, but I also don’t like chicken breast or lean cuts of beef. I tend to gravitate towards more of a 1:1 ratio. And I’m very lean and active. I’m not sure how I’d feel intentionally upping that to a 2:1 ratio. I’m afraid I’d be less energetic since I need the fat from my diet to fuel my activity since I don’t have much body fat to draw on…
@PaulL these are excellent articles!! Thank you! I’ll read through them, it seems there’s some consensus on this issue, I’m also curious about the effects of hitting the upper limits of protein consumption in the case of a PSMF, Nutrient Optimizer, etc. where it’s recommended to target up to 40% energy from protein
Between fat, protein and carbohydrates, fat is going to make you more satiated than the other two.
Your body is most likely not going to want to store fatty acids, you would have to eat an awful lot of it while in ketosis to be stored as fat again.
Protein will still make glucose and insulin will be their to clean up the left over glucose[1].
Naiman is a height and waist ratio observer but ignoring skeletal muscle volume ratios will almost guarantee you will not lose any weight no matter what you eat, it will always be about the amount of all three calories (portion size?) in contrast to skeletal muscle volumes in different peeps which is difficult to measure but not impossible, it is when you can see muscle definition on a persons body, you know they are burning up carbs faster then they are storing them…lol
The keto advocate peeps who are extremely built and very muscular are sitting their preaching on their videos ‘to eat this or eat that and you’ll look like me,’ could be sitting their eating bags of chips, candy bars, ice cream and McDonald’s Big Mac’s before making their beloved keto videos…lol (in reality they could do this without consequence because they are big enough in skeletal muscle volume to handle highly concentrated carbohydrates up to a point)
References:
[1] Protein: requires insulin for metabolism, as do carbohydrate and fat, but has minimal effects on blood glucose levels. In well-controlled diabetes, large amounts of protein have the potential to contribute to glucose production, minimally increase blood glucose levels, and require additional small amounts of insulin. …More
@ctviggen I was listening to a podcast recently (I can’t remember which one…) where someone eating a carnivore diet was discussing why it’s more beneficial to target a higher fat to protein ratio to keep blood sugar on the lower side. This person wasn’t particularly active, just doing some weights occasionally, so I imagine targeting the lower end of protein requirements wouldn’t matter as much. For someone that is very active, and has larger amounts of LBM and lower body fat stores, I can see the argument for both higher protein to fat and higher fat to protein ratios. I personally am more of an endurance athlete, and do anywhere from 5 to maybe 12 hours of running/cardio a week plus strength training (functional strength training with a TRX mostly rather than CrossFit/Olympic lifting stuff). So my activity is largely fat fueled and less glycolytic. However, I have high amounts of LBM and very little body fat. So, it is very important that I get sufficient fat from my diet since I cannot draw on much from my stores to keep things running in between meals. (Usually eat within a 4 or 5 hour window every day) If I eat a higher protein to fat ratio, how does my body partition fuel vs if I eat higher fat to protein? If I eat more protein will more of my energy be coming in the form of glucose from gluconeogenisis, even if I’m not doing glycolytic exercise?? I’m not sure how to tell…
Most adults need about 2500 calories a day, and 2500 x 40% / 4 works out to 250 g of protein a day, or over two pounds of meat. That much protein courts ammonia toxicity in a lot of people, according to a post I remember of Richard’s, in which he figured that 3 g/kg of LBM was about the safe limit.
@atomicspacebunny you always make me smile!! Personally, even if I stay highly active, and having as much LBM as I do (at least relative to my frame/gender), I will most certainly gain fat if I eat a bunch of carbs. One of the biggest reasons I started keto so many years ago was to mitigate the double whammy of having the genetic predisposition to develop T2D along with a strong family history…the women on my mother’s side are also quite heavy and I struggled with being heavier as well when I was younger. LCHF has been wonderful for keeping me healthy and making it easy to get and stay fit as well. But I do need to be careful with carbs and even lots of extra fats if I want to stay relatively lean. Men seem to have more wiggle room, but I am not so lucky! If I care to see my abs and have good definition in my arms I gotta stick with a template of fatty meats and veggies and some fruit/nuts occasionally…which in all honesty isn’t all that difficult
Funny how things keep cycling back to the multi decadal concept of the 60/35/5% Paleo Macro. If people would actually take a piece of meat, add a piece of fat half the meat’s size, then eat them together things would be fairly obvious.
I’m planning on testing this, high P for two weeks, then high F for two weeks. My money is on the high P. Will try to start next week. May go carnivore to limit carbs.
I’ve heard a few keto doctors now say that they can tell when their patients are overdoing protein because several of the markers of insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome begin to trend the wrong way. High fasting glucose and increases in HbA1c are two such markers.
Let’s do some calculations. According to my last DEXA scan, I had about 127 pounds of LBM. Assume I’ve gained about 5 pounds since then (which was last year about this time). 137pounds/2.2 kg/pound = 62.3 kg. 62.3 * 3 = 186.8 grams of protein.
This shows data from one day:
Just the meat for my “blunch” was about 167 grams of protein. This does not include any protein from the cheese, only the meat. This is in one meal. I did not write down what I ate for dinner, but the total amount would be well beyond that limit.
The left most column (after the time) is Keto Mojo ketones, next is Precision Xtra ketones, next Ketonix next blood sugar from a CGM (Free Style Libre), next are pin prick blood sugars (which meter is used is written in the notes).
I have never had any issues with ammonia toxicity that I know of.
BBS=body by science (slow lifting to failure), HIIT = high intensity interval training on a treadmill.
I’ve been testing myself for the last four years. I have not noticed any increase in fasting blood sugar over that time. This isn’t all of my data, but this is a lot of it:
My latest results (at home) had HbA1c of 5.1 and blood sugar one time of 112 and another of 97, both morning.
My actual test results do not show any detriment to higher protein.
And I have THOUSANDS of home samples to back this up.
I tried carnivore for 60 days. I gave up because I was constantly hungry, over eating and putting on fat. Carnivore is great for me except for that.
Protein, or meat?
BTW, if people tell you that you smell of ammonia, it means that your urea pathway is overloaded and you are courting a toxic ammonia build-up in your bloodstream. That could ruin your whole day.