Protein leverage hypothesis and hunger

[amwassil]

BTW, if people tell you that you smell of ammonia…

I’ve never been accused of smelling like ammonia… a few other things, though.

[Ilana_Rose]

I tried carnivore for 60 days. I gave up because I was constantly hungry

I’m carnivore and have found that my fat:protein ratio needs to be pretty high or I have the effect you described of constant hunger and easy weight gain. If I keep my meats ultra fatty I lose weight steadily on carnivore.

[PaulL]

Just anecdotally from forum members, it seems there is quite a bit of individual variation on this. Some people need a higher proportion of protein to be satisfied, while others are like you. I am in the latter group, too.

[Tmdlkwd]

Just had another DEXA today
So - so results
Sigh

I wanted a new-ish baseline
I’m going to continue with my current higher protein macros
I’m still less hungry, stronger, and not putting on inches

I want to see if I will put on more fat
Then go in for another scan in about 3 months

[RightNOW]

I like Ted’s stuff.

I’m going to recommend this video as a starting place for everyone I know who is either new to macronutrients and diet or might not have thought of things in this very fundamental, simple and concise way.

[RightNOW]

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.

The video I just posted above he quotes a few, both ordinary and lowcarb.

[RightNOW]

maybe it’s also because before you ever eat your appetite will be a reflection of what your body thinks it needs.

I have always felt that the problem with this is that our body needs different things for different reasons. For example, take someone seriously fat like me. It’s better now for me, but when I began when even larger I had much more hyperglycemia. My blood sugar would crash low after a high after eating, and then my body would be frantic for energy. I would think I was starving, I would be weak and even nauseated, and I would seek out high-energy foods because my huge body needed more energy to run it and unfortunately the last energy I ate had already been stuffed into wherever, and the chronically high insulin was keeping me from access to my stored fat. (This actually made me not eat most the time since I worked constantly and could not afford to crash into sleep after eating. So I usually just ate in the evening.) So in that case the body legitimately needs energy.

And so people will not only choose ‘energy food’ because humans are geared to consume it, not only on the (previously very rare) occasion it’s available, but because right then, at a given moment, we genuinely need energy.

Every health issue we have tends to reduce our available energy. The list is infinite. So to some degree, I think in our culture most people have bodies that want energy… a lot. It’s a legit need… even when someone has 400# of extra fat on them. In fact ironically it is probably more a legit need for that person, due to the conditions under which that body size happens, than most ordinary people. Lean people may have a smaller % bodyfat but they have access to it.

It’s just that simultaneously that much more under the radar basic human life need for protein (and I suspect, the minerals it contains, which is kind of “quietly included” in this theory) is driving us to keep eating.

What I wonder is if maybe the problem is, it doesn’t necessarily drive us to keep eating protein CONSCIOUSLY it merely drives us to keep eating, so even though it is lack of protein (or … lack of magnesium or something) that drives us to eat, we ALSO have that usual need/want for energy, too.

So most people just go get “food.” It usually has some protein (barely). MSG and umami taste-adds in processed foods even feed the tongue and brain the idea that what we need is coming, it’s just that it doesn’t happen to be there much in reality.

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.

I had thought that some of the stuff Taubes referenced in GCBC(TDD) touched on this too, in the feeding studies, where people fed high protein were all but begging not to have to eat more after very low calories, and people fed low protein could eat crazy thousands of calories a day and be up in the middle of the night wanting to nosh.

Starting yesterday, I have decided to experiment with a shift in nutrient ratio, and moved my macro avg-goals to about a 2:1 protein:fat ratio (previously it was about 1:1). I have 5.5 weeks remaining on this 13 week cycle for the experiment, to see how it goes.

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.

I find that interesting, for two reasons.

First, that videos with Don Layman, he talks about how very high protein like that in research has simply not shown any detriment, it’s simply that it shows no benefit past a certain point either, but if someone wanted to get their calories from protein instead of carbs they could.

Second, because – especially when I was larger – I have a strong ammonia shift with certain eating habits. (This is also a pH thing. Women out of pH balance will either smell like window cleaner or fish depending on which end of the pH spectrum they’re on. I’m acidic, so Windex it is!..) But even still, it is generally eating badly (carbs and junk) that does it to me. I’ve occasionally eaten well over 300g of protein a day (I have some of those even in my current 13 week eating cycle) and get none of that effect. I know it can be a side effect of too much protein, but it must also be a side effect of something else, since I’ve had it a lot over time and it was never too much protein that kicked it off.

[Shinita]

Not scientific at all but I can say it is surely individual. I’ve read many people’s stories on keto forums and we are definitely different in this regard. I always found I need my protein and calories, fat and carbs can’t satiate me without adequate protein even if the amount gets unusually high. My ratios vary, I may eat 60g or 250g fat for my adequate or slightly high protein. I don’t eat high protein as I get too full. People are WILDLY different, some people even need lots of carbs for satiation, it seems. I know someone who needs calories, macros don’t matter regarding satiety at all. Quick carbs are just as affective as protein with fat, at least short term.
Satiation is a very complex thing, there are zillion factors. I need less protein and calories to be satiated all day if I have a single meal instead of two, for example. Protein isn’t all the same, the source matters. And so on. But if everything is the same, it’s definitely protein and calories for me and not quite so for many others.