Protein v hunger help


(Prancing Pony) #1

Thanks to some great advice on here and a lot of blood glucose and keytone tracking I have found that I’m eating too much protein (spikes next day’s fasting glucose and drops me out of ketosis) And I’m pretty sure that explains my more than year long stall. I’m trying to address this but finding it hard to be satisfied on the lower protein levels.

I have tried adding fat until I actually feel a little unwell after eating but I never seem to get the saiety signal you all talk about. Is it just something I need to relearn or do you think there is something else pushing the hunger?

Thanks for being the only community I could ask that in with out feeling like a fat, greedy sh**


#2

That’s not typical?

Proteins shouldn’t kick you out of ketosis. Sure, GNG (gluconeogenesis) can convert proteins into glucose. But it can also convert fats into glucose. It does so if needed (some bodily functions require glucose instead of ketone bodies). It doesn’t typically do the conversion simply because a supply of proteins or fats exist.


(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #3

@OgreZed said it right about protein and gluconeogenesis. I also do not have reliable hunger and satiety signals. So I count calories and have determined by trial error how much to eat to gain, lose, or maintain weight.


(Bob M) #4

It’s very, very tricky to determine whether you get “kicked out of ketosis” with protein. I don’t think most people do, but maybe it’s possible. See this, where I fasted 36 hours, then exercised, then ate 160+ grams of protein in a single meal. Sadly, I did not write down my dinner. I was still in ketosis the next day. The left-most column is Keto Mojo ketones, the next column is Precision Xtra ketones, the blood sugars from from a FreeStyle Libre CGM, and there are also pin prick blood sugar results, too.

People are different, but I have not been kicked out of ketosis from protein. (A more interesting question is whether ketones are lowered by eating more protein. Alas, I cannot answer this, as I don’t have the tools to do so. As you can see, the Precision Xtra reads half the Keto Mojo, so I’m not even sure what my ketones are, let alone how they change.)


(Prancing Pony) #5

I wish the protein thing wasn’t true but I have been tracking for 45 days and if I go above 80g of protein my fasting blood glucose goes up and keytones come down and because it is repeatable with different foods but the similar macros I can’t see what else it could be. My carbs are 17g or less and the calories range from 1400 to 2000.

Thanks for your replies


(Prancing Pony) #6

I think Dr Fung talks about Insulin response to protein in Obesity Code and I wonder if I’m producing insulin when I eat protein which would effect both fasting glucose and keytones


#7

What kind of numbers are we talking about? How active are you? Do you exercise? Are you seeing/feeling any negative effects one way or the other…OTHER than ketone numbers?


(mole person) #8

I drop out of decent ketosis if I overeat protein too. In fact it’s about the same amount as you. Anything over 75 grams of protein.

I like to get my fat from the fattiest cuts of meat. I find it improves satiety and doesn’t leave me nauseated as too much rendered fats can.


(Prancing Pony) #9

On average between 50 and 80g of protein, as I said 15 to 17g of carbs and 100 to 150 of fat. 2 meals a day. I don’t exercise at the moment, because when I do my weight goes up by 2kg for a few days after and I wanted to test out my protein theory with out the weight blips. But I spend 8 hours a day on my feet working and hike about 4 miles on the weekend. I’m 5.6 and fairly muscular for a girl, I prefer weights to cardiovascular and currently weigh 108kg or 238lb. Started at 126kg or 277lb so yay me! :slight_smile:

I cook all my food, don’t snack and mainly eat meat, fat and green leafy veg. As an example, last night I had a homemade beef meatball with a large salad and mayonnaise.

The negative is I have been floating about this weight for more than a year and on the worst days it goes up a little and I have to work to get it back down.


(Prancing Pony) #10

Thank you, maybe it is a female body thing :wink: I do feel better when I eat pork belly but wanted more options than that :joy:


(mole person) #11

Here is what I mostly eat. Beef ribs, short ribs, rib eye, chuck roasts, lamb shoulder or stewing lamb, fatty ground beef, very fatty sausages and of course pork belly and bacon. However, for me the trick is all in how I cook all these things.

I had a cooking revelation when I bought and began using a sous vide. When you cook something at a very, very low temperature for a long time it becomes incredibly tender while maintaining both rareness (which I love) and all of its fat. In fact I can no longer get correct macros from using reports of cooked foods since standard cooking renders a lot of fat. I now use reports from raw meats to figure my macros.

Anyhow, what I’ve discovered is that I don’t even have to use my sous vide to get this result. I can pop any cut of meat in the oven and cook low and slow for the exact same effect. Honestly, I think that I prefer the result this way. A lot of flavor comes out in the sous vide juices and this doesn’t happen in the oven.

Also, the oven, for some reason that I don’t understand, results in better rareness at higher temperature cooking than the sous vide. So while I’d cook beef ribs for 36 hrs at 130 degrees in the sous vide I find that I actually prefer 6 hours at 150 degrees in the oven.

Eating meat fat when it hasn’t been rendered out of it’s natural protein structure massively improves my digestion and satiety.

For ages I avoided ground beef entirely because no matter how fatty the original grind was it all got delivered to my system as rendered fats that would make me feel terrible if I consumed enough, and this led to overconsumption of protein which also makes me feel crappy (not to mention that excess protein leads me to overeat in the next 12 hours and affects both my level of ketosis and physiology associated with that level such as mood, energy, and brain fog). Now I just cook a ground beef patty in the oven for a couple of hours at a low temperature and then give it a few seconds in a pan on each side to deliver the flavours of the sear. Almost all the fat stays in the burger and honestly, it’s just waaaay better.

The same applies to how I cook fatty sausages and bacon now. All the fat stays in.

Anyhow, I don’t want to write a book here about how I cook but if this interests you feel free to hit me up for more details. The same applies for anyone else.


Ilana's beef binge buster thread
(mole person) #12

Here are my macros from yesterday. All I ate was a beef rib cooked as described above at 9:30 am and 5 pm along with some gelled bone broth (I actually enjoy salty gelled bone broth as a condiment). I also had a creamy coffee at 6 am.


(Prancing Pony) #13

Thank you do much for the advice, I use a slow cooker for beef ribs and it is my favourite so I’ll try and use it more.


(mole person) #14

I don’t think a slow cooker will work. It cooks at far too high a temperature and the fats absolutely render out.

I just checked. Slow cookers cook at 200 degrees on low and 300 at high. My cooking is all at about 150 degrees or lower.


(Mame) #15

I am finding this discussion so interesting especially as it affects your satiety.
I am trying to remember if you are in Britain or in the States or…and what kind of oven you may be using… 150 degrees Fahrenheit?


(mole person) #16

Sorry, I should have specified!

I’m in Canada. I have no idea why we still use Fahrenheit. So about 65 Celsius. The oven is an apartment sized gas oven. As you may have seen from the pictures in my accountability thread I tend to load the oven with many days worth of meat to make the fuel burning more efficient.


#17

Minus testing things out, don’t be afraid of that. Many people have that response, it’s not fat gain. One of the reasons scales aren’t always the best measurement of progress. is they only see total weight and not where it came from.

Then you’re already ahead of the game because all the best stuff to recomp your body is weight training.

Been there! Normal generic rules keto took 100lbs off me, then it stopped. Adding in fasting and a bunch of other stuff that had a temporary effect then ultimately made stuff worse. I’ve totally reworked everything at this point. Sometimes the trial and error takes a while. Don’t let it get you down.


(Libby) #18

I was toting some 92 pound bags of portland cement off the truck and into the barn yesterday, and had a sudden deep and overwhelming appreciation for how much weight that is! I could feel myself getting shorter. It was such a strain gravity-wise. Kudos to you for having survived that every day all day. I am totally awed by how much of a difference that must make.


(Prancing Pony) #19

Thank you so much for your reply. And congratulations for the 100lb! That is awesome :smile:


#20

Yes, it’s something else. Not enough protein. Some people do well on lower protein, but that doesn’t mean everyone does. There are plenty of us here who have discovered that if we’re not eating enough of it, no amount of fat in the world is going to satiate us.

Also, like @amwassil I don’t have a reliable satiety signal, so I track calories. I don’t eat to a strict limit each day. Some days I’m way over, some way under. But I know that if I’m not eating at a deficit overall, then I’m not going to lose. Even on the days I’m over, having a number gives me a point to put the brakes on and really think through whether I’m hungry or whether I just feel like eating.

You could try going back to the higher, satiating level of protein you were eating and then experiment with dropping it by little bits day-by-day until you find a better balance for you.