Study where healthy men burnt more calories eating low protein, high(er) fat

(Bob M) #1

https://www.nature.com/articles/s42255-025-01236-7#Tab3

This is from Nick Norwitz’s substack.

An interesting study, where healthy men (it’s almost always men…) ate lower protein, high fat (but also lower protein, higher carb was studied), and burnt more calories per day while losing weight. Like 500+ more calories per day.

NOTE: what’s a high fat, low protein diet is only 50% fat and still is 40% carbs. So, if you’re eating 2500 calories per day, that’s 1000 calories of carbs, 250g of carbs. Not anywhere near low carb.

Nick tried this himself, eating low carb and high fat, and ate more while losing weight.

Some of them ate lower protein, higher carb, lower fat, and they also burnt more calories on this diet.

It’s a long study, and they use MJ instead of calories, and couch everything in percent.

At some point, I may try this. Not sure I could do this for 5 weeks though.

(Ohio ) #2

I only do carnivore under ideal circumstances. I’m a fan of nut butter mixed with coconut oil. Or just random tablespoons of coconut oil. This isn’t surprising. I feel better with generous amounts of coconut oil.

(Bob M) #3

Coconut oil doesn’t cause any digestive issues? I find I can eat some of it, but too much, and whoa. If you don’t get that, coconut oil is a good choice.

After further introspection, this study is another reason why I’m not fond of Nick Norwitz. Initially, I thought it was interesting that men were able to burn more calories. But then, I asked myself how I apply this to myself. And I can’t.

For one reason, I’m not going to eat 200 grams of carbs in a day. For a second reason, if I want to keep my protein at 10%, that means I’ll be eating about 90% fat. That’s really hard to do. I’ve tried just a generic high fat diet, and I did have a benefit – it seemed like I had more energy. On the other hand, I can’t stomach certain fats. I find I can eat pork fat, but it has to be from well bred pork, not huge farm raised, corn-fed. I can’t eat beef suet. I can eat butter. But that’s a limited number of fats, and the study was for 5 weeks.

Plus, if you eat 10% calories from protein, and eat 2,500 calories a day, that’s only 63 grams of protein. Consider ribeye steak (which I can no longer afford, but it’s the fattiest steak):

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8 ounces of ribeye is basically your entire day’s protein.

This is like a fat fast, which I MIGHT be able to do for 2-3 days, but there’s no way to go longer than that.

Many of Nick Norwitz’s studies are like this: they don’t really apply to me.

(Ohio ) #4

Not to my recollection. I can see why it could cause GI issues, since it’s antibiotic. However I feel the gut needs a good lining of fat in it. It’s not too uncommon for me to consume around 5-10 TBSP in a day.

I always go ribeye over loin because of the fat:protein ratio. Except today. Loin was on sale.