Why do I need to eat fat on a Ketogenic Diet?

[Mnketo46]

I naturally cut back on calories once my body was ready to do so. I certainly didn’t force it. I didn’t track macros or calories during the majority of the fat loss phase. If I were to guess I was in the 1400-1500 range. I’m easily above 2000 cal per day now and I’m weight stable. I don’t track anything nowadays. I just know what’s good for me and what’s not and I stick to that equation for the most part.

[Mnketo46]

I just noticed your join day. Jan 10. That was one day after I started my keto journey.

[Regina]

Just my 2 cents. When I started keto I was desperately trying to eat enough fat, and going to ridiculous lengths to do so. I finally said enough is enough. I started tracking at around the three month mark, and I have found that when I let my appetite be my guide, I only achieve about 40 to 50 percent of my fat macro daily. I eat a bit over the protein, though. But I am at maintenance weight and I truly believe it started happening when I stopped eat fat for fat’s sake.

[DavidG]

Yes. I have started keto, and fallen off multiple times since then! Its refreshing to know that had I stuck with it, I might be where you are now. I have fallen off the proverbial horse multiple times, but I keep getting back on. It is just hard to stick to the diet, when you aren’t loosing weight. If I was dropping something reasonable like 1-2 pounds a week, I would be fine, but… its so hard to eat keto, instead of eating all the carb-rich food like pizza, rice and beans, burritos, quesedillas, etc… when you aren’t loosing weight! That has been the thing that continues to derail me.

[DavidG]

Thank you for your answer! I think I am going to have to do something similar. I think 50% fat is doable, and I don’t understand why that wouldn’t work! What was your calorie intake at more or less???

[Regina]

I’m 5’4", 114 pounds - and I am eating around 1300 calories a day. I eat twice a day, maybe one “snack” for lunch. My fat comes from bacon, blue cheese dressing, and a fatty pork chop at dinner. I eat cheese, too. No matter what chronometer tells me, that’s plenty of fat, in my opinion. Actually yesterday I was at 60 percent. I would have to stand on my head to get to 100%. (When I started I was doing all of the above plus eating sour cream out of the tub and drinking heavy whipping cream. Wish I had started out tracking more than just carbs.) I have loved fat my whole life, but somehow thought it all had to be doubled when I started keto. You have to experiment to find out what works for you.

[Mnketo46]

If pizza and burritos are your jam give fathead pizza dough a try. Had some this past weekend and it was pretty awesome. You can use the dough for many things. Just keep in mind that it “all counts”. Eat when you’re hungry. Don’t eat when you’re not. This is definitely not a place for a lack of discipline. Keep your eye on the prize. A healthy metabolism should be the goal. Weight loss may be a side effect as it has been with many of us here. With that may come a more flexible diet. I emphasize “may” because everyone’s damage is different. It’s up to each of us to identify our limits at every level and live within those restraints.

[LeCheffre]

My issue is that since I am not loosing weight, I will have to lower my caloric intake. I’m figuring out macros, but since my overall calories are going down, so will my fat and protien, but I want to keep my protein intake around 100-120 grams per day, since I am lifting weights, but its hard to maintain 60-80% of daily calories from fat, while keeping my protein up, and my calories down.

A: Caloric deficit may not be the answer. Sometimes, overfeeding is. It amazes me how few people try overfeeding as a stall breaker, given it’s effectiveness. It’s counter intuitive, but it frequently works to reset your metabolism to a higher basal rate.

B: So, maintain your protein, keep carbs low, and reduce the fat. No one can make you stick to 80% fat, or even 60%. I generally hit 55-65% fat. I have to really think about it to hit higher than 65%.

Keep it simple.
A: Control carbs.
B: Prioritize Protein.
C: Fill with fat.
D: Skip seed oils.

That order. That level of importance. The carbs are the most important thing. The caloric deficit doesn’t generally matter at the onset. And the scale is a one note liar. Your weight is more complicated than a single weight number.

[Ilana_Rose]

You have to stop thinking in terms of percentages. It’s what’s causing you to be confused. You want to get less than 20 grams of carbs. You want to meet a protein target. You mentioned 100 to 120 g per day, that sounds very reasonable. Then you want all your remaining calories to come from fat and you don’t want to be hungry and needing to snack a lot. The percentage doesn’t matter as long as you aren’t hungry all the time. The 70-80% number is what you should be having on Keto if you are in maintenance (already at your goal weight) or at the beginning of a Keto diet when you are still trying to become fat adapted. So look at your macros in grams not percentages.

Here is an example. Let’s say your macros say 20g Carbs, 100g protein, and 110g fat.

You should be reading that as:

No more than 20 grams of carbohydrates.
Try to hit that 100 g of protein as closely as possible.
Add as much fat as needed to not be hungry between meals up to 110g. This is not something to TRY to hit. Only have this much if you find you’re hungry for it. But it’s important not to UNDER EAT if you’re hungry. That leads to your body shutting down metabolic processes in order to hold on to fat. You don’t want that. So listen to your body.

I hope this helps.

[Callisto]

generally when I use the urine ketone strips the paper turns anywhere from medium pink to maroon, so it would seem I am in ketosis based on that. I also can taste it too, I know that sounds weird, but I can. I get that ketone taste in my mouth, on the diet, and still have it.

In that case I don’t doubt that you’re in ketosis. I think the idea to slow down your eating as much as you can to focus on satiety signals is a really good one, maybe you will end up just lowering your fat intake this way. But I had this experience myself that @LeCheffre talks about, where one of my (numerous) stalls appeared to break when I made sure to eat more than I had been for a couple of weeks. It’s so n=1, and even with n=1, my experience has been that what breaks one stall may not break the next one. My body keeps me guessing as things change. Some good stuff to try here though, let us know how it goes!

[LeCheffre]

In my experience, personal and helping folks on the old Protein Power board break stalls, it’s about a concept I’ve heard described as turbulence. If you are restricting calories, overfeed. If you are not watching calories, restrict. If you are fasting, stop. If you are eating snacks, stop. If you are lifting, ride a bike. Steady state cardio, do HIIT. Religious keto, do a carb feed. Etc etc. shake your system up a bit. It’s about metabolic flexibility, afterall.

[PaulL]

Thank you for your advise! Its just tricky for me to eat to satiety. The reason is because I rarely feel satiety when i am eating, and it can take quite a while after I eat to feel it.

If you’ve been eating a ketogenic diet since January (as your profile says), then you should long since have experienced your satiety signaling kicking in and have become fat-adapted, as well. So there is obviously something not working as it should.

The first thing to double-check, I would think, is your carbohydrate intake. Go through everything you eat, and verify what’s in it. Look at the ingredients list of every food that has one, and look for sugar that you might not have expected to be there. There is often sugar in things that shouldn’t contain it—bacon and ketchup, for example. Under U.S. law, manufacturers can list 0 grams of sugar if they pick a serving size that’s small enough, so you have to check the ingredients list as well as the nutrient panel.

Also, and I don’t mean this to be insulting, people can have blind spots about carbohydrate. For example, Dr. Westman once had a patient who didn’t think “sweet tea” counted as something containing sugar! So particularly take a look at anything you eat or drink routinely that you might not otherwise question—just in case.

Another thing to look at is artificial sweeteners. They’re not supposed to affect your insulin level, but a lot of people react with an insulin spike to one or more of those sweeteners, and it seems to be a completely individual thing, so you may have to experiment with different sweeteners, or give them up altogether.

You can also try giving up dairy. Some people find they don’t lose weight until they eliminate it from their diet.

You can also take a look at your meal pattern. Try to have a long stretch of time when you’re not eating at all (stop eating after supper, and go till lunch the next day before eating again, for example), and try to eat enough at each meal to let you go several hours before getting hungry again. The idea is to give your body as much time as possible each day when your insulin is low.

Lastly, about your satiety signaling. If it hasn’t kicked in by now, you may be someone who really has to count calories. So ignore those of us urging you not to count them, and find a level that works for you. People whose satiety signal is in working order usually find themselves restricting calories automatically by listening to their hunger, and their body sets their hunger to be satisfied at a level that allows the burning of both dietary and stored fat. It sucks (and would drive me crazy), but it looks as though you’ll have to figure out how to make that happen manually, instead of on automatic. Sorry!

Good luck, and keep us posted, okay?

[PatNotFat]

Is it a matter of “sticking to the diet”?
Have a week off counting.
Prepare by buying a dozen or so eggs, some ghee and butter and coconut oil, seven pieces of protein you can quickly cook in a frying pan, and oodles of lettuce, cucumber, endive, watercress etc
Make some mayonnaise, and a bottle of French dressing (no sweetener).
Two meals a day, or three - just double up on eggs.
Breakfast is eggs, scrambled, boiled (cold butter ‘soldier’s’ to dip in the yolk) or fried.
Breakfast could be your lunch - just add salad.
Dinner is your slab of protein, with a pan fat sauce, and salad with oodles of mayonnaise.
There you have a week of keto with no counting, no following recipes, no fuss: simplicity.