High Fat
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wabmester
Posts: 2,748 Member
I may regret asking this, but tell me your thoughts about eating high fat. What do you feel the HF aspect of LCHF does? Is it possible to eat too much fat? Is there good fat and bad fat?
I know some of you were trained on the old fat-is-evil mindset and then you changed your mind. What convinced you to change your mind? Was it something you read, data and/or logic, how you felt, or the results you observed in terms of weight loss or other health markers?
I know some of you were trained on the old fat-is-evil mindset and then you changed your mind. What convinced you to change your mind? Was it something you read, data and/or logic, how you felt, or the results you observed in terms of weight loss or other health markers?
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You just described me to a "T."
The Art and Scienceof Low Carbohydrate Living- Dr. Phinney and Dr. Volek. This book completely changed my perspective on clinical nutrition, forced me to re-read earlier studies on fat- heart hypothesis. It made me reconsider the Atkins- low carb approach, and realize that protein excess was essentially a "moderate carb" diet through conversion of protein to sugar.
I conducted a giant experiment on myself, taking a hypertensive, hyperlipidemic, mildly overweight individual and began eating 70% fat, every day. (olive oil, butter, etc. with daily cholesterol intake nearly 7x what was "recommended). I put butter on bacon as an example!
The result: within 90 days off all blood pressure medicine, cholesterol medicine, 15lbs weight off despite eating 2500kcal daily, less exercise than normal. I don't count calories, and eat when hungry. I ate 3500 kcal two days ago.
It has changed my life, and I have started incorporating this education into clinical practice (where appropriate) for patients with T2DM and insulin resistance.0 -
I eat a lot of vegetables- with every meal. I think this helps avoid some of the GI side effects, (constipation, etc) that is often seen with the "low carb" diet criticism. I seldom eat these vegetables without fat (butter or olive oil).
This is why I am so interested in "carnivor" experiment- in following success of the participants. It just seems misguided from a biochemical standpoint.0 -
Thanks for those insights, doc! Personally, I thought Phinney and Volek too easily dismissed the potential LDL effects, and they didn't discuss mechanisms very well.
The ketogenic diets for epilepsy are even lower in protein and higher in fat, but the goal is different -- high ketones to feed the brain rather than for weight loss. My impression is that high fat = high ketones, and I wonder how significant the high ketone level is for weight loss. Sufficient ketones appear to be necessary to reduce insulin and hunger, but has "sufficient" been defined?
Regarding the higher-protein diets, protein is high satiety, and excess protein is very inefficiently converted to fat, so I think those effects can mitigate the GNG effects.0 -
I was very reluctant to do high fat due to the brainwashing growing up. The more I read about this woe on this site the more I realised the importance for me. Once I did get the proper ratios hunger was gone, and self control has been better than its ever been.0
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The hunger control effect is really interesting. I initially dismissed it because studies tended to show that fat was no more satiating than carbs, but I finally realized it was the ketones, not the fat per se. Those ketones are probably also responsible for the energy boost people report.
I've been doing more moderate fat (because my carbs are a bit higher), but I'm going to try high fat for a while.
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The issue I continue to have is crampy- twitchy muscles. I have supplemented MgO, fairly regularly, but 75 days in still have issues as the day goes on.
Advice?0 -
Phinney and Volek suggest it's all about Mg. They recommend 20 days of Slo-Mag. Personally, I haven't experienced it, so I don't supplement.0
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The issue I continue to have is crampy- twitchy muscles. I have supplemented MgO, fairly regularly, but 75 days in still have issues as the day goes on.
MgO as in Magnesium Oxide? My understanding is that is not used by the body very well and isn't recommended for keto/low carb folks. I take Magnesium Citrate and the results are fairly immediate. If I forget to take it I'm at high risk for leg cramps when I wake up. When I take it the problem immediately goes away.
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The issue I continue to have is crampy- twitchy muscles. I have supplemented MgO, fairly regularly, but 75 days in still have issues as the day goes on.
Advice?
Make sure you're getting sufficient sodium and potassium, too. All the magnesium in the world won't matter if your sodium and/or potassium are running low. As I recall, Magnesium citrate is the superior one for bioavailbility of supplements, so it might be worth switching to that, too.I may regret asking this, but tell me your thoughts about eating high fat. What do you feel the HF aspect of LCHF does? Is it possible to eat too much fat? Is there good fat and bad fat?
I know some of you were trained on the old fat-is-evil mindset and then you changed your mind. What convinced you to change your mind? Was it something you read, data and/or logic, how you felt, or the results you observed in terms of weight loss or other health markers?
(My responses and point of view, based on the research I've done. Just putting that out there.)
The fat part of LCHF provides energy. Protein is not considered energy, as its primary purpose is building blocks (cell repair, muscle retention, etc). That leaves fat and carbohydrates for energy. As one goes down, the other has to go up. So, I, for example, consume 1,600-2,000 calories a day (1900-2000 or so is what all the calculators say is what's necessary to lose 1lb/week while sedentary). 400-560 calories or so of that is protein (about 100-140g for me). The rest has to come from carbs and/or fat. I'm currently doing carnivore, so my carb intake is 1-10g most days, or 4-40 calories. That leaves the remaining 1,100-1,500 calories coming from fat.
The only bad fats are artificial trans fats and oxidized fats. This would include anything hydrogenated and industrial seed oils and other oils (particularly high polyunsaturated fat oils) that are extracted via high heat and/or chemical processes, which damage the fatty acids. Saturated fat not only isn't bad, but should be roughly half of your fat intake, with monounsaturated fats following closely at 40-50% as well, and polyunsaturated fats making up 5-10% of fat intake. Ideally, polyunsaturated fat content should have 1:1 or 2:1 Omega-6 to Omega-3 ratios. These numbers are based on the fatty acid distribution of human fat. Regardless of diet, human fat is 40-50% saturated fat, 40-50% monounsaturated fat, and 5-10% polyunsaturated fat, with a 1:1 or 2:1 O6-O3 ratio. This means things like butter, lard, tallow, olive oil, and coconut oil are among the staple added fats.
It's technically possible to eat too much fat, but largely only in the sense of sheer numbers of calories (ie - as long as your protein remains sufficient to spare lean mass, it's not really possible to have too high a percentage of fat if calories are held constant). However, the vast majority of people find it difficult to overeat when carbs are kept down (one of the problems with SAD is that it's high carb and high fat, which doesn't mix well).
Fat also takes over the role most people attribute to fiber. I'm not sure there's been any formal studies on this, but the hypothesis is that fat acts as the lubricant for fecal matter, keeping things regular. Additionally, it's known that too much protein in the absence (or near-absence) of fat and/or carbs, creates a low-level state of "rabbit starvation" or protein toxicity, which is recognizable by GI disruptions -- constipation at first, and diarrhea if it's allowed to progress.
Fat's satiating in a way that's different from how protein or fiber are satiating. Instead of a signal that sort of says "I'm full," fat gives you a feeling of "I no longer have interest in eating." It's a subtle, but distinct difference.
I was sort of trained on the "fat-is-evil" mindset, in that my mother taught me to pay attention to the "calories from fat" and that I should seek to minimize that number. However, my grandparents were bacon-and-eggs type people and we had our fair share of BLTs and mayo growing up, so the "training" wasn't quite as strong as what others I know grew up with. Regardless, by the time I found LCHF, I already knew through years of experience that USDA style and "low fat" ways of eating weren't cutting it for me. I was always fighting hunger and cravings and wasn't getting anywhere by any health marker I had. Desperation led me first to try the Primal Blueprint, then further down the LCHF rabbit hole as I found successes the more I tweaked my intake.
Results -- or lack thereof -- have trumped all the old programming, and in efforts to find the root cause of the problem, I found a bunch of research on the ketogenic diet and similar HFLC frameworks, how insulin contributes to such issues as metabolic syndrome and PCOS, and various other things that conventional wisdom would most likely consider "fringe." As Einstein put it -- insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. If USDA and MFP's basic guidelines were failing me miserably, then I need to try something different. I had problems with anemia at the time, so I had ruled out vegetarianism on that basis, so I went the Paleo direction (specifically, Primal Blueprint). I gave it a try and found some other health changes (immediate reduction in headaches/migraines, immediate reduction in heartburn, less bloating, etc). I found success in the basic PB method, but found myself still dealing with cravings and still not getting anywhere in the weight department. So, I proceeded to lower my carb goal, which increased fat (since protein and calories were held constant). The more I did that, the less I dealt with hunger and cravings, which made my calorie goal doable where it wasn't before, and made the prospect of trying to reduce calories further if needed to be far less daunting and impossible than it was when I was following the high carb/USDA approach.0 -
I may regret asking this, but tell me your thoughts about eating high fat. What do you feel the HF aspect of LCHF does? Is it possible to eat too much fat? Is there good fat and bad fat?
I know some of you were trained on the old fat-is-evil mindset and then you changed your mind. What convinced you to change your mind? Was it something you read, data and/or logic, how you felt, or the results you observed in terms of weight loss or other health markers?
As a diabetic, the instant control that LCHF gave me over my blood sugar has been the overwhelming factor in answering all of these questions. I was on the road towards slowly harming/killing myself by being unable to control my blood sugar. Getting rid of the carbs fixed that in a matter of days to weeks.
My blood pressure imrpoved as well, which maybe happened just b/c of the weight that was dropping.
The only other bloodwork marker of mine that was a concern is cholesterol. My cholesterol hasn't improved as much as I'd hoped, but its still better than it was. This does lead me to some questions about good fat vs bad fat, and wondering if I may at some point need to balance out the types of fat that I eat, maybe a little less saturated fat? But I don't know, and this is low on the priority list for me. Its something I think about, but until I'm at my goal weight its not something I'm terrible concerned about tweaking.
As for how low carb and thus how high fat I choose to eat, I seem to have strong issues with appetite if I am not very strict about how I eat.
I don't ignore studies, I like seeing all of the things that get posted here and on ketoscience, etc. But I get overwhelmed easily. Not that I'm dumb, but that its just so easy to cherry pick various studies to prove anything if that's your aim. So when I see studies posted, and I start considering the forum I'm in, and what I know about the person posting it, and whether I need to go spending an hour searching for things that might counter this person in case he's posting a study that only came to the conclusion it did because of the people funding it, blah blah blah, I know just enough to know to be wary, and to feel fatigued by the whole thing, so I mainly just do what's worked for me and try to keep a casual, mindful eye out for huge things in the news, in studies, etc, but not to sweat the details too terribly much.0 -
Wab, are you looking at LCHF, or ketogenic? Not that the latter isn't a variation of the former...I was just curious.
For myself, I feel the HF aspect of LCFH helps with numerous aspects. It keeps me satisfied. It is good for my hair, and my nails, and my skin. By keeping me satisfied, it helps me keep my carbohydrate count down. Since I'm diabetic, thats a big one. I still struggle with glucose numbers...but I'm still working on that....I'm hoping to improve my insulin sensitivity.
Phinney and Volek were good reading for me. So was Lyle McDonald. You have to take a lot of what he says (and 99% of his pompous attitude) with a grain of salt, but he has some good solid research there...in my opinion.
I have autoimmune disorders that I deal with, and LCHF has been key to reducing inflammation and flare-ups from these disorders, one of which involves histamine. Omega 6 fats cause high histamine responses. As do flax and most seed based oils.... Offal also causes a high histamine responses...even though its great for you....its just not great for me. So, this journey, has literally changed my quality of life. I've screwed it up a lot along the way, but all in all, its been great.
Can you eat too much fat? I think the answer to this is primarily dependent upon WHY you have chosen this WOE. If you have chosen it to lose weight, then yes...I think you can eat too much fat...but you can also eat too much protein and too many carbohydrates, or any combination of those....you can eat too many calories period.... Its all relative and individualistic. In my opinion, the most important part of the journey is getting in touch with yourself and your body. understanding how it operates, and what makes it work smoothly and efficiently - and most important - healthfully.
..."My impression is that high fat = high ketones, and I wonder how significant the high ketone level is for weight loss. Sufficient ketones appear to be necessary to reduce insulin and hunger, but has "sufficient" been defined?"...
I'm not sure that there is necessarily a 1:1 correlation here, but there might be. I'm sure that some of the smart people here can talk to it better...but, with regard to glucose and insulin, my understanding is that in order to inhibit fat storage (which is NOT the same as weight loss right?), you really need to keep your glucose 120 and under. I still struggle with that. I test blood ketones multiple times a day, to better learn about my body's responses. Higher ketone readings don't necessarily equate to higher fat loss / weight loss. If your caloric requirement is 2500 calories a day, and you eat 2500 calories a day, and 85% of that diet is coming from fat...I'm going to bet that the majority of your ketone production is from dietary fat. If, on the other hand your caloric requirement is 2500 calories, and you restrict your calorie intake to 1600, and 70-75% of your calories are coming from fat...THEN, I'd be willing to be that your body is utilizing some of its own fat stores to produce the energy required to meet that daily caloric requirement.
I eat ketogenic at 20g or less net carb. If I can improve my insulin sensitivity, learn more about my own different food triggers, and move more toward my goal weight, I am happy. I hope to be able to eventually increase my carb count to between 60-75net. ...more paleo/primal, so I can include more veg.
For myslef, I also found, that I could not consistently get my ketones up beyond trace levels until my glucose levels came down. I could not get my glucose levels down consistently, until I incorporated IF. Weirdness, I know...but I think I have a lot of damage and healing going on. That, and I'm kind of a freak of nature.
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Thanks for the great replies -- the topic is a lot less controversial than I expected.Wab, are you looking at LCHF, or ketogenic? Not that the latter isn't a variation of the former...I was just curious.
I'm not sure I know the difference. I'm mildly ketogenic even on my relatively high carb diet. I'm slowly losing weight with no hunger. I'm intrigued by the effects of a higher level of ketones, which I think I can get either by going lower carb, higher fat, or both (assuming I want to maintain calories).
I'm not sure I'd want a further decreased level of hunger.
I would like to experiment with the energy effects (mostly for running), and if it is possible to stimulate mitochondrial biogenesis, that would be really interesting. The stuff Peter Attia talks about in terms of fuel partitioning and increased O2 utilization is very cool to me.
One thing I'm still curious about (and nill4me touched on this).... Whether you believe high fat is about filling out calories or ketone generation, shouldn't that fat source eventually switch to your adipose stores? Once hunger is depressed, why not drop your fat intake, continue to get the nutrients you need, but increase the burn of body fat?
I wouldn't expect the drop in fat intake (and calories) to drop your metabolic rate -- you'd just have a lower flux of fat into adipose and a higher flux out of adipose. Maybe there is some mechanism that notices the slower influx and slows metabolism?
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Whether you believe high fat is about filling out calories or ketone generation, shouldn't that fat source eventually switch to your adipose stores?
As long as you're taking in fewer calories than you burn, your body will burn body fat. Being fat adapted, or metabolically flexible, allows your body to easily switch to the fat stores, provided you don't have underlying metabolic issues (and even then, it eventually resolves).0 -
Is there any consensus on what "fat adapted" means? If you lower caloric intake without reducing insulin levels first, you'll burn fat, but you'll be really hungry. So keto makes a ton of sense as an "induction" phase, but rather than increasing carbs a la Atkins, it seems that decreasing fat would make more sense.
FWIW, even with no other metabolic adaptation, you can get something like 80-85% of your energy from fat. Your muscles and organs are largely fat-adapted right out of the gate, and the brain appears to be ready for ketones as quickly as you can make them.0 -
I believe that "fat-adapted" means that your body has produced the enzymes required to consistently burn fat as fuel...to include having that switch factor that dragon referenced...the ability to switch between burning dietary fat or ones own body fat as fuel - as required. As such, I also think that...as we've all touched on, if you burn more than you take in...from a calorie perspective, your body will (in this state) burn its own fat stores. So, yes, in order to promote burning your own fat stores, it only makes sense, if you need to reduce calories, and you are following a LCHF WOE, that you would lower your fat intake, as your carbs will already be low, and protein you will want to keep as your constant.
Let me know when you figure out that whole mitochondrial biogenesis thing.0 -
Dragonwolf wrote: »The only bad fats are artificial trans fats and oxidized fats. This would include anything hydrogenated and industrial seed oils and other oils (particularly high polyunsaturated fat oils) that are extracted via high heat and/or chemical processes, which damage the fatty acids.
Does this include roasted nuts, as opposed to raw ones? I heard in the past that roasting them basically turns the fat rancid, rendering them no longer "healthy," but so much of what I thought I knew about fat before has turned out to be untrue.0 -
I may regret asking this, but tell me your thoughts about eating high fat. What do you feel the HF aspect of LCHF does? Is it possible to eat too much fat? Is there good fat and bad fat?
While everyone above has given great scientific based answers, my real world, lay person answer is
LCHF = Less pressure. I can go out and live my life. It is annoying going out to eat with a "low fat dieter". By eating LCHF, I can eat at 99% of the places I walk into. Just hold the bun, potatos, rice. Pizza? excellent, order "the works" and I'll eat all the toppings.
Plus I'm Italian. If you give me a choice between pasta and olive oil ... I'm keeping my oil. There isn't a veggie in the world that can't be made better with olive oil or fried up with some pancetta.0 -
carbsmart.com/howmuchprotein.html
I am high fat for pain control and to make it up for cutting out the calories from carbs in the LCHF lifestyle.
While we know about 58% of all protein is converted to carbs by the liver sometimes we forget about 10% of the fat we eat gets converted to carbs as well. These two hidden carb sources can trip up some wanting to get into ketosis.0 -
Let me know when you figure out that whole mitochondrial biogenesis thing.
To me, that's the interesting answer for the meaning of "fat adapted." When your heart rate is below 130 or so, your muscles already burn fat. Anybody who considers themselves "sedentary" is already fat adapted!
The "switch" you guys are talking about is the change in fuel partitioning at higher exertion levels. Instead of burning sugar anaerobically, your muscles start burning fat (and ketones) at heart rates > 130. That apparently requires new mitochondria equipped with new enzymes, and that's what I'd like to experience. In theory, that requires more than just LCHF. It needs to be coupled with high-intensity exercise.
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I believe that "fat-adapted" means that your body has produced the enzymes required to consistently burn fat as fuel...to include having that switch factor that dragon referenced...the ability to switch between burning dietary fat or ones own body fat as fuel - as required. As such, I also think that...as we've all touched on, if you burn more than you take in...from a calorie perspective, your body will (in this state) burn its own fat stores. So, yes, in order to promote burning your own fat stores, it only makes sense, if you need to reduce calories, and you are following a LCHF WOE, that you would lower your fat intake, as your carbs will already be low, and protein you will want to keep as your constant.
Let me know when you figure out that whole mitochondrial biogenesis thing.
@nill4me what is WOE? I'm 5 days into keto, so the acronyms are quite newish....
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