meeting macros

melodicraven

Crossposted in Keto group - hope that's ok

How important is it to maintain the proper ratio of fat and protein? Obviously your carbs have to stay at a certain level. But what if, for example, you meet your protein goal for the day but not your fat one? Is that imbalance going to throw everything off? How much protein will potentially kick you out of ketosis?

Trying to figure all this out. Thanks!

Dragonwolf

I don't track whether I'm in ketosis, so I can't answer that question, but I should be able to answer the others.

Frankly, the answer to most of them (as is the answer to most things in general) is "it depends."

For general weight loss, the fat to protein ratio isn't actually that important. What's important is that you're getting enough fat in general, but not so much that you're going over your calorie needs and not losing weight. So, for example, if your fat goal is 150g and your protein goal is 95g, and you eat 110g of fat and 110g of protein, it's not that big of a deal. Odds are good that you'll have a day where you'll do something like eat 170g of fat and 60g of protein. For general weight loss, that's okay. What matters are the trends and averages. Your low protein day is balanced out by your higher protein day. Also, ketosis is not required for weight loss, so it's arguable whether it really matters if you get kicked out of ketosis once in a while to begin with.

Now, if you're maintaining ketosis for health reasons, then it does matter more (and what's more, the amount of protein per meal probably matters, as well). In those cases, you should be finely tuning your intake in order to maximize the benefits of the way of eating for your specific health condition, which takes a fair bit of trial and error.

GaleHawkins

To stay in ketosis I have to stay at or near 5% fat, 15% protein and 80% fat in my case.