Macro Targets [x-post from reddit xxketo]
kiramaniac
Posts: 800 Member
I wanted to share some of my experience with my macro targets. I started with my macros set at 65-30-5, and then became frustrated with progress (on average, about 1.4 pounds per week, but it felt slow and frustrating). My actual fat % was between 65-69% at this time, and actual calories consumed varied, averaging between 1230 and 1350 per day.
About 8 weeks in, my husband purchased a blood ketone tester and we began testing for blood ketones. We found that I tended to have much higher blood ketone levels than he did, even when we essentially ate the same foods. He also seemed to be "punished" more severely - not even with carbs as much as protein. At that time we both bumped our fat targets up to 70%. I also dropped my calorie target from 1500 to 1400. We also very consciously worked to avoid too much protein.
Meanwhile we've done more reading. Jimmy Moore's experiences have been very interesting to me. He now targets 80% fat in his diet, and has seen a dramatic improvement in his weight loss.
I also came across this research from the 50's.
Kekwick and Pawan determined that a group of patients could maintain their weight on 2,000 calories per day of a mixed or balanced diet. Then they put them on a diet of protein and fat, but very little carbohydrate. They found that their patients could consistently lose weight on 2,600 calories per day so long as carbohydrate was sharply restricted.
This was fascinating to me. People with very high fat consumption (like 90% of calories from fat) could consistently lose on 2600 calories per day???? Amazing. So I've been experimenting. Admittedly, not a ton of data here, but here's what my data shows.
When fat % was between 65-69%, average weekly loss: 1.52 pounds (5 data points)
- Average calories per day - 1407
When fat % was between 70-71%, average weekly loss: .925 pounds (8 data points)
- Average calories per day - 1360
When fat % was greater than 74%, average weekly loss: 2.033 pounds (6 data points)
- Average calories per day - 1400
You know what's really interesting? Last week I had 76% fat, and consumed more calories than any other week - 1533.57 per day. I lost 2.1 pounds, which for me is a great number (my goal is 1.5 per week).
Conclusions:
1) We are all different. Those Keto macro targets are a starting point. Monitor your progress. If you can, buy a blood ketone monitor, and really understand how your body is responding.
2) I firmly believe that a higher fat target is right for me. I now target 75% fat. (The Fat Fast Cookbook by Dana Carpender has been a godsend for doing this!) If you aren't seeing the results that you want, try experimenting with your own fat targets. And keep that protein in check! Too much has the same impact as eating carbs.
3) I'm not going to stress the calories. In fact, I've jacked up my target to 2000. I've done this for two reasons. First, I was playing games with hitting the targets, eating a little here or there, just to hit the number. Second, my goal is to really start understanding my own body. If I just try to hit a number, I'm not listening to my own hunger signal, and I'm going to be dependent on an app forever to tell me when I can and cannot eat. Don't misunderstand - it's not my goal to EAT 2000 calories, but rather to eat when I'm hungry, and not obsess about being under the target.
TLDR: Eat more fat.
About 8 weeks in, my husband purchased a blood ketone tester and we began testing for blood ketones. We found that I tended to have much higher blood ketone levels than he did, even when we essentially ate the same foods. He also seemed to be "punished" more severely - not even with carbs as much as protein. At that time we both bumped our fat targets up to 70%. I also dropped my calorie target from 1500 to 1400. We also very consciously worked to avoid too much protein.
Meanwhile we've done more reading. Jimmy Moore's experiences have been very interesting to me. He now targets 80% fat in his diet, and has seen a dramatic improvement in his weight loss.
I also came across this research from the 50's.
Kekwick and Pawan determined that a group of patients could maintain their weight on 2,000 calories per day of a mixed or balanced diet. Then they put them on a diet of protein and fat, but very little carbohydrate. They found that their patients could consistently lose weight on 2,600 calories per day so long as carbohydrate was sharply restricted.
This was fascinating to me. People with very high fat consumption (like 90% of calories from fat) could consistently lose on 2600 calories per day???? Amazing. So I've been experimenting. Admittedly, not a ton of data here, but here's what my data shows.
When fat % was between 65-69%, average weekly loss: 1.52 pounds (5 data points)
- Average calories per day - 1407
When fat % was between 70-71%, average weekly loss: .925 pounds (8 data points)
- Average calories per day - 1360
When fat % was greater than 74%, average weekly loss: 2.033 pounds (6 data points)
- Average calories per day - 1400
You know what's really interesting? Last week I had 76% fat, and consumed more calories than any other week - 1533.57 per day. I lost 2.1 pounds, which for me is a great number (my goal is 1.5 per week).
Conclusions:
1) We are all different. Those Keto macro targets are a starting point. Monitor your progress. If you can, buy a blood ketone monitor, and really understand how your body is responding.
2) I firmly believe that a higher fat target is right for me. I now target 75% fat. (The Fat Fast Cookbook by Dana Carpender has been a godsend for doing this!) If you aren't seeing the results that you want, try experimenting with your own fat targets. And keep that protein in check! Too much has the same impact as eating carbs.
3) I'm not going to stress the calories. In fact, I've jacked up my target to 2000. I've done this for two reasons. First, I was playing games with hitting the targets, eating a little here or there, just to hit the number. Second, my goal is to really start understanding my own body. If I just try to hit a number, I'm not listening to my own hunger signal, and I'm going to be dependent on an app forever to tell me when I can and cannot eat. Don't misunderstand - it's not my goal to EAT 2000 calories, but rather to eat when I'm hungry, and not obsess about being under the target.
TLDR: Eat more fat.
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Replies
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Interesting post ! Thank you for posting all that reading material
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Great Info!! And I love that you are so awesome with Math... I have a problem most days I can keep my carbs super low 5-16 grams and my protein is just a tad below my fats so I got the cookbook thanks to your suggestion and am now researching menu options so I can get 70-75% fat and still keep my carbs low but also meet my calorie goal, I have been under most days bcuz I run out of options to get the calories up without increasing protein/carbs...
Again thanks for sharing!!! and great job on your journey thus far!!0 -
Totally agreed. And it's not even "counter-intuitive" when one learns about metabolism. The good news here: no one needs to suffer and struggle with hunger. The bad news: people refuse to believe that we have been lied to about what a healthy diet is.
I have my fat set at 70% but I certainly benefit far more when I can get it to 80%. I do find it very difficult to do that though, and some of my fats are super healthy and others are not so the cost/benefit might not be worth it overall.0 -
Kira - out of curisotiy - how much excersise do you throw into this mix?0
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I do a cross-fit workout 1-2 times per week. I might also throw a treadmill workout in during the week. I'm fairly sedentary.0
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Thanks for posting all this!
I am currently managing only 50 to 65% fat. I must try to do better than this, but it's hard.0 -
Exciting news! I've recently begun a similar change and, fingers crossed, seem to be having similar results! I also feel even better!! It kinda feels natural and right to eat this way too.0
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I tend to be into the 70% range on fat, and I've been losing well over 2lbs most weeks! I just naturally found myself eating somewhere in the 70% for fat.0
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Kira - Great post! I would expect nothing short of great info from you!
I'm currently reading Dana Carpender's book, How I Gave Up My Low-Fat Diet and Lost 40 Pounds: http://alturl.com/f3ute. And she references several of the studies you point out, which are all so very interesting. And I find it amazing that this has been studied and proven going back to the 50's and even well before; but yet it still gets poo-pooed, most likely by the government lobbyists and pharmaceutical companies.
I just started reading Jimmy's n=1 experiment. Glad to hear you're getting good info out of it.
Thanks for sharing your experiment. I'm in the process of converting the past 3.5 months of info from MFP into a spreadsheet, so I can see what my numbers look like also.
Keep us posted with your future observations and conclusions! You're doing an amazing job!
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Oh! And I forgot to ask you Kira. When you have your highest weeks of weightloss, do you find that you are showing your blood ketones in the optimal "nutritional ketosis" range of 0.5 to 3.0mm? I should be getting my strips any day now!0
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Oh! And I forgot to ask you Kira. When you have your highest weeks of weightloss, do you find that you are showing your blood ketones in the optimal "nutritional ketosis" range of 0.5 to 3.0mm? I should be getting my strips any day now!
Darnit! Know I'm going to have to go back to my spreadsheet and add data!
:-)
I'm not sure if I have enough regularity on the ketone measurements to correllate this. We measured daily early on. Once I got some confidence on how my body was reacting to food, I started more using them when I had something iffy to assess if I had impacted ketosis. So my guess is that this would be tricky to draw any conclusions from.
Edit: Oops! Re-read your message. Since I started measuring last October, I have never had a reading where I was out of nutritional ketosis (seriously - have you seen how much fat I eat???) :-) In the last 30 days I've ranged from 2.2 to 3.5 for my morning readings. My guess is that I was out at the beginning of January when I was on vacation (ended Jan 6) - but unfortunately, we were out of the strips. When we got a new batch on Jan 17, I measured 1.9.0 -
Thanks for responding Kira. I just finished reading Jimmy Moore's n=1 experiment, along with relevant sections in The Art And Science Of Low Carbohydrate Performance. And, I started testing. Amazing what protein, both timing and quantity can do to our numbers. Just tweaking protein has allowed me to have 2 consecutive days of 0.4 drops (still recovering from last week's gain), and my ketones have gone up 0.4 points for the past 2 days, finally at 1.2. Working my way up and down!
It sounds like getting to "nutritional ketosis" has been one of the keys to your amazingly consistent losses! Would you agree?0 -
Thanks for responding Kira. I just finished reading Jimmy Moore's n=1 experiment, along with relevant sections in The Art And Science Of Low Carbohydrate Performance. And, I started testing. Amazing what protein, both timing and quantity can do to our numbers. Just tweaking protein has allowed me to have 2 consecutive days of 0.4 drops (still recovering from last week's gain), and my ketones have gone up 0.4 points for the past 2 days, finally at 1.2. Working my way up and down!
It sounds like getting to "nutritional ketosis" has been one of the keys to your amazingly consistent losses! Would you agree?
I think it's helped - but it's not a sure thing.
Let me explain. Early on in our keto journey, the husband and I were doing some protein heavy lunches and/or dinners (things like KFC grilled dark meat chicken, and that's it; or a cheeseburger sans bun). We were kind of watching the macros, but still more focused on carbs. The blood testing was a wake up. Surprisingly, though, the issue wasn't for me - it was for my husband. He works out more and is a guy - you'd think if one of us could handle more protein, it would be him. Nope. What we found is that I consistently have much higher ketone readings than he does. In fact, our first reading had him below the 0.5 threshold, and me at 1.6. This is where we figured out that, at least for him, we needed to do better for fat. (I went along for the ride, mostly because it's yummy. Plus, we cook for each other anyway).
For him, that adjustment did make a big impact. Until he made that shift to higher fat, his nutritional ketosis (blood ketones) would sometimes fall out of range. Even today, he will sometimes have low readings (below 1) while eating well within keto guidelines. Our metabolisms are just different. EVERYONE's metabolisms are different. The keto "rules" are what will work for the typical person - they are just optimizing your likelihood of success. But your system may be different enough that you need to make adjustments.
But I also don't think this is the only variable that comes into play. Shark week, water, "regularity", exercise, # calories, macros - all of these are variables that influence. I had a 2 week stall in December. This week I'm not down at all (Sunday measurement - 2.9; yesterday 2.1). It's really so hard figuring out which factor it is that causes those stalls. Or maybe our bodies just need to re-balance things before they can release more fat.
Anyway - things that I think make a difference for both the husband and I include:
- Nutrtional Ketosis (blood ketones). Yes. Need to understand how foods you are eating are impacting you. Ketostix are not enough.
- Higher fat - I'm targeting 75% of my calories from fat.
- Always eating fat with protein. Don't load your fat in one meal, and have a heavy protein lunch at another. Try to balance this, and always have protein with fat. (Fat alone is OK though).
- Water, water, water. Those 8 glasses on MFP are for low fat people. Keto-ers need more.
- exercise. But not the way you think. I am a believer that your weight loss will be slower with exercise. "The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living" has some info on this, as does Taubes. It all depends on your goals. If your goals are fitness, then exercise is good. If your goals are strictly to LOSE, then this may slow your loss.
- regularity. Haven't fully figured this out though. I just know it's a factor.0 -
thanks! this is a very informative post!! I will have to check where my fat %age is right now0
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Thanks so much for this! Very interesting read!0
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Ditto, great read. Thanks for sharing. I've personally not had any trouble keeping my fat up around 65-70% and so far it's working. This info is great for things to watch out for. 0
