I have a question for the group: are you monitoring grams of protein consumed each day, or eating to satiety? If you are eating to satiety, how do you keep from eating protein to the point that you raise insulin levels? Do you monitor ketones?

Thanks for your replies.

Thanks for the reply. Knowing the possibility of some excess protein to be converted to glucose (and raising insulin levels), it would seem easy to overeat protein, even if maintaining healthy ratios, and impede weight loss in the long run.

I will be very interested to follow everyone's progress, but it would really help me (and us) understand this experiment by knowing (in grams per kg) how much protein everyone is consuming. Otherwise, it is a little like saying, "I'm low carb" and not knowing if this is <20g/day or <150g/day.

Thanks again for anyone's thoughtful replies!

Very helpful. Thanks and good continued success!

Note: I cut that message off before I was done editing it, because I had to drop the kiddo off at karate. Let me elaborate on some details.

In the last 4 days, I have averaged about 180g of protein a day (about 2,600 calories a day ~27.5% protein). This is well above the limit that most calculators would suggest for me. The keto-calculator says between 78g and 128g max.

But, and here's my point, the protein myth isn't that it can't effect the depth of ketosis. Certainly, if you consume inadequate protein, your ketone levels will go up. And, when you are consuming adequate protein, ketone levels can still decrease (slightly) with large amounts of protein. Although, I am still not convinced that this drop isn't also related to the typically larger than normal amounts of calories that accompanies such massive protein binges. Let's take a more typical case.

Let's pretend that the keto people are right. Really, with my activity level, I should be eating around 90g of protein a day. But, instead, I eat 140g. I'm still going to be in ketosis. I am still going to lose weight at a steady pace. How do I know? Because back when I started keto, this low-protein madness wasn't prominent. It was "low carbs, protein is a goal range you should _try_ and hit, fat to fill you up" and that's it. 20-30g above your protein range? No big deal, better over than under. So, I didn't worry about it. I tracked everything. The first couple hundred days, I was routinely in the 180g+ range at least once a week. And, I was above 130g+ at least 3 days a week. There are a lot of 200g+ days there.

My weight came off steadily (as steadily as it does for anyone that is) and easily. What variance in the change of the rate of loss could I discover in relation to my protein intake? None. Same for pretty much everything else, long term. Calories probably fit the change in rate best, but not to the degree people give them credit for.

I used to track blood glucose, blood ketones, breath ketones, urine ketones, and just about every little thing that could be tracked. I tracked things right through the recent rise of the "watch your protein" madness (actually, that's why I got the blood ketone meter in the end). And I didn't see it. The weeks I averaged 130g of protein were not that much different than the weeks I kept myself around 90g. I certainly wasn't going to drive myself below the full amount of protein to artificially elevate the ketones.

In the end, unless you're eating 250g+ every day, excess protein is probably the least of your worries. Do some people seem more sensitive to it than others? Yeah, I buy that. Should people worry that an extra 50g of protein is going to throw them out of keto and ruin everything? Absolutely not.

mpantsari wrote: »

@FIT_Goat : didn't mean to touch a nerve. Not sure what the "protein myth" is, and I don't know your physical parameters. I'm glad that eating 200g of protein doesn't affect you, and I'm not implying I think that is bad for everyone.

My point (not a myth) is that for a 5'3 female with a lean body mass of 70kg, eating 2.5g/kg of protein ~175g would seem to have a long term adverse effect on blood glucose- certainly worse than the effect of an equal caloric stress from fat on insulin levels.

If you are not insulin resistant, then you are even in a better position with your protein intake. For those that are, excessive protein would seem like it could be a problem. That is why I have been tracking the carnivore plan postings (and what I thought lead to this question/ post).

You comment reads like I irritated you, and I really didn't intend that. I really just want to understand and learn from people's experiences as I advise the patients I treat.

The fear of protein is one of the biggest frustrations I have. As well as the idea that an all meat diet is a high-protein diet. Mine tends to be, at least when I am hitting 3000+ calories a day. When I am hitting more normal numbers, it's much closer to the range keto people accept. This is a common objection and it's something that I handle almost every day from people on keto. Protein just isn't a big deal, at least not in the amounts people will eat from real food at normal amounts.

Do you have any evidence of long term effects on blood sugar when women eat that much protein? Also, not even I average 175g of protein a day (long term), and I eat 2,500 calories a day. My usual average, on an all meat diet, is around 150-160g. It would be a rare woman, even at 100kg--assuming 70kg LBM--that eats more than I do. And, that woman would be right near her target protein if she did eat as much as me.

While, I suspect that short-term, during adaptation, the high protein would cause higher than normal glucose, as the body adapted it would return to a normal baseline. Unless you're an uncontrolled diabetic, gluconeogenesis (glucose from protein) is a well controlled and demand-driven process. Excess protein doesn't magically turn to glucose just because it can. It's turned to glucose to meet the body's need for it.

I wouldn't worry about the long term effects of protein on insulin resistant people, since ketogenic diets are known to reverse insulin resistance. After some time on the diet, their body no longer behaves like an insulin resistant body.

I haven't seen any evidence that high protein causes any issues in otherwise healthy people trying to lose weight.

Is anybody else having trouble sleeping? Ever since I went zero carb, I feel like my sleeping has gotten worse. I wake up a lot easier, and feel generally less rested during the day. Sometimes I wake up with what my mom likes to call "monkey brains," where my brain is going a-mile-a-minute at 3 a.m.

Thanks.

I'm having more trouble sticking to animal product only than I expected. I actually seemed to do better the week before we started. I should be fine from here on out, now that I've (hopefully) recovered from the weekend's travels. Looking forward to some chicken thighs and homemade alfredo tonight. Thinking I should stuff the chickens with cream cheese and wrap them in bacon. Yup.

I just realized that what I wrote above makes no sense! Call me sleep-deprived.