Not enough fat in Keto diet?
lostcouch
Posts: 17 Member
What is the target fat % I should be aiming for?I'm right around 60%. I'm at the beginning of my second week and have bought urine strips to confirm I'm in ketosis. I checked last night and i was moderate to high.I drank about 9 cups of water throughout the day so I'm assuming it wasn't a false positive. I've been working out moderately, crossfit 3 times a week and some light cardio inbetween. I weigh 200lbs. My question is what is the correct amount of fat I should be trying to consuming? This is all so new and counter intuitive to me. Thanks in advance.
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Fat really isn't that important - you want to eat low carbs and moderate protein and then fill in the rest with fat. With your results showing positive at 60% fat, I wouldn't change anything - it's working so go with it!
Those of us who are actively losing weight use fat as a filler so that we don't get hungry between meals - if you are not getting hungry then your fat intake is at a reasonable level and doesn't need to change.6 -
I'm currently working to 70% fat, 25% protein and 5% carbs, but in actuality it's probably more like 64/35/1 as I'm in an 'induction' phase and haven't started adding any carby vegetables yet. As long as your Ketosticks are showing purple though you're in ketosis, and generally speaking only consuming carbs or a LOT of protein would knock you out of it. You'll probably hear a lot about 'needing' carbs to exercise, but I haven't found that yet as your body can break down protein into glucose if it's needed even if you're restricting how much you consume, and I'm doing 3x strength training per week, plus assorted cardio like dancing and drumming regularly and I haven't hit the wall through being undernourished and my musculature is developing exactly as I would have hoped it would! In reality you don't need to get too bogged down with numbers and percentages (apart from the carbs!). As long as you're mainly eating fat and the ketosticks are purple you're body is doing the job of breaking down that excess fat into a brilliant source of energy!1
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You cannot get a false positive.
You CAN get a false negative. But never a false positive.
You don't HAVE to eat any certain amount of fat. Eat your target protein. That's more important. Stay under carb goal.
And if you're not hungry between meals, you're getting enough fat.
Eating fat isn't what makes this work. NOT EATING CARBS is what makes it work.
But there's never any reason to go hungry. You also shouldn't be hungry every couple hours. That would indicate your last meal may have been too low fat. Or possibly too low protein even.10 -
Okay, all this feedback is great news. I AM getting hungry every couple hours so I will play around with different snacks to curb that hunger.
I was concerned because I read somewhere that if you don't get enough fat that your body will use the protein and start eating away at your muscles.:/ kind of freaked me out. Lol1 -
I haven't tested my ketones in a while but I just purchased more ketostix and even a blood reader as well simply because I'm interested in the patterns but I know not to hold them to too high regard. One thing I wanted to point out is that your ketones will read moderate to high while you are first starting out. Until you become fat-adapted, your body isn't using the fat as efficiently for energy so more ketones will be discarded in your pee. So just be prepared to see the sticks lose their color a little.2
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Okay, all this feedback is great news. I AM getting hungry every couple hours so I will play around with different snacks to curb that hunger.
I was concerned because I read somewhere that if you don't get enough fat that your body will use the protein and start eating away at your muscles.:/ kind of freaked me out. Lol
If you're fat adapted (which is what a ketogenic diet helps accomplish) and you don't eat enough dietary fat your body will pull from its fat stores. It wants to run off fat, so it will pull fat, not muscle. Eat enough protein to maintain your lean mass, limit your carbs and eat fat to satiety (you likely will not need snacks).7 -
Okay, all this feedback is great news. I AM getting hungry every couple hours so I will play around with different snacks to curb that hunger.
I was concerned because I read somewhere that if you don't get enough fat that your body will use the protein and start eating away at your muscles.:/ kind of freaked me out. Lol
Eat more at your meals if you're getting hungry in between. You might just need something like a slice of avocado to stave that off.4 -
See this graphic from Phinney & Volek:
While you are still aboive your goal weight, your body is getting fat from YOUR fat! Isn't that cool?
(same as @Cadori said, but I think the pic is neat)
YES @kirkor !! I love this pic. This graphic is what made keto click for me in my research prior to starting.2 -
Okay, all this feedback is great news. I AM getting hungry every couple hours so I will play around with different snacks to curb that hunger.
I was concerned because I read somewhere that if you don't get enough fat that your body will use the protein and start eating away at your muscles.:/ kind of freaked me out. Lol
If you're fat adapted (which is what a ketogenic diet helps accomplish) and you don't eat enough dietary fat your body will pull from its fat stores. It wants to run off fat, so it will pull fat, not muscle. Eat enough protein to maintain your lean mass, limit your carbs and eat fat to satiety (you likely will not need snacks).
This.
If you are trying to lose (use) your own body's fat, then you should eat enough protein to spare muscles and the decrease to TDEE should come from fat. Eat more fat to get to maintenance calories if you want to maintain weight and less fat if you want to lose weight. Continue to eat sufficient protein because if you cut too much protein intake to get to a deficit, then your body will use its own protein (i.e. muscles).
Personally, I have about 130-135 lbs. (estimate for now) of lean mass, and I try to eat about 0.8-1g per lb. of lean mass per day of protein. I usually eat around 20g-30g carbs, sometimes less and sometimes a little more. Then I take the rest out of fat because I'm trying to lose weight. If I exercise more that day and eat more calories, I'll add more fat.2 -
Apparently, my profile pic offended people. I was sent a nasty gram saying that one of the members turned me in. I apologize to whomever I offended with my picture giving the bird. I had that as my profile picture for almost 7 years. It's unfortunate, because it was supposed to be funny. Again, my apologies.1 -
Apparently, my profile pic offended people. I was sent a nasty gram saying that one of the members turned me in. I apologize to whomever I offended with my picture giving the bird. I had that as my profile picture for almost 7 years. It's unfortunate, because it was supposed to be funny. Again, my apologies.
Blech. What a baby. Profile pics are tiny and easily ignored if they bother someone.1 -
See this graphic from Phinney & Volek:
While you are still aboive your goal weight, your body is getting fat from YOUR fat! Isn't that cool? (same as @Cadori said, but I think the pic is neat)
After doing keto (or at least lchf) for 20 years and only losing an initial 20lbs of 80 that I needed to lose I gave up on keto & moved to a low fat low carb, prepackaged food program. I managed to lose 40lbs but want to return to a healthier, natural diet, so I'm back to keto & finding this graphic is like a huge light bulb going off for me!! 2 years ago I was basically eating at maintenance! I was eating about 1800 cals 5/20/75 and although I loved it, and felt great I wasn't losing weight. I know understand why! I was burning dietary fat instead of body fat!. This time around I'm doing lower fat, hitting the protein goals daily & keeping the carbs under 20 net. So far so good. I've saved this graphic! thank you!
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Great graphic!1
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