How strictly to follow macros on keto?
Jenni_MFP
Posts: 36 Member
I am doing well at keeping my net carb count under 20g per day, but my challenge is with the suggested fat levels. By the time I've planned out relatively healthy meals for the day, my carb and protein levels are where they should be but my fat levels are not. I really don't want to start pouring oils over everything and eating bacon with every meal, and the thought of 'fat bombs' just for the sake of getting more fat in makes me queasy.
Is it a bad thing on keto to not meet your fat macros? I'm still aiming to make sure I meet my calorie requirement for the day.
Is it a bad thing on keto to not meet your fat macros? I'm still aiming to make sure I meet my calorie requirement for the day.
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Stay under on the carbs and meet or exceed the protein. If fat is low and you are not hungry, you are ok.4
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Carbs are a hard limit. Protein is a minimum that should be met. Fat is based on hunger levels. If you are hungry, you need more fat. If that also puts you up higher on the protein, that's fine. In the future, make a point to get fattier foods in earlier. You should never be hungry. Not really. You might be hungry from boredom or stress or whatever. But, you should never be physically hungry. If you are, if you feel like you're starving, you need more fat. If you're not, then no big deal. Just make sure you are getting more than enough protein and keeping the carbs down below the maximum you have set.7
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@Jenni_MFP I think strictness varys from person to person. For three years now I have just stayed off of all added sugar and all forms of all grains. Since I am a non counter by intent I estimate my carbs at about 50 daily since I stay in Nutritional Ketosis most all of the time. With processed foods basically out of my life staying away from carbs is almost automatically as in I do not think about them any longer yet have maintained/loss for three years now. I weight daily (twice each morning) to track net CICO and urine output but drinking a gallon of water most days the output hangs around a liter first thing each morning. As mentioned protein is my main concern to not go short on. It seems like in my case the carbs and fats take care of themselves at the age of 66.
Best of continued success and remember your results are the only ones that count in the end.2 -
Ditto the others: Carbs is a ceiling to stay under. Protein is a goal to hit or exceed and fat just fills in the rest. If not hungry, don't eat the extra fat and let your body provide those calories. If hungry and not wanting the fats, a little extra protein doesn't hurt anything.
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Thanks all! Some days, the fats are on target (like today!) and other days its low. I won't stress about it unless I feel hungry... which has not been a problem so far 0
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Learning not to panic especially in the early days of keto was not easy for me.0
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It's the low carb that makes it keto. Not the amount of fat.
Think of it this way. If you were fasting and eating nothing, you'd still be in ketosis. So all you need is very low carbs. You definitely need a certain amount of fat for health but drinking oils and such isn't what makes it keto though it's clear you've found info to suggest differently. We all have.
You really just need to eat meat, cook with healthy fats and keep carbs low.4 -
Keep in mind, too much protein can kick some people out of ketosis, since excess protein (more than the body needs) gets converted to glucose.1
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About protein & gluconeogenesis: http://www.tuitnutrition.com/2017/07/gluconeogenesis.html3
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Keep in mind, too much protein can kick some people out of ketosis, since excess protein (more than the body needs) gets converted to glucose.
I have tried to see if the protein macro had any impact on my glucose levels. As close as I can tell for me it seems that higher levels of protein predict a lower glucose level at 1 hour and 2 hrs. This is your classic n=1 with a sample size consisting of me. After glaring at the trends for a while, I increased my protein macro and reduced the fat. I am more intentional about exceeding the protein goal every day. Glucose numbers seem to be doing well. My "dawn effect" seems to have gone away. YMMV of course, and I can believe another person might respond another way.
I am working on the assumption that I am in ketosis, but I have never checked with the sticks. I keep carbs under 20 (13 net today and 9 net yesterday), and have done this all but a couple of days for the last 10 months or so. The high days were like 25, so it was not like I went crazy with jelly beans or something.2 -
Steph_Maks wrote: »About protein & gluconeogenesis: http://www.tuitnutrition.com/2017/07/gluconeogenesis.html
Fantastic article that answers a lot of questions! Thanks
I have some changes to make to my meal plans after all the feedback here. I'm so glad to hear I don't need to be forcefeeding myself fats just for the sake of it. I would much rather switch back to lean meats!
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Amy Berger talks about glucose and insulin in the article above but as protein relates to ketosis, she makes this comment (to a subscriber) in her blog about fat adaptation and I have "bolded" the part I am speaking about:
Amy BergerSeptember 20, 2017 at 12:41 PM
Why are you doing all this? The whole point of this post was to help people see that very few of us have a reason to micromanage these sorts of things unless you are using this diet as a *medical therapy.* This kind of constant measuring and tracking simply isn't necessary for most of us. If you enjoy it and you feel it adds something positive to your life, keep at it. But as I wrote here, you have to understand how to *interpret* the results so you don't make yourself crazy. Of course your ketones are lower when you eat higher protein. That tends to be how it works in most people. (With some exceptions, but most people...higher protein, lower ketones, but STILL FAT ADAPTED.) You read that part about OAA, right? ;-)
From this article/blog:
http://www.tuitnutrition.com/2017/09/measuring-ketones.html#more
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But ketone levels are irrelevant for a fat loss goal anyway. OP has made no mention of using keto for medical therapy purposes.1
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Thanks for posting Amy's article - I have spoken with her and she does advocate for increasing protein as long as you are not doing Keto for medical reasons. She also does a nice job explaining the connection between being in ketosis and being fat adapted.2
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