RAC56 wrote: »

You'll see the, "How much protein do we need" issue debated a lot here, partly because, as I said previously, some folks really can do well on higher levels of protein while doing low carb. Right now, I'm just not one of them and I know other folks doing LCHF who get knocked out of ketosis when they raise their protein too high.

I think one of the issues in the debate is that there are two separate things going on (generally) when people talk about protein "kicking them out of ketosis."

1. The assumption is that being in ketosis is how fat loss happens, and therefore being "kicked out" is bad. That's incorrect. Fat burning (from either body fat or consumed fat) is how ketosis happens. Ketones are a product of fat burning, not the other way around. For weight loss purposes, a particular level of ketosis is not required, and any measurable level of ketosis is just fine (and being "kicked out" is temporary and a normal part of being metabolically flexible).

2. The assumption that, because consuming more protein reduces the ketone measurements, that it's happening because it's being "converted to sugar." This is also a myth. Protein prompts insulin release, because it's how it gets where it needs to go. Insulin also regulates the production of both glucose and ketones. So, when insulin rises, ketone and glucose production is reduced. In the vast majority of cases, this is actually what happens when people consume more protein, because both ketogenesis and gluconeogenesis are demand-driven processes, not supply driven (ie - the body engages these systems when other parts demand the fuel, not just because the substrates are there). Again, this isn't really a bad thing. The insulin reaction to protein intake is markedly different from the insulin reaction to sugar intake, usually in both amount and length of time. Once the protein is processed, the body should go back to burning body fat just fine.

In short, many people are measuring the wrong thing. Being in ketosis isn't really the goal if you're doing this for weight loss, (protein-sparing) weight loss is the goal. So, if you're losing weight and keeping/building muscle at the protein level that you're at, the ketone measurement isn't really important. (And if you're diabetic, the ketone measurement still isn't particularly important, the blood sugar one is.)