Week 3 Keto Experiment. Notes and thoughts. Questions answered.
After dropping about 7-8 lbs initially, my body weight has plateaued. That’s perfectly fine with me as I am not concerned with my body weight. Rather, I am much more concerned on body fat. I don’t feel like I’m seeing the results as I should be.
Yes, I know it takes time. I tell this to my clients ad nauseam.
I feel as if I may be going the opposite direction. Perhaps, my body doesn’t handle fats well? That’s not the only concern I have at the moment. For a number of reasons, I am concerned with some hormone levels, Testosterone and DHEA-S specifically.
I am having some blood work done Monday and I’m looking forward to seeing the results. If nothing else, I will have a reference point going forward.
After reviewing some things, I’ve decided to back off on my fats a bit. I’m starting to get consistent blood ketones higher than 0.5 mmol/L. I haven’t really noticed a ton more energy. I am pleased to say that my strength levels have not dropped off. Wednesday I deadlifted 345 x 4. Only 5 lbs lower from what I did 2 months ago and that’s after taking about 10 days off.
I’m pleased with everything with the exception of body composition. Moving forward, I believe I will transition my fats down while bumping protein up. One could argue, that it will no longer be a ketogenic diet, see below for my thoughts on that.
I feel like this is a slight change. If you are familiar with the Anabolic Diet by Dr. Mauro Di Pasquale, the changes will look quite familiar. If not familiar, I highly recommend you check it out!
2,200 kcal
165g Pro (30%)
159g Fat (65%)
28g Carbs (5%)
I’ll roll with this set up until Thanksgiving, where I’ll go hard in the paint, no doubt.
From then, I will be on the Anabolic Diet 100%. That’ll include weekend re-feeds of considerably higher amounts of carbohydrates. Sort-of like what the majority of the country will be doing tonight.
Let Me Answer a few questions before you ask.
Q. Are you in a caloric deficit?
A. While I don’t believe weight loss is as simple as calorie in vs. calorie out, I have maintained an overall calorie deficit. Some days it was a significant deficit, while on others it was closer to maintenance. Some days, I went a bit over my maintenance calories but overall I was in a caloric deficit.
Q. By decreasing your fats and increasing your protein, it will no longer be a ketogenic diet, correct?
A. Yes, you could certainly argue that, and I don’t really mind if you do. I could care less about labels and titles. Ultimately, I am just looking for whether it works or not. My speculation is that having already been converted into ketosis my body is better at burning free fatty acids/ketones than glucose/sugar it will start to utilize more body fat than dietary fat. Protein may or may not be converted into glucose via gluconeogenisis.
However, I am not convinced that it will do so to any significant degree. Allow me to reference our good buddy, Geoffrey Livesey. Livesey suggested that we calculate nutrients based upon their net metabolisable energy (NME). NME means that instead of calculating protein at 4 kilocalories per gram, you would calculate protein at 3.2 kcal per gram because of the energy loss through the process of breaking down protein into amino acids.
So we’re left with 3.2 kcal/g of protein. Protein is ~50% insulinogenic. That brings protein down to 1.6 kcal/g of protein. Another important note is that protein is only insulinogenic when found in excess. If the demand is equal to the supply, there will be none left over, and thus, none left to be converted into glucose.
But, for the sake of argument, let’s say that there is some extra protein floating around. Let’s say, 20g?
20 g X 1.6 kcal = 32 kcal (equivalent to 8g of carbohydrates)
Hardly enough to get a significant insulin/blood sugar response, I would argue.
Let’s up the ante, shall we?
100g of excess protein.
100g X 1.6 kcal = 160 kcal (equivalent to 40g of carbohydrates)
First, it’d be difficult to get an excess of 100g of protein, especially if you are resistance training to any degree. For women, this would be near impossible I fear. For men, possible but highly unlikely.
Assuming you could do it, you would only be left with 40g of carbohydrates. Add that to the additional 30g you’d be consuming from a ketogenic diet and you’re at 70g of carbs. For most, this would probably be enough to kick you out of ketosis but only briefly. Not to mention, your brain would be the primary source these carbs would be utilized by.
Perhaps, if you consistently ate 100 extra grams of protein per day this would be of concern, but due to the unlikeliness of consuming that much extra for extended periods of time, I wouldn’t be concerned.
This is merely speculation on my part and the numbers are not gonna be that nice and neat when it comes to the body.
If you’re adapted to utilizing fat, I don’t see this being an issue. The body prefers efficiency and will utilize the easier process 10 out of 10 times.
Happy Halloween ya filthy animals!
Stay #Relentless. That candy doesn’t stand a chance.
References:
Livesey, Geoffrey. “A perspective on food energy standards for nutrition labeling.” British Journal of Nutrition, 2oo1. 85:271-287. doi:10.1079/BJN2000253
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