OVERVIEW
I have personally found in a ketogenic high fat diet, that I do not need to limit the amount of fat I need to intake, many people believe that calories apply even in ketosis, but i think this happens because people over stimulate their insulin and store dietary fat.
Objectives
- Shift the discussion from it does matter as more and more seem to point in this metabolic state something different is happening and the standard caloric intake worked out on a standard mixed diet do not seem to apply.
- Find people that have found this to be true and keto their take on this subject, I will document all both sides of personal / expects that are either for or against so we can target those that think something else is going on to make people think about that subject differently.
- What’s hard is finding these examples as most people go keto to lose weight, or eat higher levels of protein, not too many people are talking about maintaining weight with this style of eating.
Expects For Calories Matter
Joe Anderson – PhD in Chemical Engineering
Expert in ketosis and measuring ketones says “Calories in Calories out matter, a high fat diet is satiating and not as hungry so regulates naturally that calories in calories out” – source
Everyday People/Gurus For Calories Matter
Thomas DeLauer – Youtuber
Because eventually thermodynamics apply. There’s no way around it. You never know what other “compounds” are in play for someone as well. Not suggesting wittrock is taking anything, but the simple fact is that we can not refute physics.
Joaquin concha
I eat 2600 kcal/day on keto for 3 weeks and I gain a weight. And Meta analysis says that in fact you can get fat on keto.
Marty Kendall – Blogger
While fat doesn’t raise insulin as much in the short term, your pancreas still releases insulin to hold back your body fat in storage while you use up the energy coming in from your diet.
While insulin plays a role in converting the food you eat to energy, you can think of insulin like the brake signal to stop stored energy being released from your liver. Your pancreas will raise your insulin levels while you use up the energy coming in from the food you’ve just eaten. Insulin will be higher if you have more body fat and/or eat more (regardless of the macro split).
Expects For Calories in Ketosis is different
Huge study on why different people gain weight
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190124141538.htm
Dr. Benjamin Bikman
Explains that ketones uncouple the mitochondria and extra fat is wasted rather than stored, the fat cells are more wasteful and less effective, but the muscle stay primed, ketones are metabolic advantage, seems in keto that allows to chew through fat and glucose and just generate heat rather than store the fat, which it’s an awesome response in our current environment. – 17min in
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/2-keto-dudes/id1086736152?i=1000432205010
Dr. Zsófia Clemens
No weight gain in ketosis compared to mixed paleo https://youtu.be/nDPM8o9jcFA?t=1594
Everyday People Expects For Ketosis is different
Trainer – https://www.ketoquest.com
Calories are different on a low insulin diet
https://youtu.be/BPz–KY8KcQ?t=453
4,000 CALORIE 21-DAY KETO CHALLENGE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRop_ltYUlk
KETO CALORIE CHALLENGE | DAY 21 | IT’S DONE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zevz9LLS-kY&list=PLfR-8rhslnU9rTQhdJITphrswXFkOJWg8&index=22
This is awesome Jason! I’ve been doing 3300 calories of Keto for about 2 1/2 weeks and haven’t had any fat gain. Look forward to seeing your results and wish you the best of luck.
This is interesting. I started keto this week myself, was previously eating 2200 cals and maintaining, upped my cals to 2500 for the purpose of seeing what my maintenance will be and low and behold it iv lost weight each day now granted it will be water weight but proof a calorie is not a calorie
I eat 3000 cals on keto and still lose weight. Very excited to see how this goes for you!
Good luck Jason!! Thank You for sharing this with us. I think because you have an ectomorph body type and have a super fast metabolism, you will gain muscle and a little bit of body fat. I would love to get your opinion on an endomorph body that just became fat adapted and sitting at 17% body fat. Pushing my body through tough workouts, i find by the end of my week I could use a few more calories. After taking the weekend off the gym I’m recharged for Monday morning. I feel that if I had another 500 calories on Wednesday and Thursday I can enjoy my workouts with the same intensity as I do Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Not wanting to stop the chance of burning fat, I have stayed at the 2100 calories weighing in at 176lbs Thanks!! Fabio in New Jersey
Reina Macarena – Source
I’m not counting calories. Our forefathers didn’t and turned out fine. I eat within reason on keto intermittent fasting. It’s a lifetime change for me, not a diet – source comments
The Keto Guido – Source
Jason Wittrock did keto with 4000 calories a day and lost weight so how is it that calories in and calories out matter?.- source comments He was told – because eventually thermodynamics apply. There’s no way around it. You never know what other “compounds” are in play for someone as well. Not suggesting wittrock is taking anything, but the simple fact is that we can not refute physics.
Another reply “unfortunately we are not thermodynamic machines, our bodies are controlled by our endocrine system” – then told “sounds like you didn’t watch the full video. Thanks”
Another person “”Yes but he is an “exception”.Bullshit. Some other guy was the inspiration for that experiment, Sam somebody, who went for 5000 calories for 21 days – and actually lost an inch on his waist while gaining 1.4 kg. People called him an ‘exception’ too, so he repeated the experiment but this time high carb and low fat, also 5000 calories. He gained 9 kg of pure fat.”
If you eat more calories than you burn, you’ll gain weight; if more people enter a room, than leave, the room will be crowded (paraphrase of Gary Taubes). Both completely true, both entirely uninformative.
John Galt – Source
Dr Schmidt had a patient that ate 6k calories in fat a day and lost weight. Watched another video from someone else that ate an insane amount of calories and lost weight. If you don’t exceed your protein requirements and eat no carbs then calories do not matter. Can’t store fat without the hormone to store it.
Xtreme Scratchers – Source
At 6ft 220lbs I’ve lost weight eating 4000 calories a day eating keto and I still feel great so a calorie in no way is a calorie, but if consuming processed junk sugars and processed carbohydrate packaged foods yes calories matter because these all cause high blood sugar and spike insulin which is the main fat storage hormone
Chris Graham – Source
This does but doesn’t make sense. Jason Witrock “The Keto King” did a 21 day study on 4,000 calories in Ketosis and he lost 0.9% body fat and 2.5lbs (People didn’t believe it thinking he lied, jason probably does offscreen cardio ontop, he never showed him actually consuming 4k calories a day. He showed all the food but didnt eat all of it)
Jason Burt – Source
You will always be wrong thinking theoretically when it comes to human biology. I lost 100 lbs eating 5000 calories in fat per day. I cured hypertension eating 5000 calories in fat per day. I’m puzzled. Thank god i live in America because eating this way would not be possible.
Evan Maynard – Source
Everyone is going to call me a liar but I am telling the truth, I lost 115 pounds eating only meet for a year and I had way more than 3000 calories every day. I ate way more calories than I needed and hardly exorcised… when eating only meat and 0 carbs it doesn’t matter how much you eat.
Facebook Comment – That was painful to listen too. After 3 years of eating low carb/ keto and losing weight without counting calories or exercising it is hard to go back to thinking it is about calories as per Stephan Guyenet. I do think Gary Taubes points about explaining obesity found in populations of malnutrition and without access to excess calories interesting and SG did not really answer that. Also made me think about Sam Feltham’s N=1 experiment http://live.smashthefat.com/why-i-didnt-get-fat/ I wondered how SG would explain that.
Summary
The key to not gaining weight on a ketogenic state is to ensure your protein requirements do not spike your insulin high enough to raise the insulin to the point where fat storage is possible, I believe the safe level is is 30-40g of protein in a meal mainly because protein is insulinogenic. So it may be better to spread your daily meals to a 3 meals a day rather than twice a day.
I think we have seen above for those that do track and maintain a ketogenic state that it seems possible that higher levels of fat above standard caloric calculations may be different when eating a nutritional ketogenic diet compared to other dietary lifestyles. As Dr Bikman said “ketones are metabolic advantage, seems in keto that allows to chew through fat and glucose and just generate heat rather than store the fat, which it’s an awesome response in our current environment.” in our modern age I feel a diet that allows not having to count calories will be much easier in our modern food environment, and I feel that a ketogenic style of eating has been a game changer for me.