Ketosis & Fat

Dillinger said:

One thing I'm not sure of is what happens to excess fat that you consume if you are in ketosis or thereabouts?

If you are actively metabolising fat and therefore not laying down fat what happens to fats that you eat that are not immediately needed? Is it possible to both lay down and metabolise fat at the same time?

If anyone has any technical explanations that would be great; it's the last link in the chain for me - I don't understand what the process is. By the way if you would like to explain why eating fat is a bad idea perhaps you could post that somewhere else?

Thanks

Dillinger

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I think that, independent of whether you are in ketosis or not, your body is constantly burning off and laying down fat.

I think that the mistake is to think that your body fat is a big inert mass, and that you burn it off in the same order that you laid it down. I don't think it's true that the small bit of unsightly flab that you haven't been able to shift since 1977 is made up of the exact fat that you ate when you had a few extra chips with your kebab on the way home from watching STAR WARS.

Whether you eat it or not, most of your body's fuel needs are met by oxidising fat (dietary, stored body fat, or fat created from excess carbohydrate consumption). When you wake up in the morning your body is metabolising fat. After you've eaten your bacon and eggs it's probably laying some down.

I've written elsewhere that a non-athlete can't metabolise more than about 160g of carb a day, if you try to do more than that it either turns the carbs into fat, goes into "toxic emergency sugar burning mode" (insulin resistance yay!) or lets the the glucose accumulate in your blood (diabetes yay!). Most of that fat will be burned, some will be stored.

So, give or take 640kcal from glucose, your body is a fat burning machine. That's its preferred fuel source.

Ketosis works by replacing that 640kcal of glucose with fat and ketones (which are a bi-product of fat and protein burning). Instead of being fuelled entirely by glucose, your brain is fuelled almost entirely by ketones (plus about 25g of glucose). Your muscles change from burning a mix of fat and glucose to burning almost entirely fat.

The net result is that your are burning more fat, which you need to supply from either your post-STAR WARS flab or from your diet. Note that since you are no-longer eating carbs, that you also need to replace the carb created fat.

If you eat too much fat, even in ketosis, you will absolutely increase your reserves of body fat, but as I said above, from every mouthful you eat, some will be stored and some will be burned.

I too struggle a little to understand the science behind the diet. Can anyone suggest any further reading that would help?

Dillinger said:

borofergie said:

I think that, independent of whether you are in ketosis or not, your body is constantly burning off and laying down fat.

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Thanks Borofergie - that sounds sensible, so if there are, alas, no get out of jail free cards why do you glug the double cream? Other than it's a nice thing to do. Are you trying to get your calorie intake up to a certain level and are not wanting to have more protein or carbs?

Best

Dillinger

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Because I'm trying to be in deep ketosis (dark purple on the strips), I try to limit my protein to less than 18% of calories, which is only about 120g a day, which kinda rules out the "eat lots of steak" approach.

Cream is just an easy way of getting the fat content of my diet up, without eating too much protein. Mayo is another choice, but I try to avoid vegetable oil too.

I should note that the "deep ketosis" thing isn't about diabetic control, but about athletic peformance. I'm trying to be an endurance runner without eating any carbs... I don't suggest that anyone else tries to eat 80% fat.

I did stop taking the cream for two weeks, and dropped about 6lbs in weight, but my running performance suffered. That and the fact that it's my only vice.

I recently read a book entitled The Art and Science of Low Carb Performance by Volek & Phinney which has good explanations of ketosis/exercise/carbs etc.

dlmoak said:

I recently read a book entitled The Art and Science of Low Carb Performance by Volek & Phinney which has good explanations of ketosis/exercise/carbs etc.

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Yeah - it's a great book, although you need to read it alongside "The Art and Science of Low Carb Living".

borofergie said:

Dillinger said:

borofergie said:

I think that, independent of whether you are in ketosis or not, your body is constantly burning off and laying down fat.

Click to expand...

Thanks Borofergie - that sounds sensible, so if there are, alas, no get out of jail free cards why do you glug the double cream? Other than it's a nice thing to do. Are you trying to get your calorie intake up to a certain level and are not wanting to have more protein or carbs?

Best

Dillinger

Click to expand...

Because I'm trying to be in deep ketosis (dark purple on the strips), I try to limit my protein to less than 18% of calories, which is only about 120g a day, which kinda rules out the "eat lots of steak" approach.

Cream is just an easy way of getting the fat content of my diet up, without eating too much protein. Mayo is another choice, but I try to avoid vegetable oil too.

I should note that the "deep ketosis" thing isn't about diabetic control, but about athletic peformance. I'm trying to be an endurance runner without eating any carbs... I don't suggest that anyone else tries to eat 80% fat.

I did stop taking the cream for two weeks, and dropped about 6lbs in weight, but my running performance suffered. That and the fact that it's my only vice.

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What are your cholesterol levels like, as i try to eat mainly protein and veg/salad, but i've not been scared of fats as when i ate like that and cut out fat, i didnt lose much weight. I've just had routine blood tests and the nurse said that my cholesterol is borderline (probably due to too much sausage and bacon for breakfast) and i'm seeing the Dr next week, so my question is, how do you eat so much fat and keep your levels down? Is it because you do enough exercise?

Ashleigh said:

What are your cholesterol levels like, as i try to eat mainly protein and veg/salad, but i've not been scared of fats as when i ate like that and cut out fat, i didnt lose much weight. I've just had routine blood tests and the nurse said that my cholesterol is borderline (probably due to too much sausage and bacon for breakfast) and i'm seeing the Dr next week, so my question is, how do you eat so much fat and keep your levels down? Is it because you do enough exercise?

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If anything, my cholesterol levels are too low:

• Total = 3.6 mmol/l
• HDL = 0.9 mmol/l
• Trigs = 0.99 mmol/l
• LDL = 2.2 mmol/l

If you are eating a ketogenic diet you'd expect the following to happen:

• Your trigs to decrease
• Your HDL ("good cholesterol") to increase
• Your LDL quality to increase, but not its quantity

In the words of Richard Feinman:
"Dietary carbohydrate restriction is the single most effective method (except for total starvation) of reducing triglycerides, and is as effective as any intervention, including most drugs, at increasing HDL and reducing the number of small-dense LDL particles. Beyond lipid markers, carbohydrate restriction improves all of the features of metabolic syndrome. "
https://rdfeinman.wordpress.com/2012/03 ... 15-theses/

In the absence of dietary carbohydrate you'd expect an increased fat intake to be good for your lipid profile. This is not surprising, because ketosis is a "fat adapted" state, where your body becomes much more efficient at using fat as fuel.

Anyway, there is no link between increased fat intake and cardio-vascular mortality, so it seems a bit silly to even worry about it.

Ok thank you, I expect where i've gone wrong then is including a lot of saturated fat like sausages and burgers more than 'good' fats and not sticking to low carb consistently recently.

Ashleigh said:

Ok thank you, I expect where i've gone wrong then is including a lot of saturated fat like sausages and burgers more than 'good' fats and not sticking to low carb consistently recently.

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Not sure about that either - saturated fat can be associated with a rise in LDL cholesterol, but not usually in the context of a low-carb diet.

I think that saturated fat is "good fat" and that polyunsaturated vegetable and grain oils are "bad fat". I try to get the majority of my (considerable) fat intake from animal and dairy products. Eating carbohydrates is far worse for your lipid profile than eating saturated fat.

Regarding the use of ketone strips for testing - once you are ketone adapted, your body burns ketones more efficiently and they essentially don't spill over into your urine. So if a ketogenic diet is your goal, you don't wish to continue to see dark purple colors on the ketone strips. Once you are adapted, you can only tell your ketone level with blood tests, opr one of the new meters that will test your blood for ketones.

dlmoak said:

Regarding the use of ketone strips for testing - once you are ketone adapted, your body burns ketones more efficiently and they essentially don't spill over into your urine. So if a ketogenic diet is your goal, you don't wish to continue to see dark purple colors on the ketone strips. Once you are adapted, you can only tell your ketone level with blood tests, opr one of the new meters that will test your blood for ketones.

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That explains a lot. I have been ultraLCHFing for several weeks now and since I have been using Ketone strips have never had more than a trace result and been disappointed that I couldn't achieve a higher reading. I must admit to liking the idea that I have an efficient body.

Gosh......am I still not getting it right vis the Ketostix? Although, lately, they've been paler and I thought it was too many carbs...maybe it isn't? Hmmmm....

Given up with the scales, tape measure says I've lost 6 inches from my waist since the beginning of March. Don't think I've had a 30 inch waist since two babies ago!

Ju

Avoid all starches and breads during ketosis. All breads and rice have high carbohydrate content, and eating just a small amount may bring you out of ketosis. While brown rice and wheat bread may be healthier than their white versions, it will not matter during ketosis. After your ketosis experience, you may bring brown rice and breads back into your diet. Choose the darker versions of bread and rice for the higher fiber content, as fiber reduces your total net carbs absorbed in the body.

I wrote a few articles about this on my facebook page (www.facebook.com/KetoLiving) since I'm heavily against 'calorie theory'.

There's a few other pathways of fat/energy use:
1) Heat - A small amount of energy that's digested by bile which isn't used for kinetic energy is expelled via heat. This is relevant especially to Inuit populations who carry around bundles of fat (which they store actual meat inside) when travelling to stay warm.
2) Energy for bodily repair - Fat is a crucial component for the repair of most cellular structures. This is specifically important to the repair of myelin sheaths in the brain, and lack of fat in a diet is actually thought to be a leading cause of a lot of brain disorders that are plaguing the world today like Alzheimers, MS, Epilepsy, etc.
3) Kinetic energy - Nuff' said. You get more energy when ketogenic and ingesting additional fat.
4) Expelled (Feces and Urine) - I don't have the ability to test out the feces aspect but I performed a personal experiment on myself with an extreme fat/calorie surplus. My ketone levels spiked to a very high amount (ketostix turned deep purple the moment it hit the urine - didn't even take the full 15 seconds).

Hope this helps - and check out my facebook page!

If lowering your carbs below 20g per day doesn't get you into ketosis, you probably need to increase your fat intake (which will also help you satiety), and you might need to check your protein intake.