Thanks. I listened to the interview. I was under the impression, as Dr. Eenfield was, that once you'd been in ketosis a few times, you could re-enter the state more easily - in a day or two. Dr. Phinney is clear that it takes longer.

Maybe I should break down and buy that meter and some strips.

I'm thinking about it too.

I dont buy that point about it taking so long to get back into ketosis after a carb binge.

first of all, the degree of ketosis should only be determined by the absence of dietary carbs and protein. Thus removing all protein and carbs from the diet should return you very quickly to full ketosis.

Also one has to wonder what the actual significance of blood ketone concentration is, does higher levels imply higher energy expenditure? Or does it imply lower energy expenditure because ketones are not being used and thus accumulate in the blood and produce higher readings on the meter?

As far as I can see the only potential benefit of higher blood ketone levels ( assuming lower concentrations already meet energy needs ) would be higher activation of the beta-Hydroxybutyrate receptor GPR109A. ( and whatever other receptors ketones bind to, since ketones are not just molecules for energy they are also signalling molecules )

I don't know, Kindke. I wonder if Dr. Phinny would answer your questions if you asked them in the Youtube comments for that video.

Kindke, I think part of your question, at least, is answered by these paragraphs from Phinney & Volek's book "The Art and Science of Low-Carbohydrate Living":

Thats something I didnt know, wonder why it works like that? Why does it take muscles such a long time to make this adaption.

As a side note I just now happened to find this study in google about how GPR109A receptor activation stimulates adiponectin secretion, this is great news as adiponectin is a hormone with many many health benefits. So if higher serum beta-hydroxybutyrate promotes higher adiponectin secretion indeed I just answered my own question. So glad we cleared that up quickly!

http://ajpendo.physiology.org/content/296/3/E549.full

OregonRose,

Thanks for that quote from the book! It makes more sense now.

I love these types of discussions, where the LC heavy hitters are bouncing these concepts back and forth. They are infinitely preferable to the mindless back and forth wars between LCs and the ignorant, indentured CICO crowd.

That said, another reason I like to see discussion like this happening is that scientifically we've only scratched the surface of LC, HF, and ketosis, and there is still so much to explore.

I share the confusion of other members who say they feel that a brief carbohydrate imbalance has only taken them out of ketosis for a few days. I have all the wonderful goals with LC that others do, but primarily rely on ketosis to alleviate symptoms of my mental illness, and it is the functioning of my brain and my affect that tells me whether or not my brain is running on ketones. Maybe it's because of my illness, but I can pinpoint, literally to the HOUR, when I have reentered ketosis after an off-plan level of carbohydrate, and I also always experience this after approximately 3 days have passed. It may matter, however, that 'on plan' for me is already 70 to 75% fat calories, and an 'off plan' level of carbohydrate is a day of between 100 and 120 grams.

That's awesome! Now I can see how technical the book is and wonder if I should get it or not.

Jimmy was surprised that he wasn't in nutritional ketosis, very much, because he had been eating low carb. They recommend a certain level, which might be more than most of us experience, especially us long-timers, without adapting the diet a bit more by lowering protein.

I'm going to evaluate how things are doing with my current experiment, then I might just buy a blood ketone meter and see what happens.

I will post when I get started, it may not be for a while....I am coming back from an overseas trip and am not sure if the meter and strips are there.

For me it will mean back to full accounting of everything I eat to look at calories as well.

I love coconut oil and butter so do not have any trouble adding fat. I am also going to be looking at hunger on lower protein.

It sounded like, from the Phinney interview, to keep protein to 25% of daily calories burned... not consumed. Am I right?

So, using one of those basal metabolic rate calculators if you're at 1700 calories then protein would be around 106g. That still seems like quite a lot of protein.

(1700 * .25) / 4

I just plugged in some food in my plan:

2 jumbo eggs
8 oz shrimp
5 oz lean-ish beef
2 chicken thighs
=============
106g protein

That's quite a lot of protein, more than I eat in a typical day, I think. I might have to go lower than that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-hydr...e_dehydrogenase



According to the red, the redox (NADH vs NAD+) state of the cell should partly determine the flux between the two kinds of ketone. The symbol for a reversible enzyme action didn't paste, so I had to make my own two-headed arrow.



That's from the wikipedia entry for the citric acid cycle. The citric acid cycle chews up NAD+ and spits out NADH... which should increase production of beta-hydroxybutyrate from acetoacetate... but that might not make sense, since glycolysis would produce NADH, too. Can't say I really understand all this yet.



Would levels of lactate and pyruvate production have an effect, since in a carb-adapted state they'd compete for reaction with NAD+ or NADH? So you get this weird thing where increased availability of glucose in the cell actually increases use of acetoacetate? At least in muscle cells.

I forgot to mention this but I really liked what Dr. Phinney said about Omega-6 and Omega-3 and grass-fed versus standard beef. It essentially verified what I've always thought: Worrying about ratios of EFA in meat is pointless.

What did Dr. Phinney say about Omega-6 and Omega-3 and grass-fed versus standard beef?

It definitely sounds very interesting and I would want to try it out; though not buy that meter (I could never bring myself to taking that blood sample).

This however is the part I am most curious about:


What would good nutritional ketosis meals and snacks look like?
Would anyone have links to recipes that fit well in such a fat fast?