Teaser, do you mean 1 - 1.2 or 1.5 gram per pound of ideal body weight or the same amount per pound of lean mass? If you're eating 60-80 grams protein per day and you are shooting for 155 lbs, that is more like .4 to .5 grams protein per pound of ideal body weight. I know you are well researched so I want to make sure I understand what you are actually doing. ETA: I'm wondering now if you meant 1.2 to 1.5 grams per kg of ideal body weight?

I see recommendations for anything from .7 grams per pound of lean mass to 1.5 grams per pound of lean mass - that's a huge range and it makes me wonder what is really necessary. I know where I feel comfortable and have good glucose readings, but sometimes I worry I'm overdoing it at 90 grams protein per day (for a lean mass of 95-100 lbs).

Personally, I think ketones and ketosis are a wonderful thing.

Whoops. That's supposed to be a gram per kilogram of ideal bodyweight. I've probably read too many threads on bodybuilding forums, that's more like their numbers.

I think the higher protein limits are akin to ever increasing calcium recommendations--trying to correct a problem that's really a matter of hormonal imbalances leading to decrease in storage minerals and proteins by shoving more protein and calcium into the diet. Bodybuilders will push carbs and high protein for muscle building based on the hormonal responses that healthy lean young men get to eating these foods, and they might lead to higher lean mass. Somebody like Jimmy Moore? For him, going more ketogenic brought his testosterone up to healthy levels--whatever the effect of ketones might be to directly improve protein retention, the indirect effect on testosterone would obviously improve things.

I'm almost embarrassed that it took me this long to approach ketosis with any kind of controlled method of eating. I think protein paranoia is really what kept me back. We continuously read about how ketosis protects lean mass--and then what do we do? Or what do I do, at least? I eat 2 or more times my protein requirement.

I did a water-fast a couple years ago, after losing about fifteen pounds. I lost the fifteen pounds on low carb by increasing my protein intake, lowering the fat. It worked (the high protein). At first, it decreased my hunger. Later, I tended to go to bed hungrier. Sort of the same thing happened this time around--even if I wasn't hungry before bed, I'd lay there for a while and end up hungry.

You can only store so much protein--so if you eat 200 grams a day, you'll oxidize much of it. Just like with carb or fat adaptation, all sorts of enzymes etc. will be up-regulated, and it can take weeks to adapt to a diet change. So eat 200 grams of protein a day for a couple of months, then switch to 50--and you're in negative balance. A person with the same lean mass, habitually eating 70 grams of protein a day might also go into negative balance at 50 grams, but perhaps not so deeply. I've seen one study where they had people do a high protein or a very low protein diet for a week, and then fast--they lost more nitrogen during the fast then they gained during the feeding, so over the total course of the study, lost more lean mass than the low protein eaters.

Low carbers often say they tolerate fasting better than on the SAD. I don't, or I haven't. People say they're a little hungry at first, but it decreases over the course of a long fast. I got hungrier every minute of my five-day fast. I suspect I could tolerate it better now. Probably couldn't down-regulate protein oxidation quickly enough. No wonder I went into binging when I came out of the fast.-

I agree with so much of what you say, Teaser, and yet I'm still puzzled on how much protein is enough, how much is too much. I agree 200 g is too much for just about anyone (certainly more than I would EVER want), but what is the safe lower limit? It seems like a fine balance between enough protein to repair lean mass (and not trigger the sort of hunger the OP refers to) and not so much that it converts to glucose. I don't see much of anything out there that actually quantifies how to adjust your protein requirements for your specific bodily maintenance requirements (hunger/cravings/satisfaction/desire to build muscle aside).

I googled protein calculators last night and checked out the first half dozen, one from U of Md, one from about.com, one from bodybuilding.com and a few others whose urls I forget. For my height, 5'3" age; 60; sex, F; current weight, 140; activity level - moderate; I came up with everything from 40 g per day to 140 g per day. That is a huge range, so huge I find it meaningless. While I suspect the correct amount is somewhere in the middle, at what part of the middle? That's my question.

As far as Jimmy Moore and testosterone, did he actually say that his ketogenic diet improved his T levels? It is my understanding that he was also taking T cream, and I attributed T cream + ketogenic diet allowed him to dramatically lose fat, rather than ketogenic diet leading to increases in Testosterone. I may well have missed a post so would appreciate a link if you have one. Here's the one I've seen, but it's old and doesn't talk about his results: http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/...struggles/12529

Okay, I missed that about the testosterone cream. There's a later post where he shows his testosterone levels as being up, along with a lot of other tests he had done, but he doesn't mention hormone therapy there. Looks like he probably went to something more effective.

http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/...y-241-270/17905




On the protein requirement thing, I think the whole model is wrong. Increasing activity to marathon or IronMan levels greatly increases protein requirements. A high-intensity, low volume exercise program of the type popular with low-carb and paleo types, doesn't increase protein requirements, it decreases them. Or if you walk a marathon instead of running it, if all else is equal, the walking won't cause you to burn nearly as much protein as the running.

The way I hope things work, if I'm not getting enough protein in, my body will let me know. If I go a full day without any protein, just eat fat, at the end of the day, a can of dry tuna tastes delicious. Any other time, it's really unappealing. If you're managing to keep blood glucose in a normal range, say in the 70s and 80s, I sort of suspect you might be getting enough protein--because once you're protein-deficient, it would be logical for the body to depend increasingly on ketones, making glucose from protein would be kind of wasteful in that scenario. But that's just a suspicion, and even if that's the way things are supposed to work, we can't always trust our bodies to work properly.

One thing I do is a bicep measurement, I carry very little fat on my arms, so if that goes down it's probably muscle. Last time I lost weight (when I did the fast) I lost about a half-inch on my biceps. This time it's stayed steady.

I tend to lean heavily towards believing Dr. Bernstein's numbers. He'd probably notice if his diabetic patients (or he himself) were wasting away. It might be different for athletes, but there's probably nobody out there with a clinical history of precise control of protein intake such as that he has with his patients.

The math stumps me every time. I'm 5'11", muscular, my ideal body weight is 190 lbs. Using Bernstein's model, how much protein should I consume daily? There are 2.2 pounds in a KG so.....

190/2.2 = 86.36, so even though I weigh 242 lbs I should only eat 86 grams of protein a day?

The average protein source has 6-7 grams per ounce of meat or per egg. I should be eating 12 one ounce servings of protein a day?

Today's protein:
2 burger patties 40 grams
6 oz chicken breast 44 grams.
3 oz sausage 21 grams
2 eggs 14 grams
9 strips bacon 27 grams.

146 grams of protein = 20 1 ounce servings.

If my math is right, where should I cut 60 grams of protein?


Thanks for any advice.

First question is whether you actually need to drop the protein. Rules of thumb are fine--but if blood glucose, hunger and desired weight loss were all in place, then where's the problem? A few months ago, when I had a few more pounds to lose, I was actually doing pretty well on higher protein intake--maybe because I was more active, and had more body fat to lean on. My blood sugar was probably running a little higher than it is right now, but still in the normal range. I think the same diet that satisfied me when I was a little bit fatter might have been causing episodes of hypoglycemia, putting me into binging episodes once I'd lost twelve pounds or so. I'm using hypoglycemia here as sort of a blanket term for unreliable energy supply to the brain--blood glucose can be "normal" but you could get there because the organs most reliant on it for energy don't dare take it up at a rate that will best support their metabolism.

In his weight-loss chapter, Dr. Bernstein recommends lowering protein about 2 ounces at a time, and giving it a couple weeks at least to see if that gets the scale moving again. And then further if that doesn't work--but never getting below that 1-1.2 grams per kilogram range.

Personally, I'd probably start with the chicken breast. But if you have a really good recipe for chicken breast, you might disagree.

It looks to me like your math is correct, new LC, and, yes, that looks like quite a bit of protein. Don't forget that cheese, if you eat that, contains substantial amounts, and even green veggies have some.

I wonder if there is merit, based on what teaser says, of cutting back incrementally on the protein. ETA: I see teaser answered that question while I was slowly pecking at my iPad.

Teaser, I think you're right about Bernstein being a good observer. I will pull out his book when I get home this weekend and see whether my protein merits modification by his metrics. ETA thanks for clarifying why you cut back on protein. I'm of the if it ain't broke, don't fix it school, but it sounds as if you had good reason to try modifying. Great that it helped.

I'd say, yes, that is appropriate for the rule of 1 oz of protein per 1 kg of ideal body weight per day. Or are you exercising more?

I had to cut protein too, I would naturally eat a lot!!! I would do it this way and be sure to add butter and olive oil back in. Or you could do it in stages.

2 burger patties to 1 = 40 to 25 g (can you make the one a little bigger?)
6 oz chicken breast to 3 oz and add butter = 44 g to 22 g
3 oz sausage to 2 = 21 g to 14 g
2 eggs = keep 14
9 strips bacon to 3 = 27 g to 9 g

old 146 g
new 84 g

Thanks for the confirmation.

Teaser: I stopped exercising due to injuries and started eating off plan about two months ago, weight got back up to 247. 12/30/13, I went back into induction, down 5 pounds already! Blood sugar is great. I just want to be on point.

Seejay: funny you advise that. Today I added buter to my eggs and sausage. I had a cobb salad for lunch and added 3 tablespoons of olive oil to the ranch dressing. I ate at neen and I am not hungry.

Liz53:I recently stopped eating broccoli, but increased my salad. I started rereading Low Carb Living by Volek and Phinney and realize I need to reduce protein and increase fat. It's funny how easy it is for me to get lost. I want to get locked in and not change anything for awhile.

Thanks again!