I've read Volek and Taubs and understand that protein in excess can create extra glucose. I'm wondering if this is primarily caused by a lot of protein overall throughout the day, or a lot of protein eaten in one meal.
For instance, perhaps it's possible to have a lot of protein and not create extra glucose, provided you spread it out throughout the day.

When I tried doing keto, I noticed that I had to restrict my protein pretty low (60-80g or lower per day) to get good readings, so I think I am sensitive in the gluconeogenisis department. I don't remember them specifying this in the books.

I need to restrict my protein to 60-80g or lower per day too. I've been intermittent fasting for a while and have had no problem eating 40-50g of protein in one meal, but I eat my protein with a lot of fat, which slows down digestion, and don't eat dairy protein which is digested faster. That is why Atkins, Volek & Phinney limit dairy serving sizes during induction.

You should check out Marty Kendall's "insulin index" which adds the protein effect on insulin to the carb effect.
https://optimisingnutrition.wordpre...r/martykendall/
and not eat a lot of the high index foods in one sitting

Interesting. Yes now that you mention it I do remember one of the books, I think Taubs, saying that proteins like cheese are different. But since reading that I have read so much low carb stuff that talks about how cheese is totally fine, so I assumed that maybe there was newer research but perhaps there never was any. I add a lot of cheese to my foods so perhaps less cheese would be more ketogenic.

I looked at this insulin index (https://optimisingnutrition.wordpre...sulin-index-v2/)
but find it hard to read. I read most of it but don't quite understand. By insulinogenic, do they mean these are going to spike your BG? How is that different from "glucogenic"?
It says to focus on lower insulinogenic foods if you are insulin resistant, so maybe that word signifies to avoid those foods for a ketogenic diet.

Then in the summary chart it says "carbohydrates only" and this is "0% insulinogenic". Which I don't understand at all. I wish it explained some of these phrases (like "carbohydrates only") because I am a bit lost.

Also, the dairy items didnt seem to look worse in the charts than the meats and other items, even though dairy is more likely to spike BG.


I've read a lot about low carb and the science behind it, but I guess this stuff is still way beyond my understanding!

Also, if its BG spike we are trying to avoid.. it seems like small amounts of protein throughout the day would avoid that. But in my experience it seemed like it was the overall total protein of the day that would effect my ketosis.
So its as if there is another aspect beyond just the single meal spikes. Like your body is counting the overall totals...

Volek and Taubes indicate that limiting your daily protein intake will help avoid insulin spikes. I don't think they ever mention spreading it out over the day, but they probably are assuming balanced meals since they spread out carbs over the day to prevent spikes.

If you are getting all of your protein from fatty meat, poultry, fish, eggs that take 4-6 hrs to digest, spreading it out may not be important, but if you are using whey protein powders and dairy products, it would be good to make sure you spread them out. But the reaction is individual; for some like me 15g of dairy protein will make me ravenous in an hour just like eating 15g of sugar would.

Could go either way. Eat 90 grams of protein at one meal, there's a higher insulin and blood glucose rise. But it's probably over sooner, in three or four hours, (maybe 5 or 6, depending on the protein), you're back in the fasted state. Or you could spread the protein out over the course of the day--and have lower, but over-lapping peaks, and spend much of the day in the fed state, with insulin and glucose both elevated.

There are studies with carb containing meals, generally 6 meals doesn't seem to be better than 3 meals. But if you go as far as 17 meals at the same calorie intake, blood glucose does improve considerably.

With just protein, no carbs, the numbers are a lot smaller though, it might not take nearly as many meals.

With rodents, whey protein makes an otherwise fattening diet less fattening, when it replaces caseine. It does give a higher postprandial rise in insulin, but their fasting insulin is lower. Return to baseline insulin after a feeding also happens sooner with whey than with caseine.

Fat slows down stomach emptying, this might sort of blur the difference between a few large meals and a bunch of small ones.