So... I'm experimenting and down a pound in 4 days yippee!!

Cannot believe this crazy diet not only stops me from gaining weight but is actually letting me lose and, all the while I am eating cheese, cream, butter...

I'm staying away from potatoes and my carbs are a bit lower than the ratio - but, then I'm not counting the carbs in cream or cheese, so figure that may push the number up slightly.

Why I think this works for me, is the reduction in protein - I notice when I eat chicken breast for lunch, for example, I feel kind of similar to how I feel after a carb lunch of pasta (it sits heavily in my stomach)

I've read a lot more on the LCHF rationale too (the Scandanavian Diet) and it is all beginning to make sense to me. I don't crave anything high carb either - in fact, I have very few cravings at all. Just enjoyment from good, tasty food.

Wine on occasion wont hurt. Wouldnt have more than a drink a day, and not everyday either.

I truly think that as long as the Max carbs and protein. Have been eaten, any amount of fat that allows weight loss is acceptable. I can eat up to 300g fat per day and not gain. But if I wanna drop a few lbs I go to about 160ish grams per day.

This diet is near impossible for me without dairy fats. Cream, cream cheese, butter, mascarpone, half and half, etc. Even the fattiest meats don't cut it. Egg yolk recipes are a must as well. Some of the other trainers in my gym have super high protein diets and we swap yolks for whites. Very convenient.

I would also recommend not having ANY artificial sweeteners. I notice very quickly how hungry I get after drinking a diet coke. And it lasts for at least an hour. Just my experience anyway.

I don't know anything about this -- heard of it in passing is all. It took me awhile to figure out what the above would mean.

As a sanity check, is the below the appropriate translation of the numbers given? I was just curious. The spreadsheet snippet (to mess with that directly) is:
Excel: http://www.palyne.com/rn/OptimalDietWorking01.xls
OpenOffice: http://www.palyne.com/rn/OptimalDietWorking01.ods

I'm just curious. It was a lot more carbs than I expected so I'm wondering if I messed it up.





PJ

Yes. The formula should look like this:

Protein requirements are your height in cm minus 100.
I'm 5feet 11in tall, that's roughly 180 cm. So subtract 100 and I get 80. That's plus or minus 10%. So between 72g and 88g of protein per day.

Next is carbs. The range of carbs should be .5 to .8 g per gram of protein. For me this is 40-64g carbs per day.

Last is fat. This is easy. Multiply your protein intake by 1.5 for weight loss. You can multiply by 3.5 to get maintenance level. So I need about 120-300g fat per day. The lower end represents fat loss, the higher end for maintenance.

Ratios are protein 1: fats 1.5: carbs .5 for fat loss. Maintenance levels are protein 1: fats 3.5: carbs .8

That protein is based on height in cm minus 100.

Well that carb ratio is completely different than the one in the post quoted is in not?

The only things I've read of Kwasniewski's are the 2 books in English. From that information, the ratios quoted are for long-term maintenance, PJ. He writes that after very well adjusted to the OD, protein needs decrease below the "height in cm - 100" number, to around 0.8 times that amount.

But he's also not dogmatic about the numbers, and views them as guidelines only. An athlete or some with a job that has lots of hard labor will require more protein, whereas a short petite person who doesn't exercise will require less.

He also writes that it depends on appetite, as well. The short petite person might be very well adjusted to the OD, yet have a somewhat larger appetite for protein, putting him/her above the 0.8 ratio.

The ratios quoted in the 2 english books depend on the purpose for doing OD. For weight loss, the most austere ratios are 1:1.5:0.3 (protein:fat:carb) with protein based on height as described above. For weight maintenance but other health problems, or health maintenance, the books' ratios range from 0.8-1:2-4.5:0.5-1.

Take this information along with that translation from the Polish, and you can see how fluid his ratios are---really it is a plan each individual must tailor to their own unique health statuses.

Thanks -- kinda comes down to "figure out what works for you" -- which is hardly an eating plan -- LOL.

PJ

I think you got a lot of carbs because in the spreadsheet, there is no value for the person's stature.
(height in centimeters-100)

So in the spreadsheet, for protein, it shows 79 grams as a minimum. That would work for a person 91 inches tall (231 cm tall - 100 times .6)

Just to clarify what ratios we're talking about -

the ratios in the post you quoted, were

0.6-0.8P : 2F : 0.8-1.5C for the long term and that the ratios 1P : 2.5-3.5F : 0.5C should be used only over the introductory phase of the OD and not maintained beyond that.

The ratios from Jordan were

Fat loss protein 1: fats 1.5: carbs .5 for fat loss.
Maintenance levels are protein 1: fats 3.5: carbs .8

I don't see those two as completely different. Jordan didn't include ranges but the other one did, and Jordan's values are in the range of the other.

All the low carb plans have ranges as I recall, at least the ones I have read. A plan that was so specific that it did not account for ranges, but instead gave absolute numbers, might not work any better. i bet that's why every plan has ranges come to think of it. Even my old days in WW with their half cups of number 4 vegetables, anyone remember that? They had ranges for protein.

Thanks, reading the quote alone, I didn't realize that the height of the person was related to the numbers. It was only something on the fly out of curiosity.

PJ

No prob. That's one of the many things about Dr K that I like - it makes sense to me that height, build and exercise are what you base the nutrition on.

I'm doing Crossfire style exercise, heavy weight training 1-2x per week with 2-3 conditioning workouts per week as well. I prefer to stay at the high end of my protein intake because of this, and get very little fiber-carbs. Basically 50ish grams starch and less than 100g protein per day. I'm 180cm tall, so my intake should be roughly 72-88 grams per day. This is 100% real food too, no protein bars or shakes or whatever.

Fat makes up the rest. Cream, cream cheese, mascarpone, butter, lard, coconut butter, coconut milk, etc. On high calorie days I take up to 300g of fat.

I would argue that carbs should be between 40g and 60g for everyone. In order to spare protein from breaking down into glucose. Eat your Max carbs and protein everyday, and take in fat for the rest.

For those interested I have a blog at theoptimalone.WordPress.com where I talk a lot about the optimal diet, as well as exercise. The blog is normally for my personal training clients, and its relatively new, but there's more info there.

I'll definitely check out your blog - hard to find a lot written (outside of this forum) on Dr K...

Haven't had good success in terms of loss so am still tweaking it but the high fat & reduced protein is making me feel a lot better so am going to stick with it.

I've just been skimming parts of this thread and I find it very interesting. It does seem to me that there's a lot of similarity between what Dr K says and the program Jimmy Moore is following from Volek and Phinney's "The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance". They don't spell out the ratios as strictly, but the basic idea is to raise fat intake to above 80% and lower your protein intake which should put you into true nutritional ketosis, where ketone levels can be measured in your blood. Basically it's high fat, moderate protein, low carb.

That 80% is not a Dr. k thing. he only counts grams, not percentages of macronutrients. But I guess someone with high energy needs could get up that far. A middle aged sedentary woman ain't it

I am shorter (5'2") and when I do Dr. K's amounts of protein, carb, and fat, my fat percent is more like 65%.

protein = 60 - 65 grams
carb = 50 grams net
fat = usually 105 grams (this is based on a range of fat = as low as protein grams x 1.5 or as high as protein grams x 2.0)

calories = around 1400

I ate potatoes cooked in lard last night with a lamb chop.

Not only satisfying, but I dropped a pound this morning after months and months of not losing anything and 5 weeks of 20g and sometimes zero carb without a loss.

In total, dropped 2lbs over 2 days since increasing carbs, lowering protein and increasing fats.

The potatoes were an experiment which I truly believed would make me gain 5lbs overnight (glycogen alone) so am so happy right now.

Have been tearing my hair out why I couldn't lose, and have come across some internet stuff on the theory of zero carbing causing the body to hibernate. It's making me wonder if that was my problem. I suspect I have some thyroid issues and very low carb may not be the best solution for me.

Is that why you moved to this plan? Had you found it difficult to lose and/or stall with low carbing, high protein?