Keto diet - protein, carb, fat ratios question

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The more I learn about the "keto" diet, the more I'm intrigued.

I'm not sure who designed the ratios that I've seen published. From what I've seen, the protein, fat, and carbohydrate ratios are something like 20%, 75%, and 5%. For human beings, even "good" fats that comprise 75% of your daily caloric intake seems awfully high to me. Do you think these ratios can produce a diet that can be healthy for you in the long-term?

Since the "keto" style diet is, effectively, what I cook for my dog (https://bit.ly/3cjBKT7), I'd probably save money and enjoy the convenience (in food shopping) of us both eating the same type of diet!

smile.gif


Ed
 
I lost about 60 pounds on keto a few years back, slowly gained it all back when I went off the diet.

Now I am two weeks in and back on it.

I do not count calories or macros. I focus on 20 net grams of carbs per day or less.

Also half my body weight in water in ounces per day.

No booze, no sugar, no grains.

Here's an example of what I'm eating today.

Wake up, drink 40 ounces of water and cup of black coffee.

Lunch egg salad with 4 hardboiled eggs, mayo, and cut up ham. Serve on lettuce with cut carrots. 40 ounces of water.

Dinner 2-3 grilled boneless pork chops with bag of riced cauliflower. 40 ounces of water.

Snack is sugar free orange metamucil with 20 ounces of water.

2 diet Dr Pepper's during the day.
 
It's basically the Adkins diet tweaked slightly. It's a low calorie diet. Calories come from carbs.
 
I don't know about keto, but I've noticed my quality of life goes up as my carb/sugar intake goes down. The less I eat, the better I feel.

The simpler the carb, the bigger the effect I've noticed from reducing/eliminating it. Like, sugar is horrible; rice and whole grains are not nearly so bad.

As far as I can tell, I've had zero issues replacing carbs almost entirely with protein and fat.
 
How are you going to select food based on your ratios? Any food which is high in fat may contain high amounts of carbs or protein. And if you are going to eat only 5% of carbs (which is hardly possible anyway) means you will never eat any vegetables, fruit or bread. It's a reliable way to die, in my opinion. What are you going to achieve? Loose weight?
 
Originally Posted by wwillson
Originally Posted by Malo83
Death sentence for Diabetics
31.gif


Please explain

+1
Or maybe they meant "death sentence for diabetes"
...that would make sense
 
I'll just say many claim their doing Keto diet their not it's just low carb. Many can do it many have success but most fail it's just a fact. I believe it's a substantial diet but not needed for most people. Have I done it sure am I currently no I love craft beer 20to30 gram total is key for daily intake of carbs for Keto. I did the diet for about a month just for fun fat fat fat is key little protein 2to1 and best carbs from vegetables.

Carb Manager is the absolute best app to track and hands down to use if realy serious about it.
 
Originally Posted by Ded Mazai
How are you going to select food based on your ratios? Any food which is high in fat may contain high amounts of carbs or protein. And if you are going to eat only 5% of carbs (which is hardly possible anyway) means you will never eat any vegetables, fruit or bread. It's a reliable way to die, in my opinion. What are you going to achieve? Loose weight?


Net carbs are used.

Therefore you can eat pretty much unlimited vegetables.

Actual carbs minus dietary fiber equals net carbs.

I lived on mostly meat and veggies, and nuts for several years. Never felt better, and had ideal blood work to show it.
 
Originally Posted by loneryder
It's basically the Adkins diet tweaked slightly. It's a low calorie diet. Calories come from carbs.


Not true...

Carbohydrates provide 4 calories per gram, protein provides 4 calories per gram, and fat provides 9 calories per gram.
https://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/how-many-calories-are-one-gram-fat-carbohydrate-or-protein

It just changes the way your body processes fats and carbs. NOT GOOD for building muscle, or trying any type of performance/competitive sports, etc.
Its a keen way to lose weight for those who struggle to control eating and get enough exercise.
 
Originally Posted by Boomer
Lo carb and low sugar with high protein is great for us diabetics.

But not the high fat.
 
Originally Posted by JustinH
Originally Posted by Ded Mazai
How are you going to select food based on your ratios? Any food which is high in fat may contain high amounts of carbs or protein. And if you are going to eat only 5% of carbs (which is hardly possible anyway) means you will never eat any vegetables, fruit or bread. It's a reliable way to die, in my opinion. What are you going to achieve? Loose weight?


Net carbs are used.

Therefore you can eat pretty much unlimited vegetables.

Actual carbs minus dietary fiber equals net carbs.

I lived on mostly meat and veggies, and nuts for several years. Never felt better, and had ideal blood work to show it.

Many true keto only use total carbs and I believe the best method again many think doing keto but really just are low carb
 
I went keto in fall 2018, watching every gram that went in. I started at 247 lbs. in September, 2018 and ended at 194 lbs. in April, 2019, when I stopped the diet. My cholesterol also went down significantly, so much that my doctor took me off my low dose cholesterol med. I got off the diet for spring and summer, with the intent to continue again in the fall toward my ultimate goal of 185 lbs.

Things I learned:

Removing fiber from your diet does terrible things. I started out counting all carbs (total carbs) toward my limit. Pooping stopped and that's bad. Transitioning to only counting net carbs made things a lot better in that regard.

It's really hard to get to 2,000 calories on keto if you're actually following the ratios. The calorie tracker I was using wouldn't even display the number of calories until your consumption was over 1,200 to discourage starving yourself. I found myself eating cheese, lots of cheese, at the end of the day just to get over the 1,200 calorie threshold.

It trained me more than anything to change my eating habits. Avoiding simple sugars, limiting portion size, and paying attention to what is going into m,y body. Done right, it's like boot camp for your diet.

Be prepared to stink. I'm not generally a stinky guy, but on keto, my BO was 10x worse, as was my breath. For ladies, keto-crotch is a real thing.

Getting off keto, I started running. I began with a couch-to-5K program on my treadmill. Since mid-July, I've done a 3.4 mile run every morning, Monday through Friday.

I attempted to get back onto keto in Fall, 2019. After the first week, while on a run, I felt really winded. I mean, I do the same run day after day, it's pretty familiar. I checked my heart rate and it was at 185 BPM. I run at a 10'/mi pace and that keeps my heart rate at 135-140 BPM. The lack of carbs were totally screwing with my body expending energy.

I took a step back to re-evaluated my goals. I've come to enjoy running and didn't want to stop, so I switched to a lower-carb diet. My cholesterol is still in check, I can still run as usual, and I hit my 185 lb. goal last week.
 
Originally Posted by MrHorspwer
I went keto in fall 2018, watching every gram that went in. I started at 247 lbs. in September, 2018 and ended at 194 lbs. in April, 2019, when I stopped the diet. My cholesterol also went down significantly, so much that my doctor took me off my low dose cholesterol med. I got off the diet for spring and summer, with the intent to continue again in the fall toward my ultimate goal of 185 lbs.

Things I learned:

Removing fiber from your diet does terrible things. I started out counting all carbs (total carbs) toward my limit. Pooping stopped and that's bad. Transitioning to only counting net carbs made things a lot better in that regard.

It's really hard to get to 2,000 calories on keto if you're actually following the ratios. The calorie tracker I was using wouldn't even display the number of calories until your consumption was over 1,200 to discourage starving yourself. I found myself eating cheese, lots of cheese, at the end of the day just to get over the 1,200 calorie threshold.

It trained me more than anything to change my eating habits. Avoiding simple sugars, limiting portion size, and paying attention to what is going into m,y body. Done right, it's like boot camp for your diet.

Be prepared to stink. I'm not generally a stinky guy, but on keto, my BO was 10x worse, as was my breath. For ladies, keto-crotch is a real thing.

Getting off keto, I started running. I began with a couch-to-5K program on my treadmill. Since mid-July, I've done a 3.4 mile run every morning, Monday through Friday.

I attempted to get back onto keto in Fall, 2019. After the first week, while on a run, I felt really winded. I mean, I do the same run day after day, it's pretty familiar. I checked my heart rate and it was at 185 BPM. I run at a 10'/mi pace and that keeps my heart rate at 135-140 BPM. The lack of carbs were totally screwing with my body expending energy.

I took a step back to re-evaluated my goals. I've come to enjoy running and didn't want to stop, so I switched to a lower-carb diet. My cholesterol is still in check, I can still run as usual, and I hit my 185 lb. goal last week.


Great work excellent job and write up.
 
Originally Posted by JustinH
Originally Posted by Ded Mazai
How are you going to select food based on your ratios? Any food which is high in fat may contain high amounts of carbs or protein. And if you are going to eat only 5% of carbs (which is hardly possible anyway) means you will never eat any vegetables, fruit or bread. It's a reliable way to die, in my opinion. What are you going to achieve? Loose weight?


Net carbs are used.

Therefore you can eat pretty much unlimited vegetables.

Actual carbs minus dietary fiber equals net carbs.

I lived on mostly meat and veggies, and nuts for several years. Never felt better, and had ideal blood work to show it.


Actually it is carbs minus ((dietary fiber - 5) divided by 2) = net carbs.
 
A more natural and reasonable ratio would be 15-25% protein, 30-40% fat, 40-60% carbs. The bottom line is to eat high quality fats and carbs. It's hard to gain weight if you do that. You will struggle to get in 2000-2500 calories a day doing so on 3 meals and 2 snacks. Been there done that. Which means no fried foods, no extra sugars, no juice or sugar drinks, no processed white flours, no mayo, etc. Fats from nuts, seeds, olive oil, eggs, avocado, lean meats/fish/chicken. Carbs from veggies and whole fruits, legumes, beans, whole grain rice/grains/oats. Lots of water, green or other teas, home made soups, salads. No one needs Atkins, Keto, South Beach diet, Grapefruit diet, and all those other fads. After 3-6 months of eating correctly and normally based on nutritious foods, you won't want to go back.

20 grams of net carbs per day? My morning banana has more carbs than that....lol. Breakfast cereal concoction - about 600-700 calories - steel cut oats, flax meal, pea protein powder, walnuts, raisins, cinnamon, organic soy milk, cocoa powder, banana.
 
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What 69GTX said. Weight management is more about your lifestyle, not any particular diet. Eating healthy and exercising are probably the two most important things in doing so. In my opinion the reason these diets become popular is losing weight and feeling hungry in between meals sucks and eating foods high in fat and protein help with that.
 
The ratios don't really matter if weight loss is the goal.

If losing weight is the objective then you just need to deplete your glycogen stores and force your body into ketosis. Your body knows how to convert fat cells into energy and you'll drop weight like crazy as long as you don't consume carbohydrates.

Some people do this by the popular 30g net carb rule where your daily net carb consumption is that number. The 30 number is really relative to your activity level so someone who exercises can "do keto" and still get 100g net carbs and still lose weight.

But it can also be done by fasting. Just don't eat for a day or a week or a month. This sounds blasphemous to most people because we have been raised to believe you have to eat but as long as you can get vitamins, sodium, and water then you'll survive just fine although the sugar withdrawals are usually tough for most people to deal with.
 
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