Can Keto-Adaption Make You Lose Weight Faster?


Two Chefs Frying an Egg
Keto-Adaption and Fat-Adaption
are not the same thing!

In 2012, Jimmy Moore tried a Nutritional Ketosis Diet.

At the time that I read the n=1 Nutritional Ketosis report that he posted at his blog, I didn't realize he was following a diet designed for insulin-sensitive endurance athletes.

I thought the Nutritional Ketosis that he had been talking about was a weight-loss diet created by Dr. Phinney for people with extreme insulin resistance.


I didn't realize Jimmy was doing his own thing and that his followers were just being the groupies that they are.

What Jimmy tried was very different from what's recommended on Phinney's videos or in The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living, but I didn't know that when I first wrote this post.

From the way the whole low-carb community was on fire about Nutritional Ketosis, Keto-Adaption, and eating very high fat, I thought everyone knew what they were talking about.

Silly me.

There is a huge difference between The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living versus The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance.

The first book was written for physicians caring for those with insulin resistance, who want their patients to switch to a ketogenic diet for weight loss and better health.

These individuals need a lower fat and calorie intake than performance athletes because their body fat makes up a huge portion of their daily dietary fat needs.

The second book is for endurance athletes, who are not overweight, so the ketone and dietary fat recommendations are quite a bit higher.

While the difference might seem minimal to you, it's not.

If you have insulin resistance and try to do a maintenance plan created for those who are insulin sensitive, you won't have much success because insulin resistance will fight you every step of the way.

Pinterest Image: Salad with Bacon


Why Did Jimmy Lose Weight on Very High Fat if He's Insulin Resistant?


About the time that Jimmy made his n=1 post about Nutritional Ketosis, I discovered that Regina Wilshire, author of the Weight of the Evidence blog was posting again. I thought that she might be around because someone with that name had liked my author fan page at Facebook, but I wasn't sure.

I’ve always enjoyed reading Regina’s posts because she’s not fanatical about a low-carb diet. She’s extremely realistic.

Since Regina is a professional nutritionist, her focus has always been on the nutrient density of food rather than typical low-carb topics, such as ketosis or keto-adaption. Neither does she perceive most carbs to be evil.

Her approach is what I would call The Middle Path. She doesn’t subscribe to extremes. She simply calls it like it is.

I wish I would have known that she had returned to blogging. It would have saved me much of the misery and weight gain I suffered from experimenting with Nutritional Ketosis.

She gave some excellent advice to a low carber who had stalled part way to her goal. But at least, I now have something I can work with – a real, honest, down-to-earth method for correcting my current weight problems.

Today, I want to talk about a misconception within the low-carb community that keeps surfacing – this time, in Jimmy’s response to one of Regina’s blog posts about his experiment.

Regina has a couple of ideas as to why Jimmy’s low-carb high-fat diet plan worked so well, but Jimmy interpreted her post to be an attack on him personally. In Jimmy's latest report, he tried to save face by explaining his opinion about what Regina thinks might be going on.

“So one question remains: Was it the keto-adaption or the calorie-cutting that has worked in producing the weight loss success I’ve seen? 

"If you ask me, I say WHO CARES?!


"The fact is it’s working. Whatever the mechanisms for bringing it about, the bottom line is I’m burning stored body fat and improving every measurable health marker I have tested so far. 


"At the end of the day, the results are much more interesting than any attempt to explain why they happened. It’s my contention that becoming fully adapted to using ketones (fat) for fuel has allowed my body the opportunity to run as it was intended to without the need for arbitrarily counting calories, carbohydrates or really much of anything.”

This response to Regina’s post is loaded with things I could talk about. But today, I want to address Jimmy’s opinion about keto-adaptation being responsible for his weight-loss success.

He's a strong player within the low-carb community, and a lot of folks accept his opinions and ideals as Truth without experimenting with them for themselves.

Granted, that isn’t Jimmy’s fault.

Experimenting with suggestions and ideas that we are presented with on a daily basis is our own responsibility, but a lot of folks within the low-carb community hold similar misunderstandings about ketones and fat that Jimmy does.

What is a Ketone?


Ketones are not fat.

They are the waxy by-product that’s left over when the liver breaks down triglycerides into fatty acids.

Fatty acids are used to fuel the process of gluconeogenesis after your glycogen reserves (the storage form of carbohydrates) fall below a certain level.

Ketones are a signal that the body is predominantly burning fatty acids for fuel, rather than glucose.

However, the presence of ketones in the urine or blood do not signal that your body fat stores are being used for fuel. They simply show that glucose is in short supply. Nothing more, as ketones are also made from dietary fats, so their presence doesn't mean you're burning body fat.


What is Keto-Adaption?

When the body enters a famine situation, most of the body’s tissues can use fatty acids for fuel, but there are a few exceptions. The:
  • brain
  • kidneys
  • red blood cells
  • bone marrow
  • and certain muscle fibers
cannot use fatty acids. They require glucose.

However, the fact that the brain cannot use fatty acids doesn’t mean that the brain can only use glucose because certain portions of the brain can use ketones.

When glucose is in short supply and ketones are readily available, the brain will adapt to that situation and begin using ketones for up to three-quarters of its energy needs.

The purpose of keto-adaption is to save what little glucose there is for body organs and tissues that cannot use ketones or fatty acids for fuel.

Ketone adaption is a life-saving mechanism designed to come into play during those short periods of time when carbohydrates are not available.

Initially, when carbs run short, most body functions can use ketones for fuel. That’s where the idea that a low-carb diet is fueled by ketones comes from. However, this only holds true for the first three weeks, or so.

After three or four weeks, most body tissues including muscle become insulin resistant. They begin using fatty acids for fuel – not ketones. This allows the glucose and ketones in the bloodstream to be saved for the brain.

This form of physical salvation is called keto-adaption.

It is very different from fat-adaption.

When you first become keto-adapted, you are not fat-adapted. You're just in a deep state of ketosis. Fatty acids are not burned efficiently.

Ketones in the blood don't fuel the body. They are a life-saving mechanism that keeps the brain functioning, so the body can survive a famine situation.

The ketone build-up in the blood has absolutely nothing to do with weight loss, but everything to do with brain and heart function because when you have an excess of ketones over what the brain needs, the heart can use what’s left over.

Keto-Adaption is simply when the body stops using ketones for fuel and saves them for the brain to protect your life.

This saving mechanism works independently of the body mechanisms that determine fat loss, energy balance (maintenance or energy equalization), and increased body fat storage.


So What Good is Being Keto-Adapted?


A ketogenic state works to correct hormonal imbalances, such as insulinemia, so ketones can be made more readily available to the brain. For the liver to break down stored triglycerides into fatty acids the body can use, insulin levels need to be either normal or low.

While all dietary fats are initially stored as body fat and then drawn out of the fat cell throughout the day, as needed, this in-and-out flow of fat can become blocked if insulin levels do not return to normal shortly after meals.

Despite what most low carbers believe about insulin, nutrients cannot get into your body’s cells fast enough without that initial insulin spike. It isn’t the spike that locks up stored body fat. It’s the way your body responds to the insulin you produce.

In individuals who have problems with insulinemia or insulin resistance, being keto-adapted can help reverse these abnormal situations. However, low insulin doesn’t guarantee that you’ll burn stored body fat.

As Dr. Michael Eades has stressed time and time again:

Low insulin keeps the doors to your fat stores open, but if you eat more fat than your body can use in a day, or if you eat the exact amount of fat that your body can use in a day, you will not see weight-loss success.

It cannot happen.

A low-carb diet doesn’t negate the laws of physics. It simply teaches you how to use them to your best advantage.

Why Does it Matter? WHO CARES?


While some people like Jimmy don’t care why their current low-carb program works, ignoring the principles of why and shoving them aside as being insignificant can create disastrous effects for those who try to duplicate the same success.

Why?

Because in Jimmy’s case:

He consistently tells his readers that he has raised his dietary fat and lowered his protein. He consistently tells his readers that dietary manipulation, along with keeping his blood ketones high, has been the way to his salvation – even though that isn’t what he’s actually doing.

When someone decided to take a look at what Jimmy was doing and raised a few ideas about what it might be – to help some of the rest of us understand – Jimmy’s reaction was to perceive attack and brush off those ideas with a simple “who cares.”

His reaction was that the Truth of the matter doesn’t matter.

Well, you know what? 

I care! 

And it does matter because when I attempted to implement his advice into my life, mirroring what he said he was doing, it completely backfired on me.
  • Why?
  • Why didn’t it work?
  • Why did Jimmy insist on Twitter, in front of all of his Twitter fans, that if Nutritional Ketosis (as he defined it back then and not how Dr. Phinney defines it) wasn’t working for me, then there was something metabolically wrong with me because it has to work?
Maybe . . .

Because, as Regina hypothesized, raising fat might not be what Jimmy was actually doing. He might not have raised his fat grams per day. He might have merely raised his fat percentage.

If that's true, then it could explain why I gained 22 pounds when I raised the number of fat grams I was eating per day.

Percentage isn’t the same thing as fat grams. Percentages change when you manipulate the other macronutrients.

Regina’s hypothesis is that Jimmy’s meals are probably lower in fat grams and calories, even though his fat percentage is higher.

This might be why his high-fat, low-carb diet program is working so well for him, and why my own high-fat, low-carb diet program did not. 

They were not the same thing. 

Either way, it’s not about Keto-Adaption. 

Keto-Adaption is about saving your brain cells from destruction when glucose runs low. It isn’t about weight-loss success or failure.

Vickie Ewell Bio




Comments

  1. It maybe that the diet is actually low carb low to medium protein and high fat. While what you did was low carb medium to high protein and high fat.

    Both are different you see. Proteins do convert to carbs, when the body is not keto-adapted.

    This is evident because you talk about steaks in your diet, those would result in medium to high rather than low to medium proteins.

    I am not sure if you need to test that, but it doesn't really discard the keto-adaptation gimmick :-(.

    I much love PerfectHealthDiet philosophy, over the keto-adaptation :-).

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  2. It is heartening to hear someone else say that highfat keto diet with low protein didn't work for them also--It was DISHEARTENING to daily see and feel all my fat cells fill up while eating and increasing my fat percentages...I total believe in the lowcarb diet however and will stick to it for health reasons--just will need to return to induction type levels in order to now lose the weight I have put on! thanks so much for posting--I thought I just needed to continue and it would eventually work!

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  3. I'm not sure how low, medium, and high protein is determined these days as it seems that everyone has a different definition of what those levels are.

    I ate 60 grams of protein, 20 grams of carbohydrates, and then filled in the rest of my calories with fats. There is no way I could have eaten less protein than that.

    I ate mostly chicken, turkey, and salmon because beef here is extremely expensive. We eat it only occasionally. I gave the diet a lengthy trial this time, about 3 months, which is why I've gained so much weight.

    In my personal experience, a low-carb, high-protein, low-fat, low-calorie diet is the only type of low-carb diet that has every worked for me.

    But I will check out the PerfectHealthDiet philosophy.

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  4. Anonymous,
    It made me feel extremely sludgey. I don't know how else to describe it. Plus, I was always sick to my stomach, craving real food. Eating mostly fat isn't my idea of eating.

    I've been back on maintenance for a couple of weeks, and my weight has FINALLY stabilized. But just listening to people talk about putting coconut oil or butter into their coffee, eating fat bombs, or stirring a 1/4 cup of mayo into their cup of green beans to get their fat percentages up still makes me nauseated.

    I'd rather eat my grilled chicken breast and steamed veggies, thank you. The sad thing is that there is so little acceptance within the low-carb community for our individual metabolic differences.

    In 1972, Dr. Atkins clearly stated in his first diet book that "some" individuals do BETTER on a low-fat diet, but that's the exception. What I have to wrap my brain around is that it's OKAY to be the exception.

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  5. " It simply teaches you how to use them to your best advantage."

    Vickie - I think I may steal that! It hits the nail on the head exactly!

    Regina

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  6. Hi Regina,
    Go ahead and steal anything you like. I am so grateful that you're back to blogging again.

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  7. i know this thread is 3 years old, but it is gold! Thank you. I also dont see results with such high fat (although I love it), but cut fat, optimal protein and 20g - 30 g of carbs, and things start happening for me.. You explain it so well!!!

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    Replies
    1. Your comment is really appreciated. We each have to find our own sweet spot when it comes to fat, and unfortunately, high fat doesn't work for most people. Only those with extreme insulin resistance.

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  8. I think it may yet be more complex than either Jimmy or you say. When I was diagnosed with type II diabetes, I took to the ketogenic diet principally to control my blood sugar. Weight loss was welcome, of course, but not the principal goal. Two months passed, over which time my sugar dropped from an average over 250 to an average of 115. If I wake at night to go to the bathroom, I take metformin (500 mg) to blunt the morning sugar spike, but otherwise no drugs. Weight started pouring off me like soap in the shower. I dropped from 270 to 240 (tall, and muscular, so my ideal might be 220). But after something like two months, the weight loss, which was at first effortless, just stopped. I gained about 4 pounds in the last two weeks, and am looking to make adjustments to the diet, to keep the positive trend intact. Even while my sugar kept declining, the weight loss seemed to hit a brick wall.

    What I'm thinking is that there was an initial phase, where it did not matter how much fat I ate. My body was not good at absorbing and using it. Possibly when I became properly keto adapted, something changed, and I became good, or at least much better, at absorbing the fat. Because I did not suddenly start eating more fat. I frequently skip breakfast, or lunch, and eat only a single meal mid-morning, and sometimes that's as little as a single egg, some melted cheese, fried on coconut oil.

    Bottom line, I believe something changed about me, and the weight loss is now hard, where it was initially effortless. I think Jimmy had it effortless, while you had it like I do now.

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    Replies
    1. It's definitely not as simple as I thought it was in 2012. Thank you so much for sharing your experience and insights. I've been observing this pattern in a lot of people lately.

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  9. I'm so glad I stumbled onto this website! I'm at week 4 of a ketogenic diet (did it once before with good results). Suddenly, in the last few days, my pants are tighter, the scale is stuck, and I feel and look generally fatter! Not the result I expected at all! Your blog and a couple of others that hinted at reducing fat intake are just what I needed to hear. I kept wondering how, if my body is supposed to be burning it's own fat, I was supposed to be eating so much fat. Lots of Keto blogs, and Jimmy's book that I just read, talk about eating "tons of delicious fat", putting loads of butter on everything (yes even in coffee) and basically just chowing down on as much fat as you can possibly squeeze into your meals! It all makes so much more sense now!

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    Replies
    1. Thank you so much for sharing that. I really appreciate your comments. Please keep in touch. I'd love to hear how lowering your fat intake works for you.

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