The True Role of Ketosis in a Low-Carb Diet

If you think you have to be in ketosis to lose weight
you don't understand the role ketosis plays in your life.

Do you have the purpose for going low carb fixed firmly in your mind? 

Do you know why the body goes into ketosis? What it's really for? Do you know how the body uses ketones and fatty acids as an alternative fuel source?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

If you think that you have to be in ketosis to lose weight, then you still don't understand the role that ketosis plays in your life.

People lose weight all the time, even dieters that have higher insulin levels than low-carb dieters in ketosis. 

Getting into the state of ketosis is NOT about unlocking your fat stores. 

If your fat cells are insulin resistant, your insulin level will be higher, but your fat stores will already be open and available because your fat cells won't be able to see those high insulin levels. 

The liver uses your insulin level to determine your blood glucose level. If the liver can't see your high insulin levels, it will react as if your insulin were low.

Insulin Hypothesis Isn't Fact

Most of the beliefs surrounding insulin are an old low-carb theory known as the insulin hypothesis. 

It was presented to the low-carb community by Gary Taubes, but it goes much further back than that. Dr. Atkins believed in it, and talked about it in his earlier books, but science hasn't found any support for the idea.

In fact, in those recent scientific studies funded by Gary Taubes and other influential low-carb advocates, the insulin level of the participants in the study had nothing to do with their fat loss.

Many believe the purpose of a low-carb diet is to lower your basal insulin levels, but lowering insulin doesn't affect the amount of body fat your body uses for energy. An energy deficit does that.


In fact, in the Gary Taubes study I linked to above, participants lost less body fat when insulin was low than they did when their insulin level was higher, even though they ate the same number of calories.

Some people believe that low insulin levels reduce your hunger level, making it easier to eat at a calorie deficit. I used to believe that too. In fact, some of my older posts might even make that claim.

But I don't believe that anymore.

Science has shown that theory to be false, as well. 

An insulin spike, like the spike you get from eating full-fat cheese, makes you more satisfied instead of less.

Insulin spikes are how nutrients get into your cells faster.

What are Ketones and What are They Used For?

The state of dietary ketosis won't cure your metabolic defects. Nor does it guarantee that you will always lose excess body fat while you are in that condition. Instead, ketones are a backup fuel source for the brain.

When you are in the state of ketosis, you are burning mostly fatty acids for energy, but that fat can come from your diet as well as your fat stores. Ketones are a by-product of triglyceride breakdown and are used to supply most of the brain's fuel needs.

Obviously, you want fat to come off your body, but it takes time to break down adipose tissue and convert it into a form that the muscles and other body systems can use for energy. 

If the body can't do that quick enough to supply all of the calories you need to function, due to genetics, a large number of the calories you need daily must come from your diet in the form of fat or glucose. 

When you don't provide these calories, your body will slow down metabolism or shut off body systems that are not essential for life, such as hair production, to bring the body back into equilibrium.

This is why many people start to lose their hair after they've been dieting for awhile. The body is trying to bring your energy output back in line with your energy input.

How much dietary fat you need on a daily basis depends on how well your body can convert its fat stores into energy efficiently. Everyone is not efficient at burning fat. 

For that reason, there is a maximum amount of body fat that can be processed and burned on any given day. And this finite amount of body fat differs from person to person.

Are You Falling for This Old Ketosis Myth?

Before we delve a little deeper into the true role of ketosis in a low-carb diet, I want to take a minute and debunk a myth that keeps circulating through low-carb groups and forums.

This myth says:

The more dietary fat you eat, the deeper your state of ketosis will be.

That is not true.

The reason why a lot of people believe this, and I mean a lot, is because increased dietary fat can turn the Ketostix a deeper shade of purple. The darker the color of the sticks after testing, the deeper the state of ketosis -- people think.

That's a false assumption.

Ketostix measure the amount of acetoacetate ketones you are dumping into the urine by concentration.

They do NOT measure the state of Ketosis!

The dark color on the sticks does mean you are dumping acetoacetate ketones that have built up to a dangerous level in the kidney, but if you are eating a high-fat diet, then those dumped ketones can come from the breakdown of dietary fat. They don't prove that you're burning body fat.

Dr. Atkins got that one wrong.

Dumped ketones do not always come from your fat stores. The body won't access stored triglycerides unless short of caloric energy. 

There is some correlation between the color on the sticks and the state of ketosis, but that depends on your caloric needs for the day because if your ketone level goes too high, the body will secrete insulin to correct the potential problem of Ketoacidosis. Ketone production is shut off until the excess ketones are used for energy or dumped.

How You Get Into the State of Ketosis

All low-carb diets restrict carbohydrates
to a certain degree. The amount of carbs
 you can eat depends on your plan.

To get into the state of ketosis, you cut back on the amount of carbohydrates in your diet. Whether you're doing:

• Atkins Induction
• Protein Power Life Plan
• Keto Diet (Reddit)
• Protein Sparing Modified Fast (PSMF)
• Nutritional Ketosis (LCHF)

You will only eat about 20 to 30-net carbs per day. If you're doing a zero-carb diet, you'll eat less than 5 total carbs.      

Ketogenic diets start at
20 to 30 net grams

A drastic reduction in carbohydrates will initially cause the body to use its carbohydrate stores known as glycogen. 

Glycogen stores can be found in the liver and muscles, but it's the liver glycogen that's associated with ketosis. You use your muscle glycogen by moving the body, but it is a self-contained system, and even if liver glycogen runs low, it doesn't share.

Liver glycogen (and the water stored to process that glycogen) is used to keep your blood glucose level steady, so the liver interprets low glycogen levels as a threat to life.

If carbohydrate restriction continues for more than a day, the glycogen level in the liver will reach a point where the body begins to panic. This happens within 2 to 4 days, once liver glycogen drops to about half full and the body begins burning amino acids for energy.

Since liver glycogen is used to maintain a stable blood glucose level, as well as feed the brain, it is essential for the body to have a ready fuel source it can use to maintain blood sugar. Otherwise, blood sugar would drop too low, and you'd pass out.

At this point in the process, the liver sends out a distress signal. It tells the brain that you are low on liver glycogen. The body interprets that message as being in a famine situation.

In response to that distress signal, the body secretes cortisol and other stress hormones to save you from what it believes is starvation.

Initially, cortisol clears the bloodstream. Its presence is a signal that the body needs immediate energy, so blood fats are stored in the form of triglycerides in the fat cells for later use.

Cortisol slows down and hampers fat mobilization because it causes glycogen to be broken down into glucose and the glucose dumped into the bloodstream. Glucose in the blood causes insulin levels to rise. 

The body does not turn to burning fats in emergency situations. Other sources of glucose are turned to first.

This is generally the point in your low-carb diet where you become ravenous and begin craving sugar, starches, and other carbohydrates. It is a high cortisol level that is making you hungry. Not carbohydrate addiction. 

Cravings for sugary foods is a normal physical response to a lack of available glucose. This is how a glucose-burning metabolism works. You get hungry or start craving food when glycogen gets low.

The brain is literally starving for energy. 

Cortisol is trying to tell you that you are low on glycogen and need carbohydrates quickly, so the liver can refill its glycogen stores.

On a low-carb diet, you don't want your liver glycogen stores to be completely full. It is the liver's partial glycogen status and the lack of available glucose that will eventually result in the body switching metabolic pathways.

If you ignore the hunger and cravings and continue feeding the body non-carbohydrate foods and vegetables, within a day or two more, cortisol will stop nudging you to eat sugar and the body will make the switch to burning fatty acids instead. 

This adaption reduces the need for extra amino acids.

The alternative pathway predominantly uses fats for energy, rather than glucose. In that alternative state, the body doesn't expect a large amount of carbohydrates to come in for fuel, so it keeps the body primed to burn fats instead.

This is the real state of ketosis. 

It simply means the body is making ketones to feed the brain and the muscles have become insulin resistant to blood glucose and are now burning fatty acids for energy.

The True Role of Ketosis

A low-carb diet fixes metabolic imbalances. 

It does that by lowering your basal insulin levels, the amount of insulin the body squirts into the bloodstream every few seconds. In those who are insulin resistant or pre-diabetic, higher basal insulin levels can cause a variety of health complaints.

Basal insulin isn't the insulin the pancreas dumps into the blood in response to what you eat. 

Food-driven insulin response is called the second phase insulin response. It occurs after the body has started to break down food into usable substrates and IF the first phase insulin response wasn't enough to bring the blood glucose down to a safe level.

Lowering your basal insulin level is done by putting you into a state of dietary ketosis. 

In ketosis, when there is plenty of body fat to burn, general hunger goes down and cravings for carbohydrates disappears. No one really knows why yet. 

Some research is pointing to the higher protein level of a low-carb diet as being responsible for less hunger, but the research so far is not conclusive.

The amount of total glycogen storage the average person has between the liver and muscle tissue is about 300 to 400 grams of carbohydrates, depending on the amount of muscle mass you have. 

If you eat more carbohydrate than what your body can use and store as glycogen in a 24-hour period, the excess carbs can end up stored as body fat. Some people's metabolism ramps up to handle extra carbs, while other people's metabolism stores them instead.

For most people, overeating is what causes the problem, and not carbohydrates themselves.

This is because only 1 in 3 overweight individuals are insulin resistant and have a higher-than-normal insulin response to foods and stress. Going into the state of ketosis can help you calm down the tendency to overeat, but this hunger reduction doesn't happen for everyone.

The true role of ketosis is to keep the body primed to burn fatty acids for energy, rather than glucose, and provide ketones to fuel the brain. 

If you completely leave the state of ketosis, and then come back, the body will have to go back through these steps again. However, completely leaving the state of ketosis is much harder than most people think.

The Bottom Line

Being in ketosis doesn't mean you will always burn body fat.

If you eat a low-carb high-fat diet, and your calories are at your current maintenance level, the body won't need to withdraw any body fat from your fat stores because you will be supplying all of the calories the body needs.

In fact, you can actually gain weight on a low-carb high-fat diet (LCHF) if you are eating more calories than the body can use in day.

Being in ketosis is no guarantee that you will lose weight.

Ketosis is simply sets up an alternative fuel source that enables the body to continue to function when glucose is scarce. 

It does that by providing ketones for the brain and fatty acids for your muscles. In those with insulin resistance who also have the genetics to ramp up fat-burning enzymes, this alternative pathway tends to work best. 

But, it's nothing more magical than that.