Paleo Diet and Paleolithic Diet Questions & Answers

Question

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I am eating consistently well and paleo, tracking my food, staying in ketosis, working out in a Primal Blueprint way, and still having trouble dropping bodyfat. I recently found this on Dr. Eades blog:

"Although the lowered insulin and elevated glucagon open the doors to the fat cells allowing fat to come out to be burned, the fat comes out only if it’s needed. If you are meeting all your body’s energy needs with the food you eat, the body doesn’t need the fat in the fat cells. On a low-carb diet your body burns fat for energy. But it doesn’t care where this fat comes from; it can come from the diet or it can come from the fat cells or it can come from both. If you are consuming enough fat to meet all your body’s requirements, your body won’t go after the fat in the fat cells no matter how severely you restrict your carbs. You will burn dietary fat only and no body fat. And you won’t lose weight. It’s that simple."

Today, I ate 1988 calories. Of that, 71% was fat, 19% was protein, and 10% was carb. If Dr. Eades is right, it's the presence of too much dietary fat that is causing me to stall. So my question, what to do? Cut fat in favor of more protein? If I'm cutting fat, then I have to replace those calories with something, obviously, and Im pretty sure it shouldn't be carbs. What kind of ratios should I shoot for, if I'm making this change? Please advise....having a hard time figuring this one out.

flag	asked Mar 22 2011 at 22:46 Brad 2,956●9●32

Ambimorph · Answer 1 · 2011-03-22 23:11:34Z UTC

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No, he's not saying it's the fat, he's saying it's the calories. If you exchanged fat calories for protein, your body would still use the dietary fuel instead of dipping into your fat stores. Your ratios are perfect. If you believe Dr. Eades in this case, you should just lower your calories a bit.

You could also try lowering carbs instead, just to see what happens (This worked for me, at least for a while -- I'm currently basically maintaining on 3000 calories a day, no carbs, but I lost on that regime for a long time as soon as I dropped the last of the carb.), or you could drop certain suspect foods. Are you eating fruit? dairy? nuts? All of those stall weight loss in some.

answered Mar 22 2011 at 23:11

Ambimorph
19.7k●18●66

	"If you are consuming enough fat to meet all your body’s requirements, your body won’t go after the fat in the fat cells..." He maybe needs to be a bit clearer then, because that sure sounds like he's talking about the fat. – Brad Mar 22 2011 at 23:14
	That's true, that's a confusing line, but if you read the rest of the article, he's talking about calories. He says later "If you are meeting all your body’s energy needs with the food you eat, the body doesn’t need the fat in the fat cells.", and then talks about spontaneous calorie reduction in low carb diets. – Ambimorph Mar 22 2011 at 23:29
	Oh, I see that part is even in your quote. I think the confusion comes from the fact that his theory in this essay is that low carbers start raising fat so much that they get too high in calories, and that the problem doesn't usually happen from people overeating protein. So too much fat (in his view) leads to too many calories, but too many calories from any other source would still have the same effect. I'm not convinced he's right, here, but I think I'm representing him correctly. – Ambimorph Mar 22 2011 at 23:37
	I think it's likely that the dietary fat is largely stored but because adipocytes are in a constant depletion/repletion flux, it's the overall net result of the day that matters, not whether a particular fatty acid was just eaten or was eaten yesterday. – Travis Culp♦ Mar 22 2011 at 23:42

Travis Culp · Answer 2 · 2011-03-22 23:25:57Z UTC

How much walking do you do? I've found that the fat lost via walking greatly exceeds the number of net calories burned by it (roughly 50/mile) due most likely to hormonal changes. Resistance training is great, but I think daily walking is necessary as well. We always focus on how biologically appropriate our diet is, but there's nothing natural about not moving much in a day.

I think our baseline satiety "presumes" some amount of activity. If you eat a biologically appropriate diet to satiety, there's no guarantee that it's sufficient for the level of fat loss that you desire. If you're walking 4-5 miles a day and this is still happening, then I don't know what to tell you.

Dexter · Answer 3 · 2011-03-23 02:22:35Z UTC

We have to remember that we get an insulin response from protein as well...just not as much as from carbs. And if you are eating/drinking any dairy...such as cream...just because there is only fat...the casein protein triggers a huge insulin response....and thus no progress in weight loss.

I would say cut the protein down to 10% of calories and replace those calories with fat and keep the veggies/salads with oil and vinegar and veggies slathered in butter under 5%. Many of us eat 75-80% fat 10-15% protein and 5% or less veggies.

1988 calories is not a lot of calories for a 25-40 year old. It doesn't sound as if you are over feeding yourself.

You may not truly be in ketosis. If you buy ketostix, you can find out. In my early stages of paleo, I went zero carb for a couple of months and lost 25 pounds, and my wife could tell when I was in ketosis because it brings about really, really bad breath. You are truly not in ketosis unless you get the bad breath....known as ketobreath.

Oranges13 · Answer 4 · 2011-03-23 13:02:52Z UTC

I'm dealing with this same quandary. I've just started out on the paleo diet, but I can't get my head around the fact that eating 60+ grams of fat daily is going to help me lose these 30 pounds of fat I'm trying to lose. My goal each day is 1492 calories (5'9" woman, who is currently 196lbs and works in an office all day) and under 50g of carbs daily. With the rest of what I'm eating that averages out to about 15% carbs, 55% fat, 30% protein.

I love veggies, and I'm doing my best to consume only leafy greens and things like tomato, cucumber, onions, peppers, etc.

Joseph Buganski · Answer 5 · 2012-07-09 20:34:37Z UTC

Carbs over 100g per day? Dude, Really? 1988 calories and you had %10 Carbs??? 198g Carbohydrates? WHY? (AROUND 30g FOR WEIGHT LOSS) DR. EADES, ATKINS ARE reality Geniuses!! I have lost over 120lbs. on literally High fat(100g/day) low carb(<35g/day) and .5g per desired body weight of protein(about 120g/day) and 100gram Fat/day.. The weight has remained off for over 5 years. Cardiologist and my fam dr. are in awe at my perfect health. My reccommendation is get a different calculator OR continue to gain weight my friend!

Body fat vs. dietary fat

5 Answers