Stop Pushing Fat on Keto: The Unedited Take of My 2017 Fat Video

2017-08-24

This is the original, untrimmed camera file of a video that did go out: it was recorded on 2017-08-24 and the edited cut went up on YouTube the next day as Eating Too Much Fat on Keto. The script is the same from the first sentence to the sign-off; the raw file runs about nine and a half minutes, with a few seconds of dead air at the front that the upload drops. If you've read the post on the YouTube version, the content below will be familiar. What this post adds is a look at where I took the same idea two and a half years later.

In this recording

[0:12] The topic: stop eating too much fat. It sounds ridiculous right after you got used to eating fat, but it answers "how do you eat fat to lose weight?"
[0:51] The introductory phase: glycogen is gone, your liver and cells are still learning to run on ketones, and a lot of the early loss is water.
[1:23] Adaptation takes roughly two to four weeks for thinner people and four to eight for heavier people.
[1:57] So in the beginning: limit carbs, get adequate protein, and fat can be fairly unlimited.
[2:42] Once you're fat adapted, hunger should regulate itself and a deficit comes without forcing it. Some people add fasting here.
[4:07] "Fat is optional" in the weight-loss phase, with my arithmetic on how much fat even a lean 100 lb person carries.
[5:11] Maintenance is the other confusing part: once you've lost what you want, fat comes back up, to something like 70 to 75% of the diet.
[6:08] Telling someone in month one to cut fat or calories is kind of cruel; they'll just feel fatigued.
[7:20] Past week five, not hungry, frustrated with the scale: try cutting about 20 g of fat a day (180 calories), or 30 g (270).
[7:43] I don't restrict; when I track without restricting, I tend to run a deficit anyway.
[8:45] Eating fat doesn't fire up ketosis or get you back into it. Cutting carbs does.

Then vs now: from "optional" to "as low as possible"

In this recording fat has three settings: high while you adapt, low while you lose, high again at maintenance. The weight-loss setting was gentle. I suggested trimming 20 to 30 g and said I don't want anybody going to bed hungry (live QVVT1357).

By New Year's 2020 I had pushed the same logic further. In that group Live I said fats are basically unavoidable if you eat real food, that you don't need added fat at all, and that in the weight-loss phase you should keep fats and carbs as low as possible. I gave a rule of thumb for any food or meal: protein grams should be higher than carbs plus fat combined (live QWCT4343). The intro-phase advice didn't move: in both recordings, month one is about cutting carbs and not worrying about fat.

So the 2017 version is the softer one. It treats fat as a dial you turn down a notch when you stall. The 2020 version treats fat as something you mostly stop adding during the loss phase and lets protein lead. Both say fat goes back up when you reach maintenance. You can read the full 2020 Live write-up here: New Year Keto Reset.

The claim worth unpacking: "you get all the extra fat from your body"

My number in this video: a 100 lb person at 10% body fat has 10 lb of fat, which I put at 35,000 calories, or 3,888 g (live QVVT1357). The 3,888 is just the 35,000 divided by nine calories per gram, so it's a rough picture, not a measurement. The point was the size of the store: most people doing keto for weight loss carry far more than that, so "hitting your fat macro" is beside the point while you're losing.

The closest controlled test of "cut fat, not carbs, when you want fat loss" on the ketosis evidence page is a metabolic-ward study of 19 adults. Body-fat loss was 53 ± 6 g a day with carbohydrate restriction and 89 ± 6 g a day with fat restriction (Hall 2015). That fits the practical advice here: once carbs are already low, fat is the obvious place to trim. It doesn't test my bigger claim, that keto makes the deficit easier because hunger drops. That trial held intake fixed for a short stay.

The protein half of my closing line has support too. When protein went from 15% to 30% of energy with carbs held constant, people ate 441 fewer calories a day on their own and lost 4.9 kg over 12 weeks (Weigle 2005).

If you take medication

Cutting 20 to 30 g of fat is a small change, but if you're on diabetes or blood-pressure medication, changing what you eat can change what your dose should be. Talk to your doctor before you start trimming.

Key points

This is the raw file behind the YouTube video NUJNFG6lLWw; same script, a few seconds longer.
Month one: carbs low, protein adequate, fat to fullness.
Weight-loss phase: fat is optional; stalled after week five and not hungry, trim 20 to 30 g a day.
Maintenance: fat comes back up so you stop losing.
Eating fat doesn't cause ketosis; cutting carbs does.
By 2020 I was telling the group to let protein lead and keep added fat as low as is comfortable.