Why I Stopped Using Keto Macro Percentages: Set Grams Instead

2019-04-19

This is a 20-minute Live I did inside my keto Facebook group on Good Friday, April 2019. I never put it on YouTube. It opens with a bumpy start (an echo from going live on two devices) and then gets into the thing I most wanted to say that week: stop running your diet on percentages.

In this recording

[0:00] Going live in the group, fixing an echo, and setting up a second device so I can read the week's posts.
[0:49] A message from someone eight weeks in, past the early water-weight drop, now stalled and eating heavy on fat. The culprit was the "percentages phenomenon" again.
[1:25] How we do it in the group: protein set by your size, sex and activity; carbs set at the level that gets you into ketosis; fat is the remainder.
[2:06] Fat runs high at the start, lower in the middle while you lose, and higher again in maintenance. Protein stays flat the whole way.
[2:44] Around 20 g of net carbs as the level that gets nearly everyone into ketosis, with some people tolerating more.
[3:30] A worked example: 20 g carbs and roughly 80 g protein stay put in all three phases, while fat might swing from about 150 g, down to the 70s, and back up to 125 to 150 g.
[4:04] On a leaner day, the calories you drop come out of fat, not protein or carbs.
[4:46] The arithmetic: about 11 g of fat is 100 calories.
[5:24] The second problem in that message: a calorie target that, for a lot of people, sits near maintenance.
[6:03] My coffee (black), and sweetener packets that carry maltodextrin or dextrose.
[6:45] Weekend plans from the group, including a bacon festival.
[7:55] Kitchen minimalism: clear out old flour, and check whether expired baking powder is why your keto baking comes out flat.
[8:38] Letting go of the old identity: old clothes and old food kept "just in case", and the box of noodles left over from food-pyramid days.
[10:04] Dietary minimalism, getting good at cooking a few ingredients, and meal prep as my number one piece of advice.
[10:44] Easter cooking for big crowds; deviled eggs as the top keto Easter dish.
[11:58] Why people feel better after exercise.
[13:13] Group questions: pizza crust options (fathead dough, chicken crust, cauliflower, portobello, or crustless in a pie dish or cast-iron skillet).
[15:26] Water enhancers and electrolyte mixes; my pick is flavored seltzer.
[16:11] Fat bombs: what they are and why they stall people.
[17:57] A plug for my coaching, left out of this post, then sign-off at [19:44].

Watching this in 2026

The opening ten minutes hold up. The idea is simple and I still think it is the right one: two of your three macros are fixed numbers and one is a dial. If you write your diet as percentages, every change to total calories drags protein and carbs along with it, and that is backwards. On a day you eat 100 calories less, your protein need hasn't dropped and your carb tolerance hasn't moved. So the cut comes out of fat, about 11 g of it.

What I find funny watching this is that I used percentages myself two years earlier. In my 2017 video on eating too much fat, I said maintenance meant going back to something like 70 to 75% fat (video NUJNFG6lLWw). The three-phase shape is the same in both. High fat to adapt, less fat to lose, more fat to maintain. By 2019 I'd stopped describing it in percentages, because I kept watching people in the group get lost in them. Same idea, better way to say it.

The claim worth unpacking: fat is the dial

In this Live I said that while you're losing weight, the calories you cut should come out of fat, with protein held steady. Two lines of evidence fit that.

In a metabolic-ward study of 19 adults, Hall and colleagues compared restricting carbohydrate with restricting fat. Body-fat loss was 53 ± 6 g/day with carb restriction and 89 ± 6 g/day with fat restriction (doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2015.07.021). It was a short ward study, but it backs the narrow point: calories taken out of dietary fat still count.

On protein, the US adult RDA is 0.80 g/kg/day (nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/10490). That is a floor, not a target. The International Society of Sports Nutrition gives 1.4 to 2.0 g/kg/day for most people who exercise (doi.org/10.1186/s12970-017-0177-8). My "about 80 grams" was only an example. Your number depends on your size and activity, which is what I said on camera. And protein helps with fullness: in one trial, raising protein from 15% to 30% of energy, with carbohydrate held constant, cut what people chose to eat by 441 kcal a day (doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/82.1.41). That's another reason not to let protein shrink on lean days.

The fat bomb segment follows the same logic. I said fat bombs are fine as a dessert, better than ice cream or brownies, but still a dessert. If the scale isn't moving, they're the first thing to cut. They mostly make sense in maintenance, when you're trying to stop losing.

The exercise segment is me talking from what I'd read, not from anything on our evidence pages. I said exercise improves sleep, hormones and mood, and that most people would feel better with about 40 minutes a day. Take that as my opinion from back then.

When to involve a doctor

One question that week came from someone with diabetes. If you take medication for blood sugar or blood pressure, talk to your doctor before you cut carbs, because the doses may need to change quickly. The same goes if you have kidney disease, are pregnant, or have a history of eating disorders. See risks and medications.

Key points

Set protein in grams for your size, sex and activity. Set carbs in grams at the level that keeps you in ketosis (about 20 g net is the usual start). Fat is what's left.
Fat runs high, then lower, then high again across the intro, weight-loss and maintenance phases. Protein and carbs stay put.
A lighter day comes out of fat. About 11 g of fat is 100 calories.
Read sweetener packets: some contain maltodextrin or dextrose.
Fat bombs are dessert. Cut them first if you've stalled.
Clear out the old pantry, and if your keto baking is flat, check your baking powder.