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Protein intake while keto.

Why it matters, how much to eat, and what my intake looks like now.

If you ask the average person, ketosis is primarily about carb restriction and fat intake.

Go on a low-carb diet, eat more fat, allow your body to burn its own reserves. Pretty straightforward, ketones are supposed to replace glucose.

But what do we make of protein? Some keto dieters avoid it like the plague. Worried anything more than a quarter pound of

animal flesh will knock them back into sugar-burning purgatory. Some have even likened it to

chocolate cake. Others eat it freely. Who's right? Well, the most restrictive therapeutic ketogenic diets,

the ones used to treat childhood

intractable epilepsy, are very low protein, around 5 to 10 percent of calories.

These diets are designed to maximize ketone production. Any more protein than that, and those

kids might not make enough ketones to treat their condition.

The most ketogenic state of all, fasting, is also very low in protein.

Zero, to be exact.

Okay, so protein can inhibit ketosis.

Why? What's going on?

One common assumption is that too much protein converts to glucose via

gluconeogenesis. This is the steak as just chocolate cake hypothesis. It makes sense. It sounds reasonable.

It's also completely wrong. It turns out that gluconeogenesis follows an as-needed schedule.

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