by Siim Land
Balance Your Healthy Fats – Animals who eat their natural diet have a 1:1 omega-6 to omega-3 ratio. The optimal ratio for humans is also around 1:1 or 1:2. If you’re experiencing high levels of stress, inflammation, or sickness, then you may benefit from increasing your omega-3 intake a little bit. You can even do well on a 2:1 ratio favoring omega-6s but anything beyond that will make your body more pro-inflammatory. The main idea is to eliminate all vegetable oils, trans fats, processed carbs, added sugars, other artificial ingredients, and eat plenty of wild oily fish, grass-fed meat, and get healthy fats. Additional fish oil supplementation isn’t advisable unless you’re using a safe source or taking high-quality krill oil or cod liver oil.
Eat High Fat But Not Too Much – Getting the other healthy fats into your diet, such as butter, olive oil, MCT oil, coconut oil, avocados etc. will be okay. However, fat is still a rich source of calories and there’s only a certain amount your body needs. More fat won’t make you burn more fat or make you metabolically healthier. Although we can say that saturated fat isn’t the main cause of heart disease, it’s still not a superfood you could eat in unlimited amounts. The potential evolutionary trade-off of excess fat consumption simply isn’t a wise move and not optimal for longevity. As said earlier, the minimum daily dietary fat intake is 20-30 grams, which isn’t that good either. A healthy fat consumption on non-ketogenic diets should be somewhere between 20-35%, which on a 2000 daily caloric intake would be around 40-80 grams. On a low carb keto diet, it should be slightly higher but you don’t need to be eating copious amounts of dietary fat because more won’t be always better. Most people can stick between 100-180 grams of fat and be perfectly healthy. There is no metabolic advantage to eating more fat beyond using it for daily caloric maintenance.
Get Some Fiber – The Hadza clog up about 100 grams of fiber a day from tubers and vegetables, whereas the average fiber intake in the Western world is about 15-20 grams. You definitely don’t need fiber to survive but it can be helpful in promoting satiety, helping with digestion, clearing constipation or simply bringing in more volume to your meals while keeping the calories low. I wouldn’t recommend aiming for any more than 30-40 grams of fiber a day as it can still cause bloating, indigestion, and constipation if you overconsume it. However, if fiber helps you to be less hungry and thus eat fewer calories then it can be useful for longevity in the long-term. On some days you should be eating more, on some days a little less, and on some days completely nothing.
Control for Blood Sugar and Insulin –Carbohydrate consumption should always be dependent on your body’s energy demands – did you work out, what’s your general health like, how long you’ve been fasting for, are you trying to gain or lose weight? Whatever the case, aim for keeping blood sugar and insulin relatively low most of the time and raise insulin only when the body could recover from the spike faster i.e. post-workout.
Avoid Inflammation Like Wildfire – Oxidative stress, free radical damage, and chronic inflammation are the root cause of atherosclerosis, metabolic syndrome, and a myriad of other health conditions. There’s acute inflammation whether from lifting weights or eating hormetic compounds that have a beneficial effect but chronic inflammation from being stressed out, consuming too many vegetable oils, eating allergenic things, and environmental toxicity are literally degrading your mitochondria and accelerating aging.
Limit Allergens and Phytonutrients – It’s not wise to eat foods you’re reacting negatively to, such as gluten, grains, lectins, legumes, nuts, or dairy. You want to heal your gut and metabolism first before trying to play Mithraism. For healthy people, it’s okay to occasionally expose yourself to these allergens. In terms of hormesis, you’d want to be eating some beneficial plants and spices, such as wild nettles, green tea, turmeric, cinnamon, berberine, to name a few.
Cycle Your Foods –Hunter-gatherers would go through periods of eating completely different foods throughout the year. The Hadza gut microbiome also changed in between the dry and wet seasons, showing a much bigger diversity than the average Westerner’s[579]. This is something we don’t really see in modern society. On the Metabolic Autophagy protocol, we’ll be cycling between low carb ketogenic periods with brief occasions of higher carbs as well as cycling between the meat and plant foods.
Balance Autophagy and mTOR – Lastly, the thing no fitness guru talks about. Some foods stimulate more mTOR whereas others are more autophagic. I’d say that’s a pretty important thing to keep in mind because your longevity is literally determined by these processes. You don’t want to have high mTOR all the time nor do you want excessive autophagy. That’s why the key to determining what food groups in what amounts you should eat depend on the time of the day, metabolic homeostasis, particular goals of that day, and in what stage of the cycle you’re in.
Before we talk about what to eat based on these principles, I want to talk about ketosis and keto-adaptation.
Chapter XIII
The Keto-Adaptation Process
“The three most harmful addictions are
heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Ketosis and keto-adaptation - you might have heard of these terms being thrown around quite inter-changeably but what do they actually mean?
Ketosis and keto-adaptation aren’t mutually inclusive, and they have their differences. Some people might disagree with me on this, which is fine because what matters is that they are distinct conditions. Here’s how I define the two.
Being in ketosis is the actual metabolic state with the appropriate levels of blood sugar and ketone bodies. It’s said that ketosis begins at 0.5 mmol-s of blood ketones but having 0.3 mmol-s already is quite good. You can be in mild ketosis already after fasting for 24-hours but it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re successfully using fat and ketones for fuel.
The keto-adaptation process makes your body adapt to utilizing fat and ketones as a primary source of energy. It means you don’t have to rely on glucose and can thrive on consuming dietary fat or by burning your own stored body fat.
On the standard ketogenic diet, your macronutrient ratios would be somewhere along the lines of 5-10% carbs, 15-25% protein, and 70-80% fat.
In medical practice or for disease prevention, the ketogenic diet has to be kept quite strict because the purpose is to be in deep therapeutic ketosis with low blood sugar and high ketones between 1.5-3.0 mmol-s. However, people who want to simply reap the benefits of a low carb keto way of eating don’t have to be that restrictive and they can safely get what they want by focusing on becoming keto-adapted.
Keto-adaptation results from nutritional ketosis but it’s not needed to maintain it. To become keto-adapted, you have to go through a period of being in ketosis where your liver’s enzymes and metabolic processes change so you could have the ability to burn fat for fuel, but it’s not necessary to be in ketosis all the time to maintain keto adaptation. You can briefly dip in and out of ketosis for a day or two without fully losing it.
What your own personal macronutrient ratios will look like depend on many things such as genetics, how much muscle you have and what kind of training are you doing. After keto-adaptation you can be less strict with the macros.
Carbs should still be quite low around 5-15%
Protein can be increased for the muscle building benefits up to 25-30%
Fat will stay around 55-65%, which will cover the essentials and gives extra energy.
This is a good balance between glucose depletion and being reasonable with eating fat.
Keto-Adaptation Symptoms
There isn’t a specific point where you can draw a line and go – now I’m completely switched over to a fat-burning engine.
When ketosis is quite binary – you’re either in it or you’re not – then keto-adaptation is more of like a matter of degree – a wide range of efficiency. In reality, everyone is keto-adapted to some extent.
If you eat fewer calories than needed, you’re going to lo
se some fat.
If you eat bacon and eggs, you’re going to get some energy from it.
If you walk or jog, then you’re burning some fat.
The problem is that when you’re not that well keto-adapted and you’re causing metabolic stress to your body through caloric restriction or exercising on an empty glycogen tank, then you’re producing some ketones but because your body isn’t that efficient at using fat for fuel, you’ll also start converting some of your muscle tissue into glucose through gluconeogenesis.
How much fat you’re able to burn and how much protein you’ll compensate with depends on your level of keto-adaptation.
Eating the high-carb-low-fat-high-protein diet is making your body quite dependent on glucose and frequent eating. The same applies to a high carb, high fructose diet. You have to eat very often to not go catabolic.
Eating slightly lower carb, like a paleo approach where 30-50% of your calories come from carbs leaves some room for burning fat but it’s still making you burn some glucose because you’re eating more of it.
Eating a strict low carb high fat ketogenic diet is the furthest you can promote keto-adaptation with diet. It’ll keep you in a state of nutritional ketosis wherein the body is geared towards using ketones as a primary fuel source.
Therefore, the pursuit of getting into ketosis with a low carb ketogenic diet is going to facilitate keto-adaptation, which will enable you to shift your metabolic engine more towards producing energy from fatty acids.
The goal of the ketogenic diet for most people is not necessarily to be in ketosis but to become keto-adapted. However, in order to make it happen, you still need to go through the keto-adaptation process wherein you get into ketosis and eat a low carb ketogenic diet. Otherwise, you’ll never cross the chasm between burning glucose and ketones but will stay in the periphery all the time.
Figure 78 The Difference Between Burning Carbs and Fat In Terms of Energy Quantity
Figure 78 depicts the notion of burning carbs and fat quite well. There’s only a limited amount of glycogen our bodies can store compared to the vast fat reserve. In order to access the fatty acid tank, we need to prime keto-adaptation and condition the body to run on ketones in most situations. The chasm in between can be somewhat difficult to cross, which is why some may fail completely
Here’s how the keto-adaptation process looks like:
Carb Withdrawal – you go on a low carb ketogenic diet and remove all carbohydrates from your diet. On keto, you eat leafy green vegetables, fatty meat, fish, eggs, and some other fats. The foods on Metabolic Autophagy are slightly different and prioritized differently, which will be the topic of Chapter XIV.
Keto Flu Period – you may experience some fatigue and exhaustion because the brain doesn’t know how to use ketones for energy that efficiently yet. This may last from a few days up to several weeks, depending on your sensitivity.
Getting Used to Ketones – you begin to feel better and more energized from eating low carb high-fat foods. The process can be accelerated by implementing intermittent fasting and making sure you’re not starving yourself. This may last from 2 weeks up to several months and the longer you do it the better it gets.
Fat Burning Mode – your exercise performance will improve or at least you’ll regain the vigor you might have initially lost during keto flu. Here you can begin to see increased time to exhaustion, faster recovery from workouts, less fatigue during the day, mental clarity, and reduced hunger.
Keto Adaptation – you can run very efficiently on dietary fat as well as your own body fat without needing carbohydrates to perform or feel energized. Thanks to burning ketones, you don’t get that hungry and whenever you do it’s temporary.
Metabolic Flexibility – you can also use carbohydrates for fuel and you’re not going to get brain fog from being kicked out of ketosis. This is the ultimate goal of keto-adaptation – to not be dependent on ketones nor carbs and to use both in various situations. More on this shortly.
The process of becoming keto-adapted takes about 2-4 weeks or even up to 3-6 months. How long it’s going to end up taking depends on how easily your body begins to accept ketones and fatty acids as a fuel source.
Some of the side-effects you may experience include losing water weight because of low levels of insulin, increased thirst, a slightly metallic and fruity keto breath, slight fatigue, and lack of appetite. Fortunately, these things can be quickly overcome and even avoided. They’re definitely not permanent and will pass away shortly.
To get past the initial gauntlet of keto-adaptation you need to have patience and perseverance. The severity of your symptoms depends on how addicted to sugar your body has been before. If you come from the background of the Standard American Diet (SAD, indeed), then it will take you longer than someone who is eating Paleo and already used to less sugar.
That’s why the ketogenic diet receives such a bad rep. Because your body is still addicted to sugar, you get tired and lethargic. Your metabolism is geared towards running on glucose and it hasn’t been adjusted to burning ketones yet.
Some of the good signs of proper keto-adaptation include no hunger whatsoever, mental clarity, high levels of energy all the time, increased endurance, reduced inflammation, stable blood sugar, and no muscle catabolism.
To know whether or not you’re in ketosis, you can measure your blood ketones using Ketostix. Optimal measurements are between 0,5 and 3,0 mMol-s[580](See Figure 80). The same can be done with a glucometer. If you’re fasting blood glucose is under 80 mg/dl and you’re not feeling hypoglycemic then you’re probably in ketosis (Figure 79). Ketoacidosis occurs over 10 mMol-s, which is quite hard to reach.
Figure 79 Blood Glucose Chart
Figure 80 The ranges of blood ketones
Ketone Breath Meters indicate the amount of acetone in your breath. Acetone gets produced by the breakdown of acetoacetate in the blood. This measurement means that your mitochondria actually take the initial ketone body and then convert it further into an additional source of energy.
When it comes to choosing which ones are the best, then I’d say that for the best results, you’d want to know your blood ketones, blood glucose as well as the amount of acetone in your breath. Urine strips are generally useless because you can have higher amounts of acetoacetate in your urine because of dehydration or nitrogen overload as well but it doesn’t really tell you much about how well you’re using ketones for energy. The advantage of using breathalyzers is that they’re easier, more convenient, and much cheaper to use than using a lot of blood test strips.
Low blood glucose in the context of a non-ketogenic diet generally indicates hypoglycemia, wherein you may feel tired, lethargic, and your brain can’t get access to energy.
If your blood glucose is lower than 60 mg/dl or 3.0 mmol/L and you’re feeling energized, then it means your brain is getting an alternative fuel from beta-hydroxybutyrate and you’re not going to pass out. That’s why people on the ketogenic diet have much lower blood glucose than is considered normal. In my opinion, lower blood glucose is also better for your health and longevity. To a certain extent of course.
When glucose goes down, then a metabolically healthy person should see an elevation of ketones as the body shifts into a fat burning mode. If you’re not keto-adapted, then you’re going to crash and feel exhausted.
The general guideline is that the longer you do the ketogenic diet the easier it gets and the better you’ll start performing. But like I said, our bodies are different – what’s high-carb for a sedentary person may not be high for an athlete. That’s why some people can even be keto-adapted without necessarily being in ketosis all the time. That’s where the concept of metabolic flexibility comes into play.
Metabolic Flexibility and Keto Adaptation
Using carbohydrates strategically will not only improve your performance but overall health as well. There are a few reasons why you should occasionally get out of ketosis.
Some people get hormonal imbalances
, like low thyroid or testosterone, if they restrict their carbs for too long or if they fail to adapt fast enough.
Your energy levels may also suffer from time to time because of overtraining or too much stress. In that case, carbs will speed up recovery and lower cortisol.
Low mucous production of the ketogenic diet will prevent your body from creating enough mucus that surrounds and moisturizes your gut and eyes. That can be the cause of too low insulin and other growth pathways.
Some carbohydrate foods can promote a healthy gut by increasing diversity in your microbiome. Changing up your menu will help to reset food intolerances and prevent them from developing in the first place. Too restrictive diets all the time may develop autoimmune disorders.
Carbs can be used to boost your performance while working out but they can also be used for better sleep. Sometimes being low carb for too long may lead to some serotonin deficiencies and carbs can help to fix that.
Eating carbs seasonally will fit better with the circadian rhythms and your own individual genetic blueprint. During some seasons it’s natural to be eating more carbohydrates and at others less.
And of course, it’s nice to sometimes eat foods that aren’t bacon or vegetables. Although I’m the kind of guy who could eat just steak and eggs for the rest of my life I still agree that some variety is not only healthy but also beneficial.
But don’t worry, getting kicked out of ketosis doesn’t mean you’ll lose keto adaptation. You’ll still be able to effectively burn fat for fuel. It’s just that you’ll gain some of the other benefits of metabolic flexibility.
It’s probably not the best idea to be in ketosis all the time from an evolutionary perspective either. The most commonly used anthropological group used to justify a low-carb-high-fat diet are the Inuit who eat almost only animal foods with minimal plant matter year-round. However, you might be surprised to hear that the Inuit actually suffer from a genetic disorder known as ‘the Arctic variant of CPT-1a deficiency’. It inhibits the use of ketones and promotes risk of hypoglycemia during fasting – low ketones and low glucose. Virtually every native tribe in the Arctic has this and they’re asymptomatic. In fact, this defect developed during a specific era in human history that favoured such adaptation.