Are You Eating Too Much Protein?

Why Cycle Your Protein?

The basics of a high-fat, low-carb diet are: increase your good fats and decrease your carbs. But what about protein? Spend five minutes searching the internet about protein and diet and you’ll see the large controversy that exists around this essential macronutrient.

There is a camp of the ketogenic community that believes you must keep protein moderate and even low, to achieve the metabolic state of burning fatty acids for fuel, aptly named, ketosis. There is an opposing camp in this niche and other diet philosophies that tout a higher protein intake won’t impact ketosis and you should eat as much of it as you need. Confusing, right? What all diet philosophies agree on is that a moderate consumption of protein is critical to obtain all the benefits of a balanced, healthy diet.

What Does Moderate Protein Intake Look Like?

Moderate protein is a vague term, especially since the actual amount can vary from person to person. There is no one size fits all, so understanding what your needs are will help you find what you are looking for and achieve your personal results.

Protein is composed of amino acids, tiny building blocks that are either produced by the body or obtained from your diet. Animal protein is similar to the composition of your tissue, so provides the essential amino acids the body does not produce.

Protein is the key macronutrient responsible for the structure of your cells, muscles, tendons, bones, skin, and hair. It is needed for the production of enzymes, hormones, neurotransmitters and plenty of other molecules that keep you functioning properly. It is the main component of the many structures that form your unique composition and keep it going.

• The benefits of eating protein in your diet include:
• A healthy immune system
• An increase of lean muscle
• A boost to your metabolism
• Satiety and natural appetite suppressant
• A mood booster
• Support for healthy bones

Protein is not something you want to brush off!

Should I Worry About Eating Too Much Protein?

It depends. If you listen to the first camp and your goal is to excel using a ketogenic diet, you’ll want to monitor your protein like a hawk so you don’t risk ruining all the work you’ve spent trying to get into ketosis. As important as protein is, this camp believes that if you overeat protein, it can spike insulin and also promote the breakdown of protein and fat into glucose called gluconeogenesis. Since your goal in a high-fat diet is to reach ketosis by using fat as the main source of fuel, overeating protein could potentially inhibit this. It will be suggested to not only cut back on your carbs to limit your glucose but your protein too since it can be converted into glucose and theoretically prevent your body from going into ketosis.

The trick is to eat just enough protein to allow your body to function optimally, but not too much where it can deter your body from reaching ketosis.

The other camp mentioned above would suggest that not only is protein important but that eating more of it than the current ketogenic guidelines suggest will improve your experience, help you get leaner faster and get this — not impact your ability to get into ketosis whatsoever. They argue that increased protein, even if it does trigger gluconeogenesis is nothing to be concerned about. Why? Because without gluconeogenesis you would die; this life-saving metabolic mechanism is what’s responsible for keeping your blood sugars level during periods of fasting or carb avoidance (if glucose levels get too low we risk seizures or death) as well as serving as a fuel substrate for tissues that don’t run on ketones such as tissue in the kidney and red blood cells as well as even supporting some of the fuel for the brain that ketones don’t cover.

While gluconeogenesis is always happening, this camp says its rate increases at the start of a diet weighted in good fats and fasting such as intermittent fasting or extended fasting. And as your system transitions during the necessary adaptation phase, you’ll slowly shift from relying on gluconeogenesis for fuel and it will become more receptive to burning ketones. Then, eventually you’ll become completely fat-adapted and at this point, your body won’t solely run just on ketones, but that it’s more like it favors ketones as opposed to gluconeogenesis for fuel. This other camp wants you to understand that this implies gluconeogenesis is still occurring during a state of complete ketosis, it’s just that during heavy ketosis the body decreases its rate of gluconeogenesis that is constantly happening. Remember the other theory that if you eat too much protein you’ll trigger gluconeogenesis and you’ll stunt ketosis? From this vantage point, it seems how we’ve been viewing gluconeogenesis might be off and that it shouldn’t be something to fear as a limiting step in being fat adapted. The other reason this pro-protein camp touts eating more protein on a high-fat diet is to preserve muscle mass and protect glycogen stores (which help you recover from exercise and build muscle).

The bottom line from this camp is to not fear or micromanage your protein intake on a ketogenic diet or any diet model for that matter.

How Much Protein is Too Much? What The Science Says

There are other studies to suggest that a high intake of protein can lead to reduced longevity, by means of the IGF-1/mTOR signaling pathway. When this hormonal pathway is turned on (by the intake of protein), the body works on building and growing cells, something that not all of us want or need. The implication of this as related to health is applied in tumor and cancer growths. The other downside to this system is that it increases the aging process. Our bodies are not meant to repair and build at the same time, so you either build cells or repair them. You don’t want to have too much protein where you are just building and growing. So periods of lower intake of protein combined with fasting permits the downtime needed for your body to restore itself by means of autophagy. I personally have found incredible life-changing results from using a system called intermittent fasting protein cycling (IFPC). I took all the best science and evidence available and synthesized it into a simple and practical 15-day program in my bestselling book, Glow15.

What you will learn in Glow15, is a balanced and common-sense approach to protein intake. I created a weekly rotation of higher and lower protein intakes to mirror the science showing that periods of lower protein intake can have youth-boosting and disease-fighting effects on your body. I call them “high” and “low” days. Try my program for just 15 – days