Six common beliefs addressed, Part 158

1. Lean protein "spikes" insulin more than fatty protein.

On this blog, we do not focus on insulin "spikes". People with metabolic syndrome/diabetes do not have a sufficient insulin spike, as they have impaired first phase insulin release. For this reason, their insulin never spikes high enough to stop catabolism and they end up releasing an enormous amount of glucose after eating (hyperglucagonemia), which affects their insulin expression further. For this reason, we care about obtaining proper insulin expression, which is what corrects this abnormality.

All proteins spike insulin the same. The fat in fatty meat simply makes this effect less obvious and causes for insulin to be released for a prolonged period of time afterwards, as insulin is required to store fat. You never want prolonged insulin release especially when the only part of your body that is insulin sensitive is your fat mass. You want an initial high spike and then low insulin levels while fasting. In order to obtain proper insulin function, you need for insulin to work as it was intended - in pulses. High insulin when eating and low insulin when fasting. Not chronically higher than normal insulin, that never gets high enough or low enough when it's suppose to.

So if you have excess fat on your body, lower your dietary fat intake to no less than 50 grams a day. You want to prevent insulin from continually acting on your fat mass. You want to divert its action to your lean body mass instead. That's acquired through protein intake and proper exercise, not fat intake and sitting around. Protein builds muscle and fat builds fat.

2. I eat low carb but I keep having a "low blood glucose feeling" a few hours after I eat.

This is the body's way of preventing blood glucose from lowering.

Metabolic syndrome/diabetes are adaptations towards hyperglycemia. As long as your blood glucose is above 70 mg/dL, there is no need to intervene. If you continuously respond to these feelings by trying to raise your blood glucose, you will never be able to obtain normal blood glucose regulation.

3. You can do a 16/8 fast and instead of two meals, have one meal and a few snacks during your eating window. This is better than one meal a day (OMAD).

People always want a definitive answer on eating habits but there are none. It all depends on your hormonal reaction to them. We know for sure that OMAD is not a good protocol for the obese because it prolongs your time in hypoglycemia (fasting). You can't treat starvation with more starvation. But, if you want to swap out one of your two meals, for one or two smaller meals, then the outcome is not certain. It all depends on how this would affect your blood glucose regulation. For some, having one meal and a couple of small meals, during their eating window, works better than two meals because their leptin sensitivity responds to this and can even improve. But there are issues you should keep in mind when doing this.

"Snacks" usually consist of novelties. In the low carb world this means a bunch of low carb "junk" like seeds and/or nuts, nut butters or some silly "keto" sweet recipe or bar. There is no room for any of that in a proper protocol. All meals/snacks should be protein prioritized.

So instead of the typical "snacks", I suggest you have one meal and one or two smaller meals, during your eating window. A small meal can be a salad with some tuna or a can of sardines or a couple of boiled eggs. That would be perfectly fine but "a couple of small snacks" is not how you should be eating.

4. Will "keto" cure leg edema?

First of all, no one knows what is causing your leg edema except for you and your doctor. I am pretty sure that your doctor must have given you some explanation as to why your legs are swelling. If they haven't, then you have to have a discussion with them for answers or get a second opinion. Until the issue that is causing the edema is addressed, the edema will continue.

"Keto" diets will only help with edema if the edema is being caused by very high insulin levels/over expression, which retains a lot of fluid. It cannot address any other type of edema like the ones caused by congestive heart failure, kidney failure, lymphatic system dysfunction, etc. Those require additional treatments.

5. If the person is carnivore, the body will never choose to burn protein instead of fat.

The only time the body will burn protein instead of fat is during starvation. Obesity is starvation. Diabetes is starvation. Both conditions prevent you from accessing the body fat you already have, and are continuously putting on, so you burn muscle (protein) instead. This is why obesity is sarcopenic. You're being starved of your body fat and you're being starved of your glucose because it's only using it to make more fat that can't be used.

The more metabolic issues you have, the more exaggerated this effect will be since metabolic issues are starvation adaptations. Metabolic syndrome is a condition where the body spares its fat mass and burns through everything else. It doesn't even burn it for fuel, it simply converts it all into more fat for further storage like I described above. This occurs primarily through leptin under expression amongst many other things.

This is precisely why we don't believe that "the body is not stupid enough to burn its muscle while having plenty of fat around". The body does just that. Daily. The body under expresses leptin during starvation because fat is extraordinarily valuable for it. Leptin is fat's keeper. So conditions like diabetes, metabolic syndrome and obesity are conditions that always under express leptin as these conditions are body fat sparing.

This process contributes to obesity and it doesn't occur primarily from the protein you eat, but from the constant conversion of the protein already in your body. This always results in storing more fat than you're burning as you don't really have access to what's stored. 

• The more lean muscle mass and dietary protein you break down into sugar, the fatter you become by volume. You are not building nor repairing the little muscle you do have left and this directly affects calories in.
• The more your body holds on to its fat mass and instead burns glucose, the less effective metabolism runs and the fatter you become by proxy. This is what causes the lack of energy and directly affects calories out.

The first instinct is to reduce or eliminate dietary protein so that the body stops converting it into glucose and the symptoms can be hidden. But like I stated above, the conversion into glucose itself is not the problem. It's that the body continues to do this, in an unregulated way - that's the problem. People with metabolic syndrome/diabetes actually need more protein so they don't continue losing so much lean muscle mass and they need to correct the underlying problem which is basically caused by poor insulin function.

So if this is happening to you, make sure the carnivore diet you are following is not causing starvation. Follow legitimate protocols only. Here is the carnivore protocol we recommend.

6. There are no supplements that can help lower high triglycerides naturally.

Omega 3s. A fish oil capsule can help naturally lower trigs but it's not guaranteed as some people genetically have higher than normal trigs.