LCHF Metabolism

Low-Carbohydrate High-Fat Metabolism

Key Concepts.

When you eat fat, it's turned into fatty acids, which in the absence of insulin, becomes acetyl-CoA, and CAN"T become fat in your body. The fat you eat can't (there are some tiny exceptions) become glucose.

While fatty acids might supply almost all your energy, glucose is also being used, perhaps immediately after eating, and continually to supply some glucose to the brain and the central nervous system. Some dispute exists about how much glucose the brain needs, but if you are producing ketones, insulin is off, and the glucose supply to the brain may less that 60gm per day. (30gm a day some say.)

Fatty Acids for Energy

Dietary fat has to be disassembled in the small intestine into free fatty acids, which are then small enough to pass through the intestine wall. Fatty acids in the blood are readily accepted by all the bodies cells except the red blood cells, the central nervous system and the brain.

β-oxidation

Long chain fatty acids (from fat) are also converted to acetyl-CoA, by a process called β-oxidation, which occurs inside the mitochondrion. Acetyl-CoA enters the citric acid cycle from there. (Also called the TCA cycle or the Krebs Cycle)

Fatty Acids as Building Blocks

Free fatty acids are also needed to build hormones and cell tissues. Essential fatty acids can only be obtained by dietary means.

Ketone Creation

In either starvation, or the absence of dietary carbohydrate, with an excess of fatty acids in the system, the liver uses β-oxidation to make acetyl-CoA, and converts that to make the ketone bodies, β-hydroxybutyrate and acetoacetate. β-hydroxybutyrate and acetoacetate are transport agents for acetyl-CoA.

Your muscles, the heart, the brain, the central nervous system, prefer to use ketones for fuel if ketones are available. The effect of that preference is that ketones are readily accepted by all body cells including the brain whenever possible. Since the brain and your heart and muscles prefer to use ketones, glucose which is scarce, is spared. In other words, the body saves glucose for the important job of sustaining the constant glucose level in the blood.

The presence of ketones conserves glucose and expends the more abundant triglycerides. In the same way since glucose is spared, there is no emergency requiring the breakdown of protein to make glucose. Hence protein is spared too.

Free Fatty Acid Metabolism

Core principles.

The production of ketone bodies is part of normal body metabolism.
The Standard American Diet is the cause of the current obesity crisis.
Excess daily insulin over long periods creates carbohydrate intolerance.
There is no dietary requirement for humans to eat any carbohydrate.
Sugar is the enemy of good health. The best amount of sugar in your diet is zero.
The amount of glucose needed for the proper function of the brain is tiny. Less than 60gm a day.
The liver can provide more than 150gm of glucose a day by gluconeogenesis.
Everyone should eat a well formulated diet.
Calories are either wasted and conserved in order to maintain homeostasis.
A high-fat diet is 60% to 85% fat.
A low carbohydrate diet and is less than 120gm of carbohydrate a day.
A very low carbohydrate diet and is less than 50gm of carbohydrate a day.
High fat diets decrease insulin resistance.
Low-carbohydrate diets should be the standard treatment for type 2 diabetes
Excess carbohydrate is converted into fat by lipogenesis (Or de novo lipogenesis).

Can You Improve Your Metabolism?

Apparently, both weight training and aerobic exercise help to improve your metabolism.

Also if you are in ketosis, your metabolism while running on β-hydroxybutyrate, and conserving glucose is more efficient than running on glucose.

Do the things you love to do. That will make you more enthusiastic and more energetic.

Get plenty of sleep, the body needs recovery time.

Avoid sports drinks and fruit juice. We want to improve the quality of the body engine, to make it work better, not damage it with excess glucose, sucrose and fructose.