Keto Macros for Week One: Your Protein Number, and Why Fat Can Wait
This is a 14-minute video I made in December 2019 for the week-one reboot group, because people kept sending me pictures of their macros, or macros they'd found online, and asking how much fat to eat. My answer: in week one, nobody worries about fat. Learn your protein number, take the big carb sources out, and let fat land where it lands. It isn't on YouTube.
In this recording
- [0:00] Week one is about cutting whole carb sources and tapering. If you've done keto before, you can go all the way to 20 net.
- [0:52] Protein is a minimum target, and I think it's hard to overdo. In three years of helping people I'd met one person who came close, and it only slowed their weight loss (live PWNM7222).
- [1:36] The number barely moves unless you add a lot of muscle with a year or two of resistance training.
- [2:09] I used to say as low as 60 for shorter people; now I say at least 80 for women. Over about 5'7", add 20. Active, add 20.
- [2:44] For men, move the height line to about 5'9"–5'10" and start at 100. Add 20 on a day with an hour-plus workout.
- [3:23] My own example: male, tall, active, kickboxing that day, so 160 as a bare minimum.
- [4:04] Fat in week one: don't worry about it. Later, in weight loss, move to leaner proteins or smaller portions with a protein shake to make up the protein.
- [4:40] Fat is the flexible macro: higher in the intro and maintenance, lower during weight loss, or higher on hungry days and lower on others.
- [7:53] Carb tolerance varies person to person; 20 net generally puts people in ketosis, and some can stay in at 40.
- [9:32] Apps are good for food lookup, barcodes and saved meals, but don't chase their percentage pie chart. We use whole numbers.
- [11:26] Protein stays fixed, carbs stay roughly fixed, and fat goes up and down without much penalty. Vigorous exercise is the only way to fit more carbs and stay in ketosis.
The ladder against the evidence
What I like about this video is that it gives a number you can learn once and keep "all year". Here's the ladder:
| Who | My starting number |
|---|---|
| Woman under ~5'7", not very active | 80 g |
| Woman over ~5'7", or shorter and active | 100 g |
| Taller and active woman | 120 g |
| Man under ~5'10" | 100 g (120 if active) |
| Man over ~5'10" | 120 g (140 if very active) |
| Any hour-plus resistance or hard workout day | add 20 g that day |
The evidence pages give ranges per kilogram, not per height, so the honest comparison is arithmetic. The US adult RDA is 0.80 g/kg/day (National Academies, 2005). A review of weight-loss trials associates about 1.2–1.6 g/kg/day, with about 25–30 g per meal, with better appetite and weight management (Leidy et al., 2015, doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.114.084038). The sports-nutrition position stand puts most exercising people at 1.4–2.0 g/kg/day (ISSN, 2017).
For a 70 kg woman, 80 g is about 1.1 g/kg; for a 90 kg woman, about 0.9. So for many women in the group my 80 sits between the RDA and the weight-loss range, and the +20 steps push it into that range. That's a fair reading of "err on the high side": above the RDA, below what athletes use.
"Hard to overdo" is my experience, not a measured finding. The evidence page's kidney meta-analysis found higher intakes (≥1.5 g/kg/day, ≥20% of energy or ≥100 g/day) didn't change kidney filtration differently in adults without kidney disease (Devries et al., 2018, doi.org/10.1093/jn/nxy197). If you have kidney disease, or you're pregnant, get your number from your doctor, not from this table.
Fat as the flexible macro, then vs now
In 2017 my line was closer to "push fat where you can" (video DoSUgIr2rNo); by the 2018 Keto Basics video fat had become the variable that comes down during weight loss, and in the Tough Love Live (live QPOU6932) it was "get the fat off the plate". This video is the tidy version of where I ended up: fat is the dial you turn by phase.
That fits the ward data. In a metabolic-ward study of 19 adults, cutting fat lost more body fat than cutting carbs, 89 vs 53 g a day (Hall et al., 2015, doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2015.07.021). Calories from fat count. I also said fat "kind of bypasses the insulin pathway"; none of the evidence pages measures that, so treat it as my shorthand.
If you take insulin or another diabetes medication, or blood-pressure medication, tell your doctor before cutting carbs in week one; doses can need to change quickly.
Key points
- Week one: cut the big carb sources, hit protein, ignore fat.
- Your protein number depends on sex, height and activity, and it stays put unless you add a lot of muscle.
- Treat protein as a floor; add 20 on hard workout days.
- Fat is the flexible macro: higher in the intro and maintenance, lower for weight loss.
- Use apps for logging, not for their percentage targets.
Related
- Videos: Tough Love: why keto isn't working, Keto Basics for Beginners, Eating too much fat, Setting up MyFitnessPal, Carbs before a workout
- Guide: How much protein, Too much protein?, Protein and kidneys, How much fat, How many carbs, Tapering
- Blog: Hit your protein goal, Body weight vs lean mass, MyFitnessPal for keto, Macro calculator accuracy, Fat bombs and weight loss