In this video Cheryl McColgan, founder of Heal, Nourish, Grow, challenges the popular notion that a keto diet requires consuming large amounts of dietary fat. She explains that ketosis is fundamentally driven by carbohydrate restriction—typically under 30 g of net carbs per day for most people—rather than high fat intake. McColgan emphasizes that the primary goal for the majority of keto followers is weight loss, and that protein should be the macro priority (about 1 g per pound of ideal body weight) to preserve muscle, support metabolism, and promote satiety. Fat serves mainly as an energy source and a satiety aid; its quantity can be adjusted based on individual goals, activity level, and muscle mass. She advises focusing on high‑quality fats (saturated and animal‑derived) while avoiding seed oils, and highlights the importance of whole, minimally processed foods to reduce inflammation. The video also covers the concept of fat adaptation (≈8‑9 weeks), the role of muscle mass in carb tolerance, and the distinction between therapeutic keto (e.g., epilepsy, cancer) and weight‑loss keto, where higher fat may be appropriate. Practical tips include tracking carbs initially, gradually eliminating high‑carb foods like potatoes and sugary drinks, and ensuring adequate protein intake. McColgan promotes further resources such as the Keto Chef Summit, a newsletter, and recommends reading Dr. Paul Saladino’s The Carnivore Code for deeper insight.
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Hey everyone, I'm Cheryl McColgan, founder of Heal, Nourish, Grow, and today I wanted to talk to you about something that I've been seeing all over the place online lately, and that is, "How do I get in my fat when I'm eating keto?" I don't even know where this idea comes from. All that is required for your body to get into ketosis is carb restriction or carb utilization, and I'll save a little bit deeper discussion of that for, uh, further down in this video. But for the first thing you need to know, if you're going to eat keto, all you need to do is restrict your carbs. For most people, if you go to under 30 grams of carbs per day, that will allow your body to get into ketosis. If you're worried about getting your fat in— again, I'm not really sure where this whole idea came from, but it's probably based on the fact that it's, you know, kind of that's the way promoted in the media, or not promoted isn't the right word, but it's the way that the media has shared it so that we believe it's this really high-fat crazy diet that's gonna give you a heart attack and it's definitely bad for you because everybody knows that fat is bad, right? Well, first of all, if you've been around my channel for a while or if you've done any delving at all into the keto diet, it's really not that different than a Mediterranean diet, which everybody loves, right? You're just eating whole foods, but you're not eating grains, you're not eating starchy vegetables. That's it. It is not you're drinking gallons of fat every day, although you could do that. And for some people, if you're doing ketosis for a very therapeutic purpose, such as epilepsy or cancer treatment or other reasons, there are certainly times where you might have a higher fat diet. But for most people, if you're coming to keto just to feel better and to lose weight, then a lot of fat is not required. So I guess what I always say, and if you've been around here you've heard me say this before, is What is your goal, right? So I'm going to take the case, which is 90% of the people that come to keto is for to lose weight. And so if you have excess fat on your body, you know, eventually there's the hormonal theory of weight loss and there's this calories in, calories out. It's really a combination of the two. Having a whole big argument about which one is the right thing is kind of pointless at this state in time, because I think everyone would agree the quality of the food that you're eating definitely matters. It affects your hormones. Hormones affect whether you gain or lose weight. And then in addition, you also have to have energy balance. I don't like to think of it as a calorie deficit, but you have to eat properly for the amount of activity that you're doing and the amount of energy that your body expends every day. That's how you come into an equilibrium where you can easily maintain your weight. If you If you wanna lose weight, you're gonna need to have an energy balance in which you are spending more energy than you're taking in. And part of the way to do that is to utilize the fat on your body. The more that you become fat adapted by eating keto, which for most people happens somewhere around the 8 or 9 week point, then your body will easily be able to access body fat. And so if you start to, uh, cut back or make your calorie balance so that you're expending more energy than you're taking in, that's a great way to lose weight. So I don't know where this idea about that you have to eat a bunch of fat to be keto came around. Of course you wanna eat high-quality fat, which means saturated fat, no vegetable, well, I shouldn't say no vegetable oils, but definitely no seed oils. So corn oil, soy oil, all of that, whether you're gonna eat keto or not, if you take away one thing from this is don't eat those kind of oils. They're never meant to be an oil. They're highly oxidized. They're terrible for you. Eat oil from sources that make sense. So oil and fat that comes from animal products that you're eating, certainly if you have a fattier piece of meat, you're getting in, quote unquote, more fat, but it's not required to be in ketosis. And you may want to eat actually less fat if your goal is weight loss. Trying to think what else I've heard about this lately that just kind of got me going. So again, if your goal is different, if your goal is brain health and you want to maximize your body's ability to produce ketones and feel really great and suppress inflammation even more, then maybe a higher fat version is good for you. So again, goes back to what your goals are. The whole reason you don't need to eat fat to be keto is because the only thing that is required, again, is a restriction in carbs. So that can be from your diet, and it's a little different for everybody. So most people, if they go somewhere under 30 grams of carbs per day, they will be in ketosis. People that are more active, people that have more muscle mass can get away with eating more carbs in a day and remaining in ketosis. So it depends on your activity level. It depends on your muscle mass. Muscle mass is hugely important to maintain, especially as we get older. You know, I talk a lot about aging on here too, because I'm in that boat. Every year we get a little older and it beats the alternative for sure. But you want to have some resistance training to maintain muscle and then you want to also eat the proper amount of protein. So all the thought leaders that I've been listening to lately, all of the things that I've read, they are very focused on protein. You might have heard Dr. Ted Naiman and the protein energy ratio. There's these other two guys that are actually bug researchers that found out some amazing stuff about metabolism. And basically the idea is that your body will continue to overeat fat or carbs in the absence of protein because your body naturally has a level of protein that it requires every single day for metabolic processes, for building of muscle, to maintain your body. And if you consistently go below that threshold, it kind of makes your body keep seeking out eating behaviors till you get the right amount of protein. And the problem with our food system now is everything is so diluted in protein. So if you eat a lot of packaged processed foods, even if it's like a protein bar or whatever, there's still a lot of carbs and a lot of sugar and a lot of other stuff in there with it, right? So if your body doesn't get the proper amount of protein, it'll make you overeat. So that's another factor in gaining or losing weight, right? So if you want to lose weight— and again, that's kind of what we're focusing on mostly in this video because that's what most people come to keto for— is to prioritize protein. And there's a varying degree of what people agree is kind of the right spot, but most of the ones I've been hearing lately for optimal muscle mass, for fat loss, you're looking at about a gram per pound of body weight, of ideal body weight. So for example, if you are someone who weighs 200 pounds but your ideal weight based on your height would be more like 150, then you'd want to eat 150 grams of protein a day. And if you do that, it's not easy. I've been working on this myself. I've been trying to shoot for somewhere between 100 to 130 grams of protein every single day, and it's not that easy if you're eating a a lot of other things. So particularly if you go higher fat, fat is so satiating and it might make it difficult for you to get in the proper amount of protein. So that's another reason you don't want to go overboard on the fat. And again, it's a process. You need to experiment with it for yourself. But if you are new to keto, what I would recommend is focus on your carbs. That's all you need to worry about in the beginning. Track if you need to, if you're not familiar with how much carbs are in certain foods. If you're eating a lot of whole foods, you're not going to have to worry about this as much. But there are still some whole food type things that are high in carb that if you're trying to get yourself fat adapted, you're going to want to avoid. So potatoes are a good example. Sweet potato, they're natural food that comes from the ground. When I talk to people about their diet, just like move in the right direction, right? You don't have to go whole hog or really severe overnight. You just need to make small changes. So maybe it's getting rid of the sugary drinks and the obvious starches first, like pasta. But if you're eating mostly whole foods, you're gonna be in a much better place overall for your metabolic health. It'll help with weight loss. You know, I would say again, those first 8 weeks when you're transitioning, if you're new to keto, stay away from that stuff if you can. But it might be a slow, gradual progression before you really get to a point where your body feels good and is used to not having as many carbs. Because for most people, if you've been eating the standard American diet, you may have been eating as much as 300, 400, or 500 calories a day without even realizing it. Actually, that many carbs, not calories. 300, 400, or 500 grams of carbs per day, which is really quite high and not good for everybody. I think no matter what kind of diet you follow, I think everyone can agree that highly processed foods are really not good for us. This is no shock, right? It's not something that our bodies were ever designed to process. And it's no wonder that people have such problems with the state Standard American Diet, including weight loss, including inflammation, including, you know, promoting heart disease, promoting Alzheimer's. All of these processes are related to inflammation and highly processed, high sugar diets. So I didn't quite stay exactly on task with the subject at hand, but again, your takeaway from this is prioritize your protein. You're shooting for around a gram per pound of ideal body weight, maybe slightly less. Particularly if you like have a desk job or you're not active at all, maybe slightly more if you do a lot of weightlifting or you're really, really active. Eat your protein first. Fat is just energy, same as carbs. So it's just to get you to satiety. But because you're trying to be in ketosis, because you know the processed foods are bad for you, then you're going to lean on fats a little bit more to make up the rest of your calories than you are carbs. Carbs are— should be whole food, high fiber, you know, low toxicity. If you haven't read The Carnivore Code by Dr. Paul Saladino, I highly recommend it. Even if you don't totally agree with his methods or his outlook, he did a great job in laying out the argument for why we should be eating a more heavily animal-based, nose-to-tail diet, citing some research studies, giving his thought process behind all of that. So no matter just how you decide to eat, I would highly recommend reading that book just because it's going to give you a lot of great information, and it gives you a new way to think about the plant foods that you do choose to incorporate into your diet. So anyway, I hope that was helpful. If you have any follow-up questions, please put them down in the comments below. I'm always happy to help when I can. I spend my days researching and reading all this, so this is kind of based on really years and thousands of hours of research and taking in the knowledge from different thought leaders and kind of processing that through my own lens. And translating it into my own life that I've now been doing keto for over 4 years and low carb for over 5. So I like knowing the reasons behind it though. I don't like just— and I think that's the problem where you hear like, oh, but I'm not getting in my fats. I'm thinking, where did this come from? That's not even a thing. So don't be worried about your fats. Worry about your carbs. Cut them down low. Eat enough protein. And if you're still a little hungry, eat a little more fat. That's pretty much it. So no need to overcomplicate it. Be sure to join me at the Keto Chef Summit that's coming up up on August 9th. I'll put the link below and you can learn more about my thought process and my knowledge behind developing recipes and the plant foods that I choose to incorporate, which over time has actually gotten less and less and less. So it helps with the— obviously the fat— to being able to eat a little bit more fat if you're not eating really any carbs at all is also a possibility. So again, look at what your goals are, look at whether it's brain health, disease prevention, weight loss, whatever it is, and and then you're going to align your macros and what you eat to meet with those goals. So for most people, again, weight loss, don't add a bunch of extra fat. You're just looking to get the fat that comes in your nice whole food, natural source of protein that you're getting, and that should take care of everything. So as long as you're not overly hungry, no need to add that. So hope that was helpful. Again, I'm Cheryl McColgan from Heal, Nourish, Grow. Be sure to hit the subscribe button below and let me know what other topics that you want to hear about. YouTube has not been a huge channel for me in the past. Like, I always put my stuff here, but it's never been a real focus. But the more I look at content lately, the way people are, uh, receiving content, the way they're processing content, the way they prefer to have it delivered— do you like a 2-minute video? Do you like a 5-minute video? What kind of topics do you want to hear about? Um, I feel like there's slightly more leeway here than on some other social media platforms lately where if you talk about things that are slightly out of the norm, then you have a chance of possibly being censored, which is really scary. And that's where we're headed. But so anyway, um, also sign up for my newsletter. Obviously I don't have to censor myself at all there, so you can learn about whatever it is that I'm into most recently. So anyway, I will talk to you again soon.
