The Major Protein Change to Keto in 2026

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]This changes things about what we eat on keto. It changes the macronutrient composition and it changes one really important thing, protein. In this video, I'm going to teach you how much protein you may want to have based on the new science that's been coming out. You may have seen that University of Utah health study that scared a lot of people. It was a long-term keto study that was looking at mice, and it was essentially suggesting that keto is going to make it so that you no longer produce insulin.

[00:00:28]It doesn't make you insulin resistant.

[00:00:30]It makes it so you do not produce insulin. But there was a huge glaring problem with the study. And the purpose of this video isn't to talk about or bash the study. In fact, I already did a deep dive on the study, but it's to now twist it and understand why we should be having more protein on keto here in 2026. So, what this University of Utah health study essentially found is that on a very, very high-fat ketogenic diet, we're talking 90% fat and less than 10% protein, we are really putting ourselves in the spot to where we end up with what is called lipid overload. We have so much fat that is coming in with so little protein that we essentially have no need for insulin. So, it has nothing to do with insulin resistance or insulin sensitivity because that is happening at the site of the cell at the peripheral edge. We're talking about the pancreas actually producing insulin in the first place. The body essentially got to a point where said you don't use it, you lose it. We're not producing insulin because you don't need it. So, we're going to stop producing it. Now, the important caveat that University of Utah health study is this was revers. It was reversible. So, we don't need to freak out. However, it was causing some serious changes in blood lipids and it was actually causing stress and damage to the liver. And what this is telling us is that we need protein on a ketogenic diet. Not just because it's going to preserve muscle, not just because it's going to help us think better, not just because it's going to help us feel more satiated, but because people forget that protein causes an insulin spike. protein is still what we call insulinogenic.

[00:02:16]Now, this is exactly where people that do keto can get really confused because we get lost and we think that keto is really good because it lowers your insulin and that it helps insulin resistance. What we're really looking for is improving insulin sensitivity. We want our bodies to be able to respond to insulin, not never produce it again.

[00:02:38]Now, I'm going to come back to exactly how much protein you should have and how you should sequence it and how you should time it in just a second. But there's another thing we need to point out with this study, and that was the fact that they were using a specific subset breed of mice in this study. And these were mice that were more prone to obesity, more prone to liver issues, and more prone to insulin resistance in the first place. Now, that is a little hairy on one hand because you're like, why would they use these mice? But on the other hand, it also explains a lot of humans, right? Humans that are more prone to obesity, humans that are more prone to metabolic dysfunction. So it actually highlights an important point.

[00:03:15]We shouldn't be upset with that. We should actually take that as a strong consideration as to why we need to lower the fat content on keto and increase the protein content. Now, if you look at people that have dismantled that study, they'll talk about how you should add some carbs in here and there, and that can certainly be important, but one of the things that we really need to be paying attention to is more the protein.

[00:03:36]Because if we come back to it, when you eat protein, you have an insulin spike.

[00:03:41]You have a little bit of insulin that spikes and then you also have glucagon that balances it. Now, that's gets into a complex mechanism that we don't need to go into a lot of detail about today, but essentially you're still producing insulin. So, the pancreas still has to do some work. When you get these very highfat keto diets, almost therapeutic ketogenic diets and beyond, you're going for so long without producing insulin that you actually turn off production.

[00:04:06]I'm telling you right now, that's not what you want. You want insulin sensitivity. You want to be able to produce insulin but receive the signal at its destination. because that would make it so that you even eating protein would cause a problem where it would raise your blood sugar. We need protein to spike our insulin appropriately so the protein can get into the muscles.

[00:04:27]Super super super important. So before we get into the specifics of how much protein to have, another thing that you can do to just periodically give yourself a little bit of this tease of insulin so that the pancreas continues to produce it is just do occasional targeted ketogenic dieting. What that means is occasionally post-workout, have a tablespoon of honey. It may seem crazy, but you're actually improving the pancreas's ability to produce insulin going forward. This is hugely important.

[00:04:58]Actually, I've talked about this way back when, like 2016, 17, 18, I was big on back loing, which after a workout, even on a deep ketogenic diet, you would have a small amount of carbohydrates, a couple days per week. We're talking 20 30 grams of carbohydrates because that is a time when your body is most likely going to use it. You're insulin sensitive on the peripheral end. The cells, the muscles, they're ready for glucose and they have an opportunity to take it. So, it's an opportunity where you can allow your pancreas to produce a little bit of insulin, but rest assured that you have the best chances of it not spiking your glucose high and going in where it needs to go. Very, very important there. I'll usually do one or two tablespoons of honey and it doesn't even knock me out of a ketogenic state.

[00:05:40]I'm very particular about the honey.

[00:05:42]Personally, I use Manukora honey. You've heard me talk about them before. This is a New Zealandbased Manuka honey that comes straight from the Manuka forest in New Zealand. You can scan a QR code literally on their on their each bottle on each one and you can see like when it was harvested, when it where it was sourced, the batch, everything is super super transparent and it has a high MGO content which is the microbial or antimicrobial effect, but also we're talking some of the most polyphenol rich antioxidant rich carbohydrates you could ever eat. And because you have a combination of fructose and glucose, you actually have just a very moderate insulin spike. So, it's one of the best sources of carbohydrates that you could have when you're doing a lower carb diet, especially if you just don't want a bunch because all you need is like a tablespoon or less of the stuff. So, I put a link down below that gets you 31% off their starter kit, which gives you an 850 MGO tub of honey along with travel stick packs, a wooden spoon, and a guide on how to use it. So, use that link down below if you want to check them out. Now, the protein thing. This is where it gets really important. Most people recommend about 25% protein on a ketogenic diet. The University of Utah health study was looking at quite a bit lower than that. Okay, they were looking at, you know, anywhere from like 10 15% somewhere in there, but probably less.

[00:07:01]25% is still quite on the low end. That is almost still flirting with like what I would consider therapeutic ketogenic state. The types of fats matter as well.

[00:07:11]We'll talk about that in a second. that when you have more and more fats in your diet, you run a higher risk of having oxidative fats come in. Okay? So, if you're doing lots of olive oil, lots of this and that, it's just giving you more margin for error. Essentially, by increasing your protein intake, you decrease that margin of error on the fats, and you also increase your obviously your muscle mass. You increase your ability to recover. you increase your creatine stores and you of course increase your ability to still manage and create insulin which is very important. So I am proposing that most people focus on more like a 40 to 50% protein ketogenic diet. But there's a big concern that people have and that's something called gluconneogenesis. Is protein going to kick you out of a ketogenic state? One of the things that we've talked about on the channel with Dr. Dr. Don Di Agusto and some of these other experts is that it's less about that being a problem and more about being able to maintain the metabolic flexibility. Instead of getting concerned about protein kicking you out of keto, you should really be more concerned about the satiety and the long-term sustainability of being able to keep ketones high over the long period of time. But will protein kick you out of ketosis? Generally not, unless it's very high. But this is a demanddriven process, not a supply driven process. Which means the more protein you add doesn't linearly mean you're going to have more glucose created from that. It actually is only going to happen if your body needs it.

[00:08:36]If you're so low in fuel that your body has no choice but to convert that. If you're so calorie deprived, most of the time your body actually creates glucose in a ketogenic state from your fat. It sounds crazy, but it really does. It pulls fat and it rips off what's called a glycerol molecule, free fatty acids from the triglyceride. And that glycerol gets converted into glucose to help maintain a stable yet low blood sugar.

[00:09:01]That's important, but it doesn't get driven up when you have protein. So, what you'd want to do on a ketogenic diet is you want to frontload your protein earlier in the day. Okay? You actually want to have the lion share of your protein with that first meal. And that comes from what is called the protein leverage hypothesis. Ketogenic diets are working on a couple different axis when it comes down to satiety. One is the actual presence of ketones suppressing the appetite. The other is a high level of protein and fat suppressing the appetite. But protein suppresses the appetite in a different way. It satisfies this protein leverage hypothesis. So it helps the brain see that you got enough protein for the day.

[00:09:37]The protein leverage hypothesis states that you're going to continue to eat calories and eat calories and eat calories until your protein needs are met. So the sooner that you meet your protein needs, the sooner your brain will turn off the hunger mechanism. You couple that with the ketones throughout the day and you are in an appetite suppression high ketone state which can make you feel amazing without the pancreatic issues of not producing insulin and losing that ability. Now, as the day goes on, you can actually increase the fat content and decrease the protein a little bit and actually increase the fiber as the day goes on.

[00:10:12]This way, you're not feeling bloated throughout the day and you're getting all the benefits that you want. Now, the carbohydrates, if they do come into the mix, you'd want to have them, once again, just surrounding a workout or if you want them at a different time of day, have them in isolation away from the fats. Combining fats and carbs in a low carb state is not the best thing.

[00:10:30]You're spiking insulin along with high dietary fat, that is a recipe for potential storage in that particular metabolic state. So, if you do have carbs to kind of create that targeted ketogenic approach, you want to have them away from fat. So just maybe have them with a little bit of protein, a little bit of whey protein, and then have your fats later. Now, I mentioned that you could change up your fats if you wanted to. Most people don't have this issue if they're eating 40 or 50% protein on a ketogenic diet because you're left with like less amount of margin for error with the fats, but I always say have an equal ratio of maybe monounsaturated things like olive oil, avocado oil, good healthy polyunsaturated coming from fish, coming from fish oil, coming from good healthy nuts that don't cause an issue for you.

[00:11:12]And then of course saturated fats. Most of your saturated fat I would recommend coming from dairy fat. You get the different kinds of dairy fat in the CLA that are going to be very beneficial. So some heavy cream, some half and half, some good hard-aged cheeses. And then the rest of the fat is just coming from your meat, right? You're not making a concerted effort to just go load on extra saturated fat if you don't need it. It's not going to give you any added benefit. It may not be detrimental on a low carb diet, but you're certainly not getting the same added benefit from extra saturated fat as you would from, say, extra monounsaturated fat. That clearly has an additive benefit. So, when we look at the University of Utah Health Study and longevity, we do not need to be overly concerned. The ketogenic diet is not dangerous, but it does highlight how we should change things. As always, I'll see you