Keto made easy

Chapter 6: Fat on Keto: A Lever, Not a Goal

Summary: Fat is the part of a keto diet you turn up or down to control hunger, and the right amount changes by phase: more in the first month, less while you lose weight, and more again in maintenance.

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The short answer

Keto works by cutting carbohydrates, not by adding fat. Set your carbs as a limit and your protein as a target. Then eat enough fat to stay full, and no more.

That means fat is the amount you adjust. Early on, you push it up so you are not hungry while your body adjusts. Once hunger settles, you let it fall so your body burns its own stored fat. In maintenance, you raise it again because you no longer want to lose weight.

KetoDick on this: His one-line version, from the video, is "the goal is not high fat, it's low carb" (video cTGYIFOTPl8). He says fat is what you eat if you are still hungry, not a quota to hit.

Why keto gets called "high fat"

A ketogenic diet is low in carbs. Protein has its own target. Whatever calories are left over have to come from somewhere, and on keto that is fat. So fat ends up as a large share of the plate, even if the total amount does not change much.

KetoDick explains it the same way. He says protein has a ceiling, so "high fat" is the only way the math works once carbs are cut (video 9Hk0jRb_9Es; video cTGYIFOTPl8). The ceiling he names, about 220 g of protein a day, is his own figure. The protein evidence behind this guide does not set a hard maximum; see Chapter 5: Protein for the ranges that are published.

A high percentage is not the same as a lot of grams. KetoDick reports that about a month in, he was eating around 70% of his calories as fat but far fewer calories overall (video cTGYIFOTPl8). In another video he works out that he was eating only about 10 g more fat a day than before keto, with roughly 1,000 fewer calories because his appetite dropped (video uXzscHudgt0).

Fat by phase

The most useful way to think about fat is by phase. KetoDick lays out three (video NUJNFG6lLWw).

Phase Roughly when What fat is for Fat intake
Introductory First 2–4 weeks for thinner people, 4–8 for heavier people (his ranges) Keeping you fed while your body learns to burn fat Fairly unlimited; eat to fullness
Weight loss After adaptation, once hunger has settled Filling real hunger only Lower; body fat supplies the rest
Maintenance After you reach your goal weight Replacing the body fat you no longer burn Higher again; he says about 70–75% of calories

Introductory phase

In the first weeks, your glycogen (stored carbohydrate) is gone, but your body is not yet good at running on fat. KetoDick says telling month-one people to cut fat or calories is "kind of cruel", from the video, because they will just feel tired (video NUJNFG6lLWw). See Fat Adaptation and Your First Month on Keto.

Weight-loss phase

Once hunger calms down, you can eat less without forcing it. KetoDick's rule is that the calories you stop eating should come from fat, not protein (video 8Jk5ShSUpFY). If you are past week five, not hungry, and the scale has stalled, he suggests trying about 20–30 g less fat a day, which is 180–270 calories (video NUJNFG6lLWw).

Maintenance phase

When you stop wanting a deficit, you need more food overall, and fat is the easiest place to add it. This is the one phase where, in his words, people may need to "push the fats" (video NUJNFG6lLWw). See Moving From Weight Loss to Maintenance.

The full breakdown, with steps for setting your own number, is in How Much Fat Should You Eat on Keto?.

Fat does not cause ketosis

Eating more fat does not put you into ketosis faster or get you back in after a high-carb meal. Cutting carbs does that. KetoDick says this directly: adding dietary fat to get into ketosis "doesn't make any sense", from the video (video NUJNFG6lLWw).

This matters because some people add oil, butter or cream to "boost" ketones. That adds calories without changing the thing that drives ketosis. For how ketosis is defined and measured, see Chapter 4: Carbs and How Many Carbs on Keto?.

Where too much fat comes from

Most extra fat on keto does not come from a steak. It comes from fat that is easy to add and easy to forget:

KetoDick calls empty-calorie fat his biggest concern with how people do keto (video cTGYIFOTPl8). He works out that a 400–500 calorie bulletproof coffee is about 40% of the day on a 1,300 calorie plan (video cTGYIFOTPl8). He prefers fat that comes with other nutrients, such as salmon, avocado or a fatty cut of beef (video DLRlphyc1t8).

Read more in Eating Too Much Fat on Keto and Bulletproof Coffee.

What the research says about cutting fat

Two short metabolic-ward studies, where every bite is measured, are useful here.

Both were short studies in controlled settings, not real-life keto. What they show is that calories from fat still count. Keto's practical edge is that eating less tends to feel easier, which is covered in Hunger and Appetite on Keto and Energy Balance on Keto.

Protein helps here too. When protein went from 15% to 30% of calories with carbs held steady, people ate 441 fewer calories a day on their own and lost 4.9 kg over 12 weeks (Weigle et al., 2005). That is why the guide says to cut fat before protein.

KetoDick's view and these studies point the same way on the main point: dietary fat is energy your body uses first. He goes further than the studies on insulin and hunger; see Insulin and Fat Storage for where his view and the trials differ.

Which fats to use

For ketosis, the type of fat does not matter. Carbs are what matter. KetoDick says canola and vegetable oils are "not ideal but acceptable", from the video, and that keto does not require MCT oil or grass-fed butter (video DWI8qQl5BbY; video ffwBPoKxlDI).

Health is a separate question from ketosis. The National Lipid Association says low-carb diets lower triglycerides and raise HDL cholesterol, with a variable effect on LDL cholesterol (Kirkpatrick et al., 2019). A review of 13 trials found higher LDL cholesterol on very-low-carb ketogenic diets than on low-fat diets (Bueno et al., 2013). See Cooking Fats and Oils on Keto and Keto and Cholesterol.

When to involve your doctor

The drill-down pages

Previous: Chapter 5: Protein on Keto · Next: Chapter 7: Electrolytes, Hydration, Vitamins and Keto Flu

Last verified: 2026-10-31