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The ketogenic diet explained for beginners

semper03

New member
A great read for those of you interested in the keto diet program but don't know where or how to start and implement into your daily routine. I enjoyed it, hope you do too!

What would you consider to be the perfect bodybuilding diet? If such a thing existed it would meet the following criteria:

Allow you to build muscle without accumulating fat when bulking. You'd stay lean all year round.
Allow you to lose fat without losing muscle when cutting.
Induce an increase in serum anabolic hormones naturally (without supplements).
What would it mean to you and your bodybuilding goals if this diet was not something that only existed in fairytales, but was available to you right now!

You may have heard of this strategy before, but dismissed it. I advise you to keep an open mind and test it for yourself, many others including Hugo Rivera have tried it with amazing results.

Origins And Method
This diet did not originate with me of course. However, because of the massive impact it had on my results, I feel compelled to share it with as many people as possible. I would like to credit the following people for their wisdom before I go any further:

Dr. Mauro Di Pasquale
Anthony Colpo
Gary Taubes
Dr. Michael Eades
Dr. Robert Atkins
Dr. Jeff Volek
So what is this diet? It's a Cyclical Ketogenic Diet, or CKD for short. CKD basically means that you cycle periods of low carb, high protein, and high fat with periods of high carb, high protein, and low fat.

The majority of time you will be consuming a low carb diet, with a period set aside each week for carbing-up. This isn't for the fun of it; there are real scientific reasons for this, reasons with exciting implications for the bodybuilder.

Increasing Anabolic Hormones
A diet that maximizes serum levels of growth promoting hormones is a dream come true. Specifically we're talking about:

Testosterone
Growth Hormone
IGF-1 (Insulin-like growth factor 1)
I'm sure that all sounds good to you. So how do you actually implement a Cyclical Ketogenic Diet?

For most of the time you will be consuming a high fat, high protein, low carb diet. This is interspersed with smaller periods of high carb, high protein, low fat nutrition. There are variations on the CKD but the standard (and my favorite) way is to implement it in the following way:

5-6 days of low carb.
1-2 days of high carb.
This gives a manageable and sociable weekly cycle where you carb up over the weekend and return to your low-carb diet during the week.

Please note: Depending on how intense you train, some people may find that their gym performance deteriorates towards the end of the low-carb phase. In this case, it is highly recommended that you implement a mid-week carb-spike to replenish your muscle glycogen stores by having another high-carb, high-protein, low-fat day on a Tuesday or Wednesday.

The Low-Carb Advantage
When you keep your carbs sufficiently low, you body switches to a fat metabolism; this is called the 'Metabolic Switch'. Switching from a carbohydrate to a fat metabolism has some real advantages for the bodybuilder:

Increased Lipolysis (breakdown of fat)
Decreased Lipogenesis (accumulation of body fat)
This metabolic switch usually takes around 3 days to take full effect. Synthesizing the correct enzymes in sufficient quantities to become a fat-burner takes a little time. This is why some new comers to low carb diets can feel foggy at the beginning.

Please do not confuse this short period for the whole diet; your energy will be back up in no time, and for some people, better than ever!

The Role Of Insulin
Some of you may have noted that I left out an important anabolic hormone in the above list - Insulin.

So when does our body produce insulin? Insulin is secreted by our pancreas primarily in response to the carbohydrates in our diet. Since we are keeping carbs low, our insulin levels will also be low. Does this mean we miss out? Not at all.

This is where the carb-up period comes in. Once a week you should load up on carbs and let your insulin levels spike. Insulin will shuttle amino acids into the muscle tissue, but we also refill our depleted muscle glycogen stores during this time.

Our muscles are like tanks for glycogen. They fill up and empty again when we workout. Unfortunately when we eat too many carbs these tanks become satiated. Some glycogen is then stored in the liver and any excess is converted to triglyceride and stored as fat. This is where traditional high-carb diets can let us down. So why fill them at all?

Muscle glycogen means better performance in the gym. We load up on it and fill our tanks. By the end of our low-carb period we have once again emptied the tanks and we repeat the cycle over again.

Growth Hormone & Insulin
These 2 hormones have a strange relationship. It seems that when one is in abundance, the other is nowhere to be found. We therefore do not want chronically elevated insulin levels as:

Our growth hormone production will be blunted
We may overspill our glycogen tanks and start to lay down fat (lipogenesis)
Fat & Testosterone
Testosterone and dietary fat have a positive correlation; i.e. diets higher in fat and dietary cholesterol lead to higher concentrations of circulating testosterone.1 We all know how important this hormone is to maximizing our lean muscle gains. You could be throwing away potential gains by consuming a low-fat diet, that goes for the ladies too.2

How Many Carbs Is Low-Carb?
In order to become a 'fat-burner', you should consume around 60 grams or less of net carbohydrate per day (total carbs minus fiber). However, in order to determine just how many carbs you personally should be consuming, a little trial and error is necessary.

The general rule is this:

Eat the smallest amount of carbs it takes to allow maximum output in the gym.

This will vary from person to person. Please bear in mind that fat will become your main source of energy and large quantities of carbs are unnecessary.

If you are unsure, try beginning at 30 grams and adjust as necessary.

What About Post-Workout Carbs?
Remember, our goal is to keep insulin low and growth hormone elevated for most of the week. Post-workout carbohydrates will therefore work against you here.

Apart from blunting growth hormone levels, carbohydrates may do nothing to increase protein synthesis in the post-workout period beyond that which protein can do by itself 3. Take the following study for example:

The following study took place in the Netherlands, the subjects being healthy young men. The study split the men into 3 groups, each ingesting different combinations of protein & carbohydrates. Therefore the only variable was the level of carbohydrate.

Each group performed resistance training for 60 minutes and was given either protein or a combination of protein and carbohydrate each hour for 6 hours after training. The amount of protein for all the groups was 0.3g per kg of bodyweight. The protein and carbs varied as follows:

Group 1 - Just protein, no carbs
Group 2 - Protein with 0.15 g per kg of body weight of carbohydrate
Group 3 - Protein with 0.6 g per kg of body weight of carbohydrate

Protein synthesis rates were then measured for 6 hours after training. The results?

The intake of protein after training increases protein synthesis.
The addition of carbohydrate (whether in small or large amounts) to this protein did not further increase protein synthesis at all.
This is good news for those interested in or currently living a cyclical ketogenic lifestyle.

What To Eat
Any anabolic lifestyle is only as good as it is practical to actually live.

Perhaps you think a low-carb diet is too restrictive. Maybe you've even tried something like this before and failed because you felt that there wasn't a wide enough variety of food. This is understandable.

In order to experience the awesome benefits of this diet and also make it enjoyable, I am continually searching for recipes and concocting a few of my own. To show you just how tasty and easy it is to live this lifestyle here's a typical 1-day eating plan:

BREAKFAST:
Bacon
Whole Eggs Scrambled

MID MORNING:
Low-carb wrap filled with: Tuna, Mayo, Cheese
(Low-carb tortillas can be bought in some stores and online)

LUNCH:
Caesar Salad
(With full fat sauce, no croutons)

MAIN MEAL:
Taco Salad
Post-Workout Shake
Low or no carbs.

LATE SNACK:
Protein Bar

Low Carb Concerns
When the light of science shines on the concerns some people have about low carb diets, they vanish without a trace.

Sluggish Gym performance
Once your body gets fully fat-adapted (3-14 days) this isn't a problem. Also, you fill you glycogen stores once or twice per week.

Saturated Fat and Cholesterol
Is a high fat/low carb diet increasing your risk of cardiovascular disease? Not on your life! This belief is based on an unproven hypothesis from the 1950's. The surprising truth is that low carb/high-fat diets consistently outperform all others in improving lipid profiles. Typically, HDL (good) cholesterol rises, LDL (bad) cholesterol drops and triglycerides plummit, producing a much reduced risk of heart disease. 4 5

Brain Fog
This does not happen to everyone though some experience it only in the initial 'metabolic switch' period. A fat metabolism requires different enzymes to function than a carbohydrate one. Synthesizing the correct enzymes in sufficient quantities to become a fat-burner takes a little time, stick it out.

Conclusion
So there's no reason to not give this a go. Prepare for some initial water weight loss at the beginning, you'll put it back on every carb-up phase.

This could be the step you've been waiting for. Take your game to the next level!

Mark McManus
 
Hi Semper.

As a nutritionist I find this area of dieting increasingly facinating. I'm considering giving the Keto a run myself, but I'll intend to keep the fats down a bit lower than the bacon and full-fat mayo suggestions.
If anyone has done this type of diet before with success or not, I'd be very interested to hear about it. How long do guys generally run a Keto diet for? Is it just for a short cutting phase of a few weeks, or do some lifters go with it for much longer?

Cheers for the post brother.

Craig
 
Hey what's up man. Keto can be ran for a few months orbit can turn into a lifetime diet. The concept of it is to convert your body from carbs to fats. The first two week are hell since you cut all carbs out but as you go on you slowly ass them back in. By week 4 you can have a lot of different foods. The menus for keto are pretty big. Download the Atkins app and check out the recipes they have on there. In my other thread I am keeping my own log of keto. I stopped working out for a few months and got fat and lazy. I include pics and explained how I felt from week to week. You drop fat really fast! They key though is to SLOWLY introduce carbs back in. If you don't your body will rebound and you will gain a lot of weight back in one night. I've been in my keto for going on 5 weeks and I love it know. It's hard not to go crazy but it's worth it. I'm planning on staying on for life. Maintaining around 20-30% dv carb intake.
 
I tell u what , that shits tuff ! Especially cause im used to eating carbs...lol beans,rice and tortillas !
I am truly a fat guy at heart..
Dropping all the carbs and trying to stay within 100grams has made me short tempered and grouchy as all get out ! But i am 6 days into it .
Dropped 6 pounds quick but im guessin thats mostly water weight.
Ive also noticed in the gym my muscles dont feel as pumped.
When do u plan a cheat meal or do u ? Cause damn i could sure go for some homemade flour tortillas with butter to go along with some fat guy chorizo and eggs.. Oh and some mexican sweet bread !

Sent from my SGH-T679 using EliteFitness
 
I tell u what , that shits tuff ! Especially cause im used to eating carbs...lol beans,rice and tortillas !
I am truly a fat guy at heart..
Dropping all the carbs and trying to stay within 100grams has made me short tempered and grouchy as all get out ! But i am 6 days into it .
Dropped 6 pounds quick but im guessin thats mostly water weight.
Ive also noticed in the gym my muscles dont feel as pumped.
When do u plan a cheat meal or do u ? Cause damn i could sure go for some homemade flour tortillas with butter to go along with some fat guy chorizo and eggs.. Oh and some mexican sweet bread !

Sent from my SGH-T679 using EliteFitness

I hear ya man, I love eating pasta and bread but had to give it all up. Sad fucking day lol my I'm tryin to log my progress in a different thread but I keep forgetting to update it lol my first two weeks was the hardest since you can have 0 carbs except for net that come from fiber. I was peeing a lot, so hungry and grouchy all the time with a very short fuse cause of it. After those two weeks it got really easy. This is my second month on it and its just a part of my life now.

As for cheat meals. I break down every now and then when my body screams for something other than tuna, chicken or fish. Listen to to your body. However you can't have cheats for the first month. I had to start over cause of that. I had lost 7lbs my first week and that weekend I was so hungry I are some pizza and my body reverted using all those carbs and I gained it all back plus a pound. I was pissed. Now when I have a cheat meal I just eat some Chinese noodles or a burger with only half the bottom bun. Just enough carbs that I know I'm cheating and it fills me up but not enough to throw my diet. Everything in moderation.

It's tough man.
 
Well i hope im doing it right cause i am getting in about 100 grams of carbs in a day.
Lol your not eating any !
What about cheese and cottage cheese or avocados ?

Sent from my SGH-T679 using EliteFitness
 
Well i hope im doing it right cause i am getting in about 100 grams of carbs in a day.
Lol your not eating any !
What about cheese and cottage cheese or avocados ?

Sent from my SGH-T679 using EliteFitness

I'm eating 20% of my daily value now but when i started I didn't eat any.

Cheese doesn't have any carbs.

When it comes to veggies like avocado, celery, onions and shit like that net carbs come into play.
If celery has 7G carbs and 4 are from fiber and 2 are from sugar then the total net carbs equal 1G.
 
Alright kool ! Cause i eat alot of onions and jalepenos.

Sent from my SGH-T679 using EliteFitness

Yea I eat a shit ton of tomatoes, mushrooms and avocado. I have a calculator that breaks down the net carbs from actual carbs and portions it for me so it makes it easier when I enter in into my fitness pal.
 
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