Can You Lose Muscle on Keto if You Have Little Fat?

(*Tame Those Ghrelin Gremlins) #1

Quick question if anyone can explain to me the science behind this? If you are say only 5-10% body fat and on Keto will your body start attacking your muscle? How can you build muscle?

#2

If you don’t get enough protein, or enough energy from other sources, probably.

There’s a calculation Richard did a while ago concerning the amount of energy you can get from an amount of fat or fat cells a day, and with less fat, you not only have less to draw from, but a lower rate at which you can draw it, it seems (if he’s accurate with his assessment, but I’m not sure where that is buried now).

Otherwise, your body needs certain essential amino acids to replenish and rebuild itself every day, and if you don’t get that from what you eat, it may come from elsewhere (like muscles or organs).

If you eat enough though, you should be able to build muscle fine.

(*Tame Those Ghrelin Gremlins) #3

So basically if I am correct, just eating a good amount of protein and fats until I’m full and my weight can be maintained along with building up muscle?

(Carl Keller) #4

I think it’s a matter of eating an equal amount or a surplus of calories and macros, in relation to what your body needs for fuel. The body has no reason to give up muscle mass if it’s getting plenty of fuel.

Some endurance athletes use LCHF to increase performance. It wouldn’t work if they were losing muscle mass.

In a simple way, the 3 easy steps to build muscle are:

  • Eating enough protein – For mass building between 1.0 – 1.2g / pound of LEAN body mass.
  • Eating a calorie surplus – You can’t build muscle without eating more calories than you need, and these come from fats in a ketogenic diet.
  • Training correctly – You need to promote hypertrophy in your muscles.
#5

As far as I’m aware, just figure out a range of what you need and do your muscle training and things should work out more or less normally, though as I understand during the adaptation period actual strength may be lower (less pounds one can bench, for instance) though that’s temporary (and some report being able to lift more at a lower weight than they used to, which I somewhat suspect is simply due to less water based on the numbers they mention. That’s anecdotal though).

Keto gains deals with this kind of thing more specifically, but other people out there do as well: Ketogains

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #6

Pretty much. With everyone so obese these days, we are accustomed to thinking of keto as a weight-loss diet, but it’s not. What it really is, is a weight-normalization diet. People have been known to add muscle and increase bone density, even while losing fat.

The key is to keep carbohydrate low enough to minimize the interference of insulin, then eat fat and protein to satiety (i.e., neither too much nor too little; let the body decide).