So, I am having great success with keto. Does anyone know if cycling carbs will intensify the keto effect? I mean, say having a full blown carb cheat day, a day or two every 2 or three weeks? Will I continue to lose fat, if I do this?
Im a weightlifter.
Since you’ve gone to great trouble to get your muscles to re-learn how to metabolise fatty acids, it doesn’t seem to make sense to force them back to using glucose instead, however temporarily. Putting glucose into your system will halt ketone production for as long as there is glucose that needs shunting out of the bloodstream. Your muscles will metabolise some of it, and the rest will be stored as fat in your adipose tissue.
I have never understood the rationale behind carb cycling—it sounds like bro science to me. But there are people on these forums who recommend it, so perhaps you’ll hear from one of them, and you can make up your own mind about it.
Think you kindly for this response. I have heard something about keto stagnating fat metabolism after a period, some chemical lectin, or something, resulting from carb ingestion periodically. And the allure is also that when keto bodybuilders ingest carbs, our muscle get pumped up, so we look like the hulk, and it produces this enormous strength. They also did some study: two groups keto bodybuilders , and carb using bodybuilders , and after several weeks, the carbers appeared to have significantly larger muscles than the keto group. However, the keto group was allowed to immediately ingest
Carbs, and voila, the keto muscles became even larger than the carbers, instantly. Indicating, that we keto bodybuilders, may look less full in the muscle, but its just visual, we have perhaps greater muscle cell structure than the other group. Just sayin.
I do take about 40 grams of carbs every other day when pumping iron, seems to give me an edge, as I burn it over a 3 hour full body workout, and next day I do half hour walk, no carbs.
But, the supposed keto stagnation thing had me concerned, and the allure of spiking the keto with some carbs, periodically is tempting.
Targeted carbs for training has always been a part of Keto. Lyle McDonald’s’s book “The Ketogenic Diet” detailed.it nearly 20 years ago. I suggest you go to the Keto subforum over on Bodybuilding.com for more information. Here you’re likely to get mere opinions from people who have not lived the lifestyle and are either ignorant of the concept or unscientifically reject the premise.
“Stagnating” is probably the wrong word. “Making more efficient” might be a better term.
Yeah, I suppose that if all one is after is appearance, then pumping up the muscles with glycogen could be considered helpful. As long, of course, as one can avoid covering up one’s muscles by eating too much carbohydrate and storing the excess as fat. Whether carb intake can be so precisely calibrated seems a bit iffy to me.
If metabolic health is the primary concern, however, then the calculations all change, of course. A person wishing to avoid diabetes would be much more careful about carb intake, because the long-term effects of diabetes can include blindness and circulatory problems requiring amputation. So a bodybuilder for whom diabetes was an issue would probably not want to engage in carb cycling, regardless of the short-term benefits to appearance.
“Stagnating” is an apt term. What they"re referring to is a metabolic slowdown or “Starvation Response”. The Bodybuilding/Fitness people have been well aware of this for 20 years, but with the current Keto popularity and all the Noobs out there it is a hard concept for many to accept.
Bodybuilders and similar people have long followed Bulk and Cut cycles, meaning few are significantly deranged. Keto was originally designed for competitors to cut before competition as an alternative to the old complex carb based concept of the 1980s. (Which really sucked, I followed it myself) Consequentially those without excessive fat levels and lack of derangement adapt very quickly, being a matter of weeks rather than months. This is why you really don’t find Keto Bodybuilders with Type 2 diabetes, just a few Type 1s out there.
This was all debated extensively nearly 20 years ago within the field, I myself took part in it, and the major factor I (and others) came away with is the role of Glycogen, the levels determining if you are Lipogenic or Lipolytic, requiring overcompensation to gain fat, and depletion to burn it. Glycogen acts on the balance of the Fulcrum, with the ability to tip you in either direction.
I carb cycled this past weekend while helping my daughter move. I ate well but drank lots of craft beer, she is dating a brewmaster.
Back to carb cycling, it worked! I gained 5 lbs.
You said you were a weightlifter and then referred to body builders. Those guys (bbs) go to absurdly low body fat percentages in order to show the definition of their various muscles. They don’t really eat keto in the LCHF sense as they ingest vast amounts of protein by comparison to any standard keto model.
You also didn’t use the word “power lifter” which is sort of how weight lifters that are out to see just how heavy a buick they can clean and jerk/etc. My observation is that power lifters as a group don’t care much whether or not they have some excess avoirdupois…at least by what I see.
If you are a weight lifter to help build muscles and generally improve your conditioning I can’t see the carb cycling thing being a good idea. that said, 40 grams one day shouldn’t even be noticeable if you are lifting significantly. This rule of thumb of 20-25 grams doesn’t apply to super active people… you can be in ketosis with 50+ grams if you are running 10 miles a day much less if you spend a couple hours really lifting…YMMV
Anyone who trains regularly can be susceptible to metabolic effects. Even those who do not are as well, but it can take far, far longer for the effects to occur. Again, it is Glycogen that is key. You can go all the way up to total recompensation with no concern about either fat regain or any detrimental readaptions occurring. I myself could carry around 14 pounds of it, swinging up and back down in a matter of days. I don’t do intentional recompensation now I’m not training, but I do eat a few.carb based meals per week.
Like the first 5 lbs of “water weight” that you lost quickly… this too shall pass if you get back on the keto horse!
The OP speaks of the possibility of a “full blown carb cheat day” which is probably along the lines of Tim Feriss (aiming for 200-300g carbs via lots of processed or ultraprocessed junk foods, etc). I have a problem with that for two reasons, one - junk food is junk food, and two if people do it, own it as a conscious choice, don’t cast it as “cheating” as if one can escape ethical reality. The emotions and psychology of gaming the physiology also apply to other areas of our lives, etc.
I do however think for weightlifters and other metabolically healthy folks who are past the initial 3-6 early weeks of keto and largely fat-adapted - that there is a great benefit, a huge advantage, in slowly incorporating more real foods carbs for the purposes of metabolic agility - and for bodybuilding & cutting, that goes to a whole other level of protocol.
By the way, the Drs. Eades, in the classic LCHF/keto book Protein Power, encouraged their thousands of clients and their readers to, once well inducted, aim for the “Keto Cusp” of around 100 or more net carbs/day. The Keto Cusp process is fascinating in its capacity and agility. However the ubiquitously postmodern “Deep Ketosis” permanent longterm goal of much of the non-IR and non-epileptic/medical keto online community is often socially constructed peer conformity rather than scientifically informed. For non-IR folks (which can include reversed pre-diabetes) whose physiologies are fully adapted to run on fat, metabolic agility is preferable to metabolic reduction! And the range of metabolic agility varies depending on one’s health profile and training activity ofc.
But back to Feriss & bro science/frat boy science - I find the attitude behind “cheat days” and junk food bingeing very adolescent macho male in its risktaking and self-harming drama cycle. Feriss-influenced bros binge on mass- produced, processed white wheat flour, potatoes, corn, rice, beans and nasty oils and sugary snacks and sodas//beer - knowing full well they will feel horrible the next day from the carb poisoning/sugar hangover which happens for even a healthy low carb metabolism once you go really high in the processed carbs. The hangover day however is an essential part of feeling like one belongs in the boys club, (or the self-harming club).
Whereas within a moderate protein LCHF context, one would be hard-pressed to take in more than 150g net carbs in real foods/roots (except if one’s eating lots of roasted nuts or grains), which is why the resorting to ultraprocessed junk like white flour pizza dough and pasta and high sugar desserts is part of the Feriss/bros approach. Of course - Feriss has probably outgrown the ultra high carb “cheat” days by now (?) - as hangover sick days get really old, and make us prematurely age after awhile, whereas wellness days 7 days a week are AWESOME. Mark Sisson’s paleo-athletic angle in his book Primal Endurance is a much more mature approach to carbs as far as I can tell. And if you haven’t yet read Body By Science by LCHF physician Doug McGuff MD (and master trainer in the super slow weightlifting school), it’s a great resource for a bunch of stuff. As is cornerstone keto Drs. Phinney & Volek’s book for athletes The Art & Science Of Low Carbohydrate Performance!
So, the Keto Cusp is worth learning about and going for as a weightlifter, just get informed about smart approaches and don’t get snookered by frat boy ideologies… 
Slowburnmary, interesting response.
I’ve kind of been here already. I wasn’t doing keto, but I was working out a rediculous amount of time, 6 or 7 days a week, for 5 years… Both weightlifting, and hiking / climbing with a medium heavy backpack.
My diet was kind of a modified Paleo diet. In that I ate very little processed foods, and zero potatoes, pasta, rice, or grain products. I did eat huge mountains of vegetables and fruits to get a moderate amount of carbs though, plus ate a measured bowl of oatmeal twice a day (with breakfast and dinner… But along with this, I also ate “pounds” of meat, and a dozen jumbo eggs whites, every day too.
In the end, I’d have to guess my average 4700 calls a day were about 45% proteins, 45% carbs, and 10% fats.
I had never been so muscled, or strong, with such endurance, in my life.
But their were a couple of downsides. One, I was never able to go quite as low of body fat as I wanted (interesting, considering I’ve probably never ate as low fat as I was)… My goal was always 9%, while my leanest was about 11%. And two, I was always ravenously hungry, even when I’d be bulking, and eating 5500+ cals a day. I’d eat until my stomach was sticking out from under my ribs… Until I had no more space for food, and still be hungry. 
Kind of miserable actually.
Sure wish I’d have heard of Keto back then, before I blew my back out…
I did keep my food keto during my beer break but no stress over it. I lost two pounds last night so all is good. I admit I did get a little depressed when I looked at the scale that Monday morning.
“Full blown carb cheat day” is a bad idea, but upping the carbs sometimes is fine. When it comes to lifting obviously carbs help that, I fought that for the last couple years being keto as I’ve lost muscle and anything I gain, I loose within a couple months. Cranking up my protein helped for sure and lately I’ve upped the carbs as well. More or less doing a TKD/Carb backloading type of a deal but trying to go for better carbs and not a case of Twinkies.
