High Protein Modified "Keto + Fasting" muscle building with low fat

(Mark Rhodes) #301

That is what I was trying to explain yesterday on my DXA
“Even a DXA is calibrated for bone and fat and Lean is a negative remnant. My big leap in the picture above can easily be explained. The previous scan I was down 3 pounds from 171 to 167.5 Likely water and glycogen and when they registered on the next scan it looks like an increase. Then maybe I didn’t digest last nights steak the way I had before. Even though I try to correct for anomolaties it is difficult to do”

Sometimes I get FAT in my own jargon Todd.

(Mark Rhodes) #302

As to Cahill. Angus Barbieri lost on average 11/16th a pound a day. If he needed 4,000 kcal in the beginning and as he decreased in size so would his BMR then it meets the rough 31 kcal per day as described by Alpert. This would be an extreme case.

Fung also noted earlier in his internet postings that the average was 5/8 a day of fat loss on 5 day to 14 day fasts. Again we see a that an average 2400 kcal requirement divided by a pound of fat kcals (3500)
2400/3500= .685 or again at the high end 11/16th a pound…if you can access it all. Seems you can’t.

In my opinion the 31 kcal is a standard. Of course you might have outliers either way but from the people I have worked with including my n=1…31 kcals is upper limit on a 2400 calorie BMR.

(mole person) #303

Yes. But so what? We’ve yet to demonstrate that there is anything specifically desirable in just increasing lean mass. If they are getting stronger, faster; than yes. If they are getting more actual muscle tissue; than yes. But just keeping around extra “lean” in and of itself should not be a goal when you are losing fat.

I understand using “lean mass” as a proxy for muscle. But when someone is either getting stronger while losing lean (as you are), or not getting stronger while gaining lean then you have to consider very seriously that the lean measure is being swamped out by non muscle tissue changes.

Jason Fung absolutely believes this. He says that overweight people can have 50% more protein in supporting tissue than lean people that need to go as they lose weight. He doesn’t believe that when lean mass drops during fasting that the protein losses are coming from muscle. He says that makes no sense when there is plenty of other protein around to catabolize. Without evidence to the contrary, I’m inclined to agree with him.

What I think might be happening in your case is that the very frequent changes in diet are stressing your system and leading to greater protein catabolism. You’ve also said you’re under a great deal of life stress lately, this is also possibly having an effect.

(Karim Wassef) #304

I see increasing muscle mass, not strength, as the glucose sink. More mass is inefficient metabolically and that’s exactly what I’m looking for.

Fiber strength seems to be inversely proportional to cross sectional area. So bigger muscles are overall stronger, but each fiber is individually weaker.

I’m looking into “muscle quality” to see if I can infer metabolic inefficiency.

(Karim Wassef) #305

I just don’t have any other measure of muscle. So DEXA lean mass is the closest.

I’m going to track muscle circumference… but gaining fat will increase that too…

The ultrasound muscle meters may add value?

It may be that all the lean mass I’m losing is the scaffolding for the adiposite cells and that would be great,

(Karim Wassef) #306

I’ll post some results this weekend

(Kirk Wolak) #307

Karim, without testing, can you PROVE Definitively you are losing more muscle?

I approached my fasting coach with my arm measurements as an example. They are clearly smaller. he asked me, if that proves:

  1. I lost muscle
  2. I lost glycogen (storing less)
  3. I lost water

He had a point. I could NOT prove what I lost. I simply believed that I was losing muscle. Now, having 2 dexa scans done, I can tell you, I did lose muscle and I lost BONE as well. A Tiny amount of bone, and a small amount of muscle with 90% of my loss being fat.

That comment, and the fact that I no longer believe our bodies are STUPID helps me to trust my body. Why on Gods green earth would your body digest/destroy your muscle if you are not starving or fat adapted? (Now, if you are cycling in and out of keto, then YES, this has been proven to happen)…

Aside from only working one body part per week. When do YOU REST?
Also, do you track your sleep? My watch does now, and it’s a gift. I am so much more aware of how sleep impacts my health. And I can quantify how much better my sleep is. I am getting about 4hrs of deep sleep every night. The days I don’t, I feel it (and then I check, and see the lack of deep sleep. Because I don’t check it every week any more).

So, WHAT makes you believe you are losing muscle? How would you go about PROVING it beyond any doubt, to anyone?

(Karim Wassef) #308

I can’t tell if I’m losing muscle glycogen vs muscle tissue.

DEXA is my only measure for now…

I don’t think that losing skeletal muscle is a stupid response by the body. Muscle is metabolically expensive to keep around. There’s a minimum needed mass but whatever we choose not to use, the body biologically identifies as expensive “excess”.

Without hormones that offset this wasting process, we would be constantly shrinking. That’s why I think there’s more to this than metabolic in/out. Just like losing fat, I believe hormones are the key.

I’ll throw in a funny analogy here… a T-Rex’s arms had be devolving over millions of years to become minimal appendages. Why? Because the weight of larger useless arms would have created a larger burden on its legs and skeletal structure and nature loves economy. It seeks to optimize for the least possible mass that can get the job done.

If you don’t use it- nature will make sure you lose it.

(Kirk Wolak) #309

Okay, we mostly agree.

  1. If you are lifting as much as you are saying… Why would your body think you are not using the muscle?
  2. To prevent muscle wasting/catabolism it requires only requires you meet your protein needs, which is as little as 0.8g/kg of lean mass…
  3. If you are ketogenic, and eating enough protein in general, plus lifting weights…

I have a hard time seeing where your muscle wasting is coming from.
And since I BELIEVED something that was fundamentally not true, along those same lines… I am challenging your belief.

And why would you want more muscle than you can support or use?

Back to the intelligence of the body… I don’t think it will remove muscle you need, in the absence of either disease, or effectively starvation.

Now, as I transition to maintenance, I hit a wall. If I add eating windows (same food, eaten over more meals), I start gaining weight (edema increases). Now, my coach confirmed. Insulin is effectively inflammatory. And since I lost over 110lbs in under a year, my body is not healed. My metabolism and Insulin Resistance is not gone. My over-responding to insulin from ANY eating is still there.

What you think of as easily getting fat might be true. That’s how we all got into this (who are overweight, and are easy gainers)… We have to fix our metabolism to stop that from happening. Not just fat adapt, but run the new program long enough the the old program is removed.

Thinking about YOU in these terms… Maybe it’s just your body saying… I’m not there yet. (ie, you can still gain weight far easier than lose weight).

Finally, Dr. Boz has that video about College Atheletes who cycled off keto over the weekend, every weekend. And while they lost the same amount of weight. They lost MUSCLE more than fat.

Combine that with MY unhealthy metabolism. I could do that to myself by eating too many meals. Because I get knocked out of ketosis. Same foods, more meals. Same quantities, just split up differently. WOW…

so, you could have a point. But the mechanism could be different than you think, and still be supported by the science. That’s why I asked if you were carb cycling. But having just learned I could cycle out of ketosis without trying, by eating more times a day… WOW (Making eating 7 times a day absolutely lethal for me)

(Karim Wassef) #310

That’s why I do OMAD.

Every day, my body needs a nice long break from food and switch into a ketogenic low insulin state.

I never carb cycle. I have been keto for ~2 years without a pause. I didn’t have keto strips at the time so there’s no data but the last time I indulged was with my girls when they really wanted me to share pizza with them. The ensuing pain, sizzling headache, exhaustion and bloating was enough to put me off carbs for life.

There are very special occasions where I will take a tiny morsel of bread due to cultural expectations or to avoid hurting elderly family members’ feelings but it never kicks me out of keto. I usually fast or dry fast for a day ahead to make sure it can’t disturb my metabolism.

For Easter, I water fasted three days so I could eat my mother in law’s cooking (in small moderation) and I checked my numbers too!

I go back to hormones because they are the key to metabolism. A woman can weightlift as much as a man and never gain size. She can gain strength, but not size. The same between a teenager and a midlife man … same effort and diet, but different results.

Anabolic resistance is a real force. I can gain lean mass quickly if I eat more calories and lift this way. I did it at the end of 2018… I ate steak and fat at 5000calories a day and skyrocketed from 160 to 195… half of that was lean! That sounds great but then I need to shed the fat… and away goes the muscle again.

When I go catabolic, it’s hard to avoid lean mass loss. Fasting & carnivore OMAD were the least wasting… but still wasting.

As far as protein needs, I see it as very individual and it changes based on hormones. And hormones are driven by diet, timing, sleep, stress, exercise…

I’m still following through with this high protein approach and will track the results.

(Karim Wassef) #311

Ok. So here’s the big news:

After 20 years of a wonderful successful career, I resigned - today is my last day.

I’m going to have a low carb beer with my friends tonight and start a new life July 1st.

The stress over the last 6 weeks was driven by the weight of this decision. And while it was a rational calculated move, my body still reacted powerfully.

There- now you know… life changing events apparently can impact your ability to gain lean mass… :joy:

(George) #312

Oh wow!. I know how tough that can be. Although when I left, the grass wasn’t greener on the other side and I ended up coming back (luckily to significant increase in pay)

Congrats on the big decision though! So what’s next?

(Susan) #313

I hope that you love your new job, and that your body does too, so you get the results you want! Best wishes on both =).

(Neil) #314

Oh wow, big news! Congrats on getting over that stressful period.

I had the (relatively much more minor!) acute stress of a flight getting cancelled yesterday that screwed with my vacation travel plans, and having to scramble to rebook other flights to accommodate that, and that was no fun at all, and it showed up in poor sleep and plummeting biometrics (glucose up, ketones down, weight up).

I can only imagine what six weeks of that would be like!

Out of sheer curiosity, does your new life on July 1 mean a new job at a different company doing the same sort of thing, or doing something different, or retirement, or…?

(Little Miss Scare-All) #315

I sort of had a feeling that may have been coming. Do you have anything lined up?

(Karim Wassef) #316

Thank you all for you love and support.

There is a new chapter being written but I’ll wait a bit to share. :smile:

(Neil) #317

Ha, you’re always such a tease! Looking forward to the big reveal eventually :slight_smile:

(Karim Wassef) #318

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New phone… so pics might look a bit different

Yesterday was a travel day so food was a mess. Still keto but I probably had 250g of protein and 250g of fat and 10g carbs… so 3300 calories?

I lifted much better today but I feel a little “full” compared to my usual.

(Mame) #319

I hope you get a lot of joy in your job change.

Milk that honeymoon period!! Your (low) stress levels will thank you.

(Karim Wassef) #320

There are plenty of honey do’s on the list… my work work is finished. My home work is just starting.