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

[Karim_Wassef]

Between last night and this morning, I gained 1.1lbs of “scale lean mass” and 1.5lbs of “scale fat mass”.

I had one meal and one food flow through event.

My meal (~1400 cals) consisted of 250g of pea protein powder, a handful of almonds and some celery sticks.

And something in that caused me to gain over a pound of scale lean mass

I’m just kidding, of course. Just thought the datapoint was aptly timed for the discussion.

Going to the pool for a few hours similarly causes massive scale lean mass loss so I expect to lose it all in the next few hours. Stay tuned!

[Karim_Wassef]

Hmmm. I might need to wait until this cycle is over to avoid adding more variables (see? I really do try to be a good lab rat)

I usually change one thing and keep the rest unchanged to see what effect that variable has.

My lifting is reasonably consistent, so is my sleep. Stress and travel are confounders but I need income to fuel this hobby

Seriously though, my responsibilities keep me busy so I do the best I can and try not to break or break things.

[Karim_Wassef]

Day 6 - Saturday June 22nd 2019

Starting ketones lower than yesterday’s and I suspect my zero carb protein powder isn’t zero when you consume 250g of it.

If 28g servings allows then to say zero carb then that’s probably 0.49g of carbs (zero)… but at 250g, that’s 4.5g carbs probably.

[Karim_Wassef]

today I’m going fish carnivore (96%)…

[Karim_Wassef]

here’s a view of my experimental results so far

so carnivore had the least lean mass loss per week (but still caused lean loss)
and the extended fast had the highest fat loss per week (but with a substantial lean loss)

my current assessment is that lean carnivore, OMAD, and changing my lifting to be immediately before dinner would be optimal.

[Karim_Wassef]

modified the macro plan

and the new coefficients

[Karim_Wassef]

As expected… playing in the pool dropped my total weight by another ~3lbs… amazing

2.8lbs lost with 1.2lbs lean and 2.6lbs fat and it only took 2 hours of splashing and sun… lol

Here’s what one day’s variability looks like:

Morning (10:30am)

After pool (3:30pm)

[idunno]

GOAL:
I’m at 5’10", 180lbs, 22% body fat now and the plan is to get to the lower teens by gaining 10lbs lean mass and losing 15lbs of fat. Timeline is sometime this year.

Well that is a lofty goal for sure. I don’t know how easily you add muscle, but the amount of muscle in the given time frame might only work if you do a whole lot more then just lean keto, yes an talking about taking performance enhancing drugs like the bodybuilders and some fitness competitors uses. But that goes against the root idea of keto, to have a better lifestyle.

I will try to follow this thread, as I am intrigued by the lofty goal and to see at the end of the year how much you gained.

[Karim_Wassef]

I used to be 255 so I lost a lot of lean mass getting to where I am as it is. I’m just trying to recover some of it and that should go a lot easier.

To get to my target bf%, I can increase mass and/or lose fat. Many paths to Rome, but I am lifting heavy nearly every day.

Welcome and enjoy the thread.

[Karim_Wassef]

[x-Dena-x]

Love athlean x. Ive been a subscriber for a while

[Karim_Wassef]

Here’s the data over the last few months - since I started tracking experiments vs. just tracking my keto progression:

and here’s the longer historical view going back to Oct 2018

You can always see when I’m fasting because my ketones spike and hold

[Karim_Wassef]

I couldn’t adhere to the protein only today. I gave in and had 20g of almonds and three tablespoons of pumpkin seeds… I am going to factor in some nuts going forward. Better plan for it than succumb to temptation and go over on protein too. LOL

tomorrow I’ll try harder.

[Ilana_Rose]

The extended fast was 4 weeks long
The cyclic fast was 3 weeks long
Carnivore was 7 weeks long

While you were eating mostly animal products during the 7 weeks of carnivore you made several fairly extreme changes to your diet and never had longer than three weeks to adapt physiologically to any of them.

You started with targetting 140 grams of protein and fat to satiety, which ranged from about 225 grams to well over 300 grams. There was no calorie restriction.

Then after about a week you started seriously reining in the fats by about 100 grams a day to about 150 grams. This cut your calories way back.

Then three weeks later you made an even more extreme change where you further cut fat to 110 grams and increased protein by 100 grams to 240 grams and introduced consuming a fair bit of whey isolate to meet these targets.

I worry that if you are actually losing muscle tissue (although I’m not convinced this is happening) it may be the result of this constant stress you are applying to your body with these rapid shake ups in dietary composition.

DEXA gives me some confidence and I make those measurements every 3-4 weeks which should be enough to capture real change.

DEXA doesn’t capture muscle tissue changes, it captures changes in lean mass. The only time I think you might be able to get anything meaningful about muscle changes from DEXA scans is if diet and exercise have been very stable and fat mass hasn’t been changing. And even then you’d probably need an average of several measures to take the noise out.

But none of it would be any better than just tracking changes in your strength.

Anyhow, just my two cents. But you ask for feedback so I’m giving you all my thoughts. I do very much enjoy your experiments and your journey and journalling of it.

[Karim_Wassef]

I do ask for it and I appreciate that!

I tracked the caloric input changes and three weeks isn’t bad for adherence. I will say that I was mostly high fat until the end.

Overall carnivore was pretty good to me.

I agree that I can always go back and break it down into smaller sub experiments to tease out more patterns but I also think the overall effects do show meaningful results.

No experiment is perfect…, and the lab rat can be uncooperative- sneaking almonds one day and sleeping 4 hrs another. But I try and I share.

If there’s one massive confounder that really bothers me… it’s stress. I have gone through a very traumatic period and the stress associated with that event is so much more than metabolic stress could ever be that I fear it corrupted some of the potential goodness in my carnivore experiment. And still, that one is coming out on top.

There are some patterns that I do think indicate muscle loss. While my DEXA torso readings may be a combination, large muscle areas like glutes, legs, & arms are dominated by skeletal muscles so those are probably representative of muscle change.

They also track with my behavior. When I fasted and didn’t squat, I lost glutes and legs. When I ate carnivore and squatted more than I benched, i gained then back.

No data is perfect & I try to stay consistent… but life…

I think there’s enough here to tease out meaningful patterns for me and I share what I see. You may find it inconclusive but that’s ok, that’s why I share so much. You might tease out something different or agree with one pattern not another.

Please don’t stop - this is what I think the future of group learning is about. Open disclosure and honest discussion, even and especially when we see different things. Thank you

[Karim_Wassef]

Day 7 - June 23, 2019

[Karim_Wassef]

Day 8 - Monday June 24th 2019

I realize that I share my daily updates but I haven’t really described what I consider to be good progress. I would like to maintain my weight around 180 but progress my lean mass up over 140

Alternatively if I can keep lean mass at 140 and drop overall mass to 170, that’s acceptable progress too.

Most of the time, I end up losing both lean and fat. My focus is on the lean mass… you’ll see it’s dipped as low as 136 and I’m trying to keep it at 140.

So today was a good weigh in. I’m at 139 but overall weight is 176.6… that’s progress

[Karim_Wassef]

Unfortunately it’s a very stressful day as you can see by my fasting blood glucose reading … but I think it’ll get better as the day progresses.

I also indulged in more protein than usual last night. I hit a high of ~ 260g… seared ahi tuna steak are so awesome … and a little mountain of shrimp in lettuce wraps. and salmon… followed by almonds, pumpkin seeds … it was a good day on the island!

[Ilana_Rose]

I’m sorry you’ve been under so much stress. You’re right, it’s likely affecting your results to some extent. I wonder if physiological stress might compound it though.

Maybe after the current experiment it might be a good idea to try a decent stint with a protocol that is specifically not going to be challenging for your body for six to eight weeks and see how that goes.

And thanks. I’m glad that you are happy to have feedback. I hold back a bit sometimes on this forum because I’m terrible at qualifying my thoughts with gentleness and can come off as cold and critical. I’m really not.

[Karim_Wassef]

I enjoy the company of critical thinkers and see feedback as necessary to stay intellectually honest with myself.

The worst thing for those of us pushing away from the accepted norm is to create alternative echo chambers where we always agree with ourselves. That’s what got the establishment in trouble in the first place… so I’m wary of the same.

I like critical thinkers so much that I married one - talk about honesty and too much of a good thing!!

And my girls have traits that I think are going to challenge me on every level… yikes!

Honestly - I’m thankful that you and others care enough to follow along and actually pay attention to enough details to help me see things I may otherwise miss (or intentionally choose to ignore)