Good morning everyone. As the title suggests I decided to give keto a try as an experiment. Depending how everything goes will depend on how long I stay in the keto lifestyle. A few things about myself. I’m currently on week 2, day 4 of keto so I really haven’t seen any major results yet, not that I was expecting magic, but from everything I read this should be the week that I hit ketosis so we’ll see what happens (I’m down 1 lbs from the start date)i’m a weight lifter so my protein is going to be a little higher than normal (which is part of my little experiment, keto affect on weight training), I’m not drastically overweight but I would like to lose maybe 10 lbs, my LDL is a but high but that could also be heredity, as a weight lifter my diet is fairly clean to begin with the standard high protein, moderate carbs and low fat so having to reversing that took a few days to get the hang of but I think I got it down. As of today I’ve been averaging 20-25 carbs a day, 140-150 fat and 150-160 protein. Looking forward to expertise on this site , ideas, and constructive criticism. Thanks
Keto experiment
Ten pounds are not going to come off quickly. The really fast fat loss happens to people who have hundreds to lose, and even they find the final ten coming off slowly.
A slight correction on terminology, if you’ll forgive me: “ketosis” is the state of elevated serum ketone bodies, usually defined as 0.5 mmol/dL of β-hydroxybutyrate. We enter into this state pretty quickly; as soon as there is no excess of circulating glucose, the liver starts making ketone bodies (acetoacetate, acetone, and β-hydroxybutyrate).
There is also a period of adaptation that needs to take place, which you will hear called either “keto-adaptation” or “fat-adaptation,” and this takes, in most people, six to eight weeks. During the adaptation phase, athletes may notice a decline in performance, but non-athletes generally are not particularly affected. In any case, once the skeletal muscles regain their ability to metabolise fatty acids, performance returns to pre-keto levels, and sometimes even better than that.
The key is to keep carbohydrate intake as low as possible. This in turn lowers the body’s general insulin level, allowing the switch from sugar-burning to fatty-acid metabolism. Insulin is the body’s chief fat-storage hormone, and unless it is low enough fatty acids are trapped in adipose tissue and cannot be metabolised.
Protein doesn’t need to be high on a ketogenic diet, but if you are trying to build muscle, you will of course want more than you would otherwise. Also, fat, which doesn’t stimulate an insulin response (except for the bare minimum essential for life), is the ideal replacement for the energy lost from cutting carbohydrate. Since it has over twice the calories per gram as carbohydrate, it takes far less to yield the same amount of calories, so don’t fear fat. Also, we find that the best fats are saturated and mono-unsaturated,* so avoid the industrial seed oils (soybean, cottonseed, sunflower, canola, and the like) in favour of butter/ghee, lard, tallow, and bacon grease.
*Post corrected.
Thanks for the reply. My main source of fats is ghee/butter, olive oil, avocado oil, avocado, eggs and of course full fat meats. As for protein intake, yes I’m a weight lifter and would, as a minimum, maintain muscle but wouldn’t mind adding more. So actually my protein intake has been a bit lower than it would normally be but I’m going to try and keep it around the 160g per day mark. Again thanks for the reply and looking forward to see what else I can learn here
Many of us don’t limit protein at all, I certainly don’t as my main goal is muscle gains now. The thing I seem to be struggling with is eating enough as I don’t like to eat after 3pm so I prioritise protein over fat and it seems to be working well. Yesterday I hit 140g protein, 55g fat, 9 carbs (total not net).
Our recommendation, following that of several prominent researchers, is protein in the range of 1.0-1.5 g per kg of lean body mass per day. But others recommend more (and sometimes less) than that. You’ll need to figure out what the best intake for your body is.
There used to be a hypothesis to the effect that any extra protein would be turned into glucose in the body, but now we know that the picture is considerably more nuanced than that. Currently, the hypothesis is that there is no such thing as too much protein. But the body has no way to store amino acids beyond a certain minimal amount, which is one of the reasons we need protein daily. I suspect that our picture of what the body does with protein is still subject to further refinement. There is such a thing as ammonia toxicity if we really overeat protein, but I suspect that is going to be a problem mostly for people taking large amounts of protein supplements, since overfeeding studies have shown that it is difficult to eat too much meat, fish, etc. So as long as one is eating whole, real foods there should be no problem.
I wish you well on your experiment!! I hope you get the results you want.
There are a good amount of successful keto weight lifters out there, so there’s a possibility it may work out for you.
I will say, it may take some tinkering with ratios to find that energy needed to kill it on lift days. This was one of my biggest struggles tbh. At first I’d be standing in the squat rack on fumes, with like 3 ppl waiting to get in, and I’m over here pouting and I’m only about to start set 2 and in no rush to speed up my sets, because I was so damn exhausted. You may as well have asked me to squat an elephant at that point. I still struggle with it, I’m always having to alter this or alter that because my body likes to be a pain in the ass with food energy. I say this not as a discouragement, but as a heads up in case you encounter the same issue. I’d rather you think that you just may need to fine-tune rather than think the whole way of eating is bunk, because for me, nothing has helped my fat loss as well as Keto. The benefits far outweigh the negatives, in my experience.
There’s a lot of things that irk me about my body, things I wish I had a receipt for and could exchange for something else, but the one thing I’m happy for is, for a woman, I put on lean muscle verrrry easily. Guess it’s genetics, but it’s the one thing I have going for me lol.
Anyway, I rambled on just to say good luck, and don’t be afraid to experiment, but do give time for results to have a window to be seen. I can be an over-experimenter and I don’t give things the time needed to bare fruit before I’m changing something up again lol.
@PaulL Could you elaborate a bit on the above… As written, it suggests you’d prefer unsaturated over saturated fats?
My understanding is that saturated fats are those that tend to solidify at room temperature, like bacon grease, chicken/beef fat, cheese, butter, cream, coconut oil … Are you suggesting it’d be better to consume unsaturated fat than these?
I’d say the best fats (in order from best to worst) are saturated, MUFA, then PUFA. Note that I’m ignoring omega-3s for now. I even limit MUFA-heavy oils, like olive oil. Not because they are “bad”, but because it’s really easy to get them and overdose on them. It’s hard to get a lot saturated fat, as you really have to eat dairy. Even “high saturated fat” meats are < 50% saturated fat and are, instead, mainly MUFA.
You can eat cacao butter, but that stuff is not great tasting. Chocolate is better, but even I have a hard time with that. Coconut is good, but it has short-chain saturated fats instead of long-chain.
This squares pretty much with I’d gathered along the way through my keto-inspired reading. Wondering if @PaulL is referencing different findings, or perhaps just a typo?
Probably a typo, because unsaturated = MUFA or PUFA, but Paul is telling people to avoid PUFAs. I think it should say “Also, we find that the best fats are saturated and mono-unsaturated…”
Thanks! Years of bodybuilding has given me good insight (I think) on consistency. I learned how to eat consistently and even train while cutting so I don’t think staying on track will be overly difficult. Granted I’m human and may want to stray from time to time but I think I’ll be able to fight it (for the most part) . So far my training hasn’t suffered much, maybe a slight loss in strength but that happens anytime you cut, so it was something I was expecting. Thanks again for the welcome and support!
Yaaaaaas, I think that’s what I respect most about bodybuilding is the skill of consistency and dedicaion; two things I wish I had more of. Total props to you! 
Might take a bit more of time adjusting mate, no matter what your exercise regimen is.
I mean that in a good way!
It’s not metabollicks…it’s worked for many on here; those who power lift, those who gym, those who walk and/or cycle, those who can’t be arsed, and those in between…seems to work.
My advice? Just quit as much carbs as possible.
Check your fats.
Eat as much protein as you want- you did say you were a body builder, so you’ll need protein.
Can I also add, you are the most gentlemanly and pleasant bodybuilder ever!
I had a lot of old associates on certainrhoids wouldn’t have been so pleasant.
Well done on choosong this journey mate!
Best wishes.
Haaaa! Thanks man! I’ve been around my fair share of meatheads and never saw the purpose to act that way. Didn’t make me better…also my late father would pummel me if I acted any other way, lol….thanks for the compliment and advice
Whoops! You caught an error I missed. Thanks, Joey. I have gone back and fixed the earlier post.
The problem with polyunsaturated fatty acids on a ketogenic diet is twofold: First, they tend to cause nausea when eaten in the quantities necessary to provide energy to replace the energy from the carbs we are no longer eating. Second, in large quantities, PUFA’s tend to cause systemic inflammation.
In particular, we recommend avoiding the industrial seed oils I mentioned previously, because they contain a very high percentage of ω-6 fatty acids, which crowd out the much smaller quantity of ω-3’s they contain, since both types of fat use the same cell receptors. Yes, ω-6’s are essential, but we only need a small quantity of them. And ω-3’s are also essential, but there is no way to consume them in large enough quantity to balance the absurdly large intake of ω-6. So to get them in balance, it’s necessary to cut way, way back on sources of ω-6.
Butter is almost half mono-unsaturated, and slightly less saturated fat, as I recall, the rest (a very small percentage) being PUFA’s. You can look up the fatty-acid profiles of most fats at Food Data Central. You want to cook with fats that are mostly saturated and mono-unsaturated. If you insist on having oils in your life, check out the fruit oils: avocado, coconut, olive, and palm. They are minimally processed, unlike the industrial seed oils, which require as much processing as petroleum distillates, in order to make them fit for human consumption.
Coop, when you pass away, hopefully a very long time from now, may I autopsy that brain of yours? I want to see what the heck is going on inside. 