I’ve got a question for you guys. I have been on cyclic ketogenic diets before several times to get ripped. The diets work excellent for a period of 4- 6 weeks, but always end up stalling out. I then have to go on an MRP style diet to get the remaining fat off. Has anyone else ran into this problem? What could be behind this? I remember Dan Duchaine claiming that Ketogenic diets worked better because they targeted lower body fat and the beta-1 receptors, but it seems to me to be just the opposite. The Lower bodyfat numbers are the ones which stall first. Has anyone ever seriously gotten ripped on a 5 on 2 off cyclic ketogenic diet like bodyopus? What are your thoughts on this phenom?
I’m not surprised that your fat loss plateaus after 4-6 weeks. You will always experience some degree of metabolic slowdown after 4-6 weeks on any diet, and if you’re using thermogenics sometimes even faster. On a CKD your ATP levels are lower due to the lack of carbohydrates and you’ll probably plateau faster on this type of diet than any other one, as good as it works. The solution: take a week off of dieting for every 4-6 weeks and up your calories to maintenance or slightly above. This will reset your metabolism to an extent, and your fat gain will be minimal if any.
Your metabolism slows down on every calorie-reduced diet making it more difficult to lose fat as time goes on. I just finished dieting 8 weeks with pretty good results and took a week off. Unfortunately I ate about 6,000-7,000 calories/day in the off-week mostly in the form of chocolate and fast food. Needless to say I gained a little fat, but I think it helped to boost my metabolism significantly and will prepare my body to take my fat levels even lower. Dan Duchaine did say that Bodyopus was designed to make the ordinary extraordinary and is geared toward achieving the ultra-shredded look. Personally I haven’t gone below 7% on the CKD, but I haven’t yet attempted to do so. I will probably give it a go before the summer though. In the past to break plateaus I included some aerobics which helped for a few weeks as well. Good luck