KETO RESULTS AND TIPS

It would be interesting to see what others in the forum think is the average %b.f for most serious people training in the gym.

In “my gym”.
The olympic- and weightlifters, depending on which weightclass they belong to is between 8 to at least 25 %.
The track end field depends on the disipline, but most of the trowers in around 12-15 %.
Martial art, most below 14 % in offseason and down to 8 % in season.
The bodybuilders who are serious isn´t above 15 % in the offseason.
My personal goal is to stay under my current 13 % at all times.
That the serious people then we have the “normal” people who by my estimate is well above 15 % in average.

This reply is to help Mr. Screwtape. Dietary fat and body fat are very different things. Your body needs fats to function. The fat stored in your body is just excess intake, which is what the keto diet is trying to pry out. Your body needs protein, carbs., and fats to function correctly. Protein builds muscle and bones, carbohydrates provide energy. When you deprive your body of carbs it switches gears and searches for a readily available energy source, which is naturally your fat stores. The only thing to watch out for on a keto diet is your when your body starts taking protein and turnng it into energy. It is a fine line between being in a ketonic state and a catabolic one. And btw, I used a keto diet a couple of years ago to go from 348 lbs with a 54 inch waste to 220 lbs and a 38 inch waste in 11 months. My only regret is that I wasn’t as educated about it back then and lost quite a bit of muscle mass along with the fat.

Hey Roadblock, thanks for clarifying. Upon more in depth searching, I’ve discovered a wealth of information re: Keto diets, but there’s one thing I’d like to ask, and I think you’d be the ideal person to answer considering your fantastic results (notwithstanding the muscle loss).

Westrainer seems to have kept himself in ketosis for an extended period of time and capitalized on that for maximum fat loss. Now, what would someone who is only supplementing with a thermogenic + multivitamin (that is to say, NO STEROIDS of any kind)need to do to minimize muscle loss? Are the weekly carbups that necessary to save muscle? Or perhaps the targeted keto diet would be the best bet (about 50g pre and post workout carbs)? I have no more money to spend on nutrition (got a thermo, multi-v, fibersol and some flax oil) but I want to make this keto diet work. However I feel like the weekend carbups may be a bit much and unecessary…any advice appreciated.

To Pete Screwtape;using ephedrine will definetely help you keep your muscles from disappearng,more than not taking it,theres a lot of research studies to prove this and also alot of first hand experience.As far as dosages goes its like this;for a first time user you dont need alot.What always happens is a first timer takes around 20mg ephedrine at once and start getting all thes side efects,instead with my clients i only want them to take around 4mg at a time,only increasing the dosage when you can easily handle a smaller dosage.Ive seen some amazing trancformations with this supplement,use it but respect it.

Another ‘similar’ option is a ‘Fat Fast’ (see this site archives) & Opus Hybrid. Work on 12cal. per lb/LBM with a 70% fat 30% protein ratio. Train 3 x a week @60%RM & cardio @60-70% target heart rate. Use MCT (for oil), a thermogenic and Methoxy 7 to preserve lean weight. Not recommended longer than 3 weeks, though cycling 4 wks mass, 2 weeks cut avoids having to lose with a large ‘fat’ accumulation over a longer period. Time is of essence, maximise gaining, minimise cutting.

Two mistakes people make on this diet is cutting calories and not consuming enough fat.Dan Duchaine once said that fat is the anti-catabolic nutrient a natural trainer can use.Cutting calories,bad,very very bad.If one looks for older articles,dr.dipasquale has had people eat in excess of 5000 calories a day and still end up at a lower % of bdwt and a higher level of skeletal muscle.Im in agreement with this.

wstrainer, the best and most complete information on leptin is the google group misc.fitness.weights.
About the fat:protein ratio, Duchaine as did Lyle initially felt that it was the most important factor to success, but Lyle with his 5 years of documented experience working with clients (and himself) feels that it is not important at all. Rather it should be a fill in number once calories, carbs, and 1 gram/lb of protein are met.

Greetings, I’ve been on the Bodyopus diet for about 6 1/2 wks. now. I’ve gone from 5-10" 185lbs. to 171lbs. I’me not quite sure what my bodyfat is or was because the calipers I’ve got (for free from netrition) only measure at the waist and they close down to zero when I try to measure the fat at this site( the joys of being 19). After my weekend carb-ups I definitely see a diff. in both muscle size and strength. My waist is down about 1" and my arms only lost about 1/4" from what they were when I weighed my heaviest ever at 188lbs. which I’m pretty happy w/. My only problem is that I haven’t yet decided on the best training because after the weekend carb-up my muscles are filled w/ glycogen so I should be able to do more moderate rep ranges lifting, correct? I did edt training this wk. on sun. and mon. for my legs, chest, and back, but by mon. night went to cluster training for arms(refer to Modern Trends in Strength training by Poliquin) and moderate to low reps for shldrs. on Tues. am. My next wrkout is the grand depletion on Fri. and then carbs every two hrs. fri. lunch through sun. morning. Any thoughts or suggestions from anyone?

One more thing, I’ve only got about a wk. and a half left on a hypocaloric diet, after that I want to go to maintenance calories or slightly more in order to start putting muscle at a slow pace for a month, then maybe bump cal. levels up higher. Has anyone had success w/ putting on lbm while using bodyopus or maybe the poliquin diet suggestion ( 3 days low carbs, mod protein/ high fat, and then a 4th day carb up). To use these diets as a mass builder do you increase A)fat calories during the week B)Protein and fat calories during the week or C)carbs on the carb-up? Thanks again

Wstrainer, I have to tell you that everything you’ve experienced with keto diets is pretty much exactly the same as what I’ve notice. Originally I started with bodyopus about six years ago when it first came out. After a few weeks of success it stopped working for me. I then read everything I could by Lyle Mcdonald including his book and modified some things. Like you my best and fastest results occured when I switched to two week cycles with only carbing up every second Sunday and only for about half the day. I’ve done this diet 4 times with good success. I’ve noticed that ephedra and creatine definately helped me preserve lbm while on a keto diet. The first two times I did not use creatine, the third and fourth time I did and it made a huge differance. The first two times I could not get a pump while training. With creatine I was able to get a bit of a pump and I thought I my muscles looked fuller while creating the appearance of being leaner. Like you I did’nt lose much strength, even when I stayed on the diet for over three months. I did lose some size in my legs however. I also found heavy workouts with reduced volume worked best. I know that both Duchaine and Mcdonald theorized that higher rep workouts with a little more volume would burn fat better, but this simply was not my experience. I think it just burns up lbm more. Lastly I did do moderate cardio 2 to 3 times a week in the form of 20 min. runs. Perhaps this is why my legs shrunk more than my upper body. BTW, did you play football at UofT by chance. I’m a U of Guelph grad and played football there from 88-92. Just curious. Thanks for the good post and ideas. I will probably be jumping on the “keto hell trip” soon for summer, I’ll post my results. I will probably use a little supplemental help this time. The last four were clean and I want to try it enhanced, so to speak.

how do u guys concentrate on a keto diet-i tried the tdawg diet last yr and faild miserably-i was always hungry and had headaches(only lasted 3 days)-i think the problem was that i didnt have enough healthy fats in my diet and this summer when i give it another shot id make sure to have 3 tsp of flax oil and 6 grams of epa/dha

“Roadblock”=did you use a cyclic ket diet or a continual keto diet?Great results by the way.“aboulder”=please see my previus post about my pholosophy on training,but as far as the depletion workout,I think its too stressful for the average guy,we re not competing so why bother.Also see previus post about calorie consumption.Raise your fat intake and I bet you ll lose more fat,feel better,have more energy,and lose less muscle.“Magnus”=As far as the diet stop working,I experienced this last week.After a 3 day carb up,I started the diet,and i usually hit ketosis in less than 30 hours,but even five days later and 50 keto stix,I wasnt hitting ketosis.One day i only consumed flax oil(35 tbsp)and i still could get it.I thought my stix were screwd and bought new ones,same,no keto.So last Friday i decide to throw in the towel and start an isocaloric diet until the middle of April at which point i will do another keto cycle.I guess after losing 50 lbs and attaining a low bodyfat %,my body became resistant to letting me access further fat stores.

Even though leptin is a correlated to the fat cells, this is a more chronic measure, acute changes are correlated to energy intake, specifically carb intake (it also has a +ve correlation to insulin)

I think wstrainer hit it with his advice on the ephidrene, he seems to be pretty knowledgeable(sp?). Also keep up your fat intake, that will help alot with not losing so much muscle. And to wstrainer, I was on a continuous keto diet for almost 10 months straight! Breath and B.O. was funking me up pretty good. But I really regret what I lost in the way of lean muscle mass. I also have what my doctor described as “about 2 feet of loose skin” on my stomach. EWWWWWWW. But I think I’ll have to ante up the dough for some cosmetic surgery to fix it. Any advice to avoid the surgery? I take 1200 IU of vitamin E per day over and above my multi.

To wstrainer and other Keto dieters, do you use ALA during carb-up and 2 days following? I have had much success getting to ketosis faster with 600mg a day.
xracergs try the other CKD style diets, the tdawg is a repackaged version of the original that lost alot of the bite, pardon the pun. The CKD is good for weight loss for two reasons: 1) It is a hypocaloric diet, calorie in - calorie out = deficit = fat loss 2) ketosis. Tdawg overlooks the second in a major way.

A.L.A is definetely the king for getting into ketosis,but on another note we need to discus what not to take on a keto diet.Glutamine,b vitamins,whey protein,arginine.these supplements are counter productive to reaching and maintaining ketosis.

WSTRAINER,
why do you feel that the supplements you listed prevent ketosis? I am pretty sure I was in full ketosis on a 2 week fat fast and I only consumed whey protein (Isopure vanilla) and flax plus some psyllium husks.

I might be biased against whey protein as i think it makes me fat,probably due to the high content of glucogenic amino acids and the rise in insulin.I first came to this conclusion about 4 years ago when a few people i was training werent getting the results they should have even though they were cutting carbs and eating a maitainance diet.The culprit at the time was designer protein.I switched my recommendation to a casein based protein,the end results were more favourable.As far as which supplements prevent you from entering ketosis,or which one takes you out,this is a personal matter,but people pay me a lot of money too get them in shape so i dont usually like too experiment with my clients.