Keto, SKD and TKD with Powerlifting

Your numbers are decent, but you still didn’t answer the other part of my question:

Check out Alan Aragon’s work as well as Brad Schoenfeld’s.

A Lot of Training

That is a lot of training.

My recommendation is…

Auto-Regulation

In plain English, listen to your body. Don’t push it hard on days when you lack energy or where your strength is off.

Warm Up Sets provide you with feed back. If they feel heavy, back off the day.

If thing feel light, push it. I learned this from…

Chip McCain

McCain was on of the greatest Powerlifters of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

McCain pulled a 799 lb Deadlift for a World Record at 198 lbs.

In an interview I did with McCain I examined his training program looking for a mathematical answer. Back then I thought everything revolved around Training Percentages, math.

McCain trained his Deadlift heavy every other week. On his off week, it was :Light Deadlift Training. However, his Light Deadlift Training numbers/percentages were all over the place, not making sense.

McCain’s response to that was, “I make my Light Days, light”. The purpose of McCain’s Light Deadlift Day was for recovery, increasing blood flow to the muscle and tissue.

McCain’s barometer was in how it felt. When it began to feel heavy, he stopped.

McCain method is what is now referred to as “Auto-Regulation”. A book that falls inline with this is…

Blink

Research from this book found that a “Gut Reaction” is often correct.

Our brains are computer where vast amount of information is stored. Our brains often compute all that information in milliseconds.

While the facts may appear to be correct, our “Gut Reaction” tell us something is right or wrong.

The “Gut Reaction” feeling is a form of “Auto-Regulation”.

Summary

  1. Lyle McDonald is one of the best in this area; providing great information.

  2. Part of learning come from personal experience. So, give a try.

  3. The more thing you try, the more data you have in your computer (brain) that allows you to quickly assess if something will work or not.

  4. Einstein, Edison, all the greats only made progress by trial and error.

  5. “Auto-Regulate”, learn to listen to your body.

Kenny Croxdale

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[quote=“chris_ottawa, post:60, topic:230655”]
Do you have any data to suggest that gains in strength and hypertrophy are not negatively affected by keto? “Science and Principles of Strength Training” by Mike Israetel, James Hoffmann, and Chad Wesley Smith mentions that a diet with insufficient carbs will have a negative effect on recovery, both because glycogen levels will be low and low blood sugar affects CNS function. That’s why I say “Most likely”, because there is evidence to support my position and none that I am aware of to support yours.[/quote]

Chris,

The research on the Keto Diet working has already been provide for you on this site.

I provide you with research data on the different Energy Systems that determined the sports in which Keto Diet worked and was conta-indicated.

You have emphatically stated that you have a limited knowledge (research and no practical experience), you don’t have any intention or desire to learn about Keto.

In your own eyes, you are omniscient.

Any continued discussion on this topic (any topic) with you by myself or anyone else is moot.

Kenny Croxdale

I remember Schoenfeld posting something on Facebook recently about a study funded by some pro-keto people that concluded there was no benefit of keto over a diet that includes carbs. The keto crowd was outraged and said that the study was biased, despite being funded by other keto proponents. I’m starting to wonder if low carb intake reduces cognitive abilities as well.

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“High Fat Diets”, askmen.com

"… a ketogenic diet, one that is very low in carbohydrates and therefore higher in fat, is useful for treating some children with epilepsy. “That’s the only clinical condition that a keto diet makes sense for,” nutrition expert Alan Aragon told me. Aragon said there is no good evidence to show that ketogenic diets are superior to other diets for weight loss. What’s more, “A ketogenic diet is nothing you prescribe universally. Some people can do well because they prefer a fatty diet, but that would represent the minority of the population.”

I’m even dumber on a low carb/keto diet no matter if it’s CKD or TKD…if you ask my wife, she’ll probably say I’m dumberer.

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I can personally say that having to experiment with keto I saw no strength loss. But I wasn’t using it to lose weight exactly.

  1. Almost all protein came from Beef. Ground Beef, Steak, Beef Liver, and Eggs was about all I used.

  2. Fat was SKY HIGH. There is a huge difference between Keto and low carb. Any one including my self who tried a high protein, low to no carb, moderate fat diet hated life. Couldn’t think, couldn’t focus, strength loss was apparent with in a week, in general was a horrible time. But keeping fat 300g or more I had absolutely zero issue with focus, strength, fatigue, or cravings of any kind. I could stick to this diet even when my favorite foods we’re placed in front of me for some reason. Where when on a higher carb low fat approach I craved shit food daily. Fat from butter, heavy cream, bacon, eggs, nuts, oils, and even some cheese here and there.

  3. Kept creatine, sodium, potassium, and water levels very high. Took in upwards of 8g of sodium a day. I feel the losing the pump issue was more of a water and sodium issue than a carb issue.

I won’t say it’s more advantageous than any other way. But it has it’s pros and cons. Also @Alpha one of the strongest men on these boards 700 plus squat and deadlift and 500 bench at 220-230lbs is a huge advocate of little to no carb and EXTREMELY high fat.

I also know that the same results can be done with carbs. Nor am I advocating one over the other.

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I can see how keto with extremely high fat levels might not affect your strength if you aren’t in a caloric deficit, but I still don’t understand why you would want to use a keto diet if you are not trying to lose weight. What was your reason?

Also, your strength didn’t go down but was recovery or progress impacted at all? There is reason to believe that carbs help recovery, but I know you train with a pretty low frequency so because of that it might make less of a difference.

My guess is that it affected you less because your training volume wasn’t high enough to significantly deplete glycogen. Amit said he tried keto when he was doing bodybuilding, so obviously training volume would be way higher than anything we are doing.

Extremely dangerous blood sugar levels. No idea why all of a sudden it happened but eating 700g of carbs a day (all from oats, rice, sweet potatoes and hbcd) was driving my blood glucose to over 500. Fasting was around 160. I could not stay awake or focused after any of my meals, would begin shaking, and after a cheat meal I started to have blurry vision. So, went to the ER immediately and
found I was basically a diabetic. Not surprised considering it runs extremely strong on both sides of my parents and grandparents. I didn’t want to stick my self with insulin multiple times a day just so I could eat carbs so I just stopped eating carbs. I talked with Alpha and Danny Vega both two very strong and jacked lifters who have swore by keto for quite a while now. I set it up with advice and other research I had found and thats it.

As for the recovery and what not I saw no difference at all. The training frequency has been 4-5 days a week with high intensity not that high of volume. Most sessions take about 60 mins to finish once I start my first work set.

I also found food prep, consistency, and ease of execution much easier. Oh and I much prefer the foods Ribeye with bacon and sautteed vegetables is much easier to look forward to that chicken breast and rice lol.

But once again am in no way saying keto is better. I’m saying most people saying it sucks have not tried it done properly with massive amount of fat. Which is fine. No reason they should if they don’t want to.

What you’re saying makes sense, that is the only reason I could imagine to use keto when not cutting other than simply a preference for high fat foods and a dislike of carbs. My understanding is that glycogen is stored glucose and the body converts carbs to glucose at a much faster rate than fat, so if your training is very high volume then your glycogen levels will gradually be depleted if you don’t eat enough carbs.

Did you ever cut while on keto?

No sir. I have not currently tried cutting with keto.

Nor will I lol

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Simply reducing carbs and adding fat does not greatly reduce daily insulin output, since dietary fat tends to raise insulin needs as well as the muscles will load with fatty acids and make it a little harder for insulin to push carbs into muscle cells, BUT at the level of KETO, the body is largely running on an energy source that does not stimulate or require any insulin at all, YET insulin sensitivity is not very high because muscle cells are still loaded with fatty acids.

Think of it like this, at say a 70/30 carb to fat calorie ratio (maintenance calories) your body may secrete 50 units of insulin a day, and about 1 “unit” for every 10 grams of total carbs ingested (one measure of insulin sensitivity). At a 30/70 carb to fat ratio, your body may still be secreting 40 units of insulin even though you may have cut your carbs more than in half. This is because insulin has to push glucose into muscles that are loaded with fatty acids and are also are deficient in enzymes to burn glucose. This happens after a few days to weeks on a higher fat diet.

However, as you cut carbs even more, say to 90/10 ratio, the muscles are already full of fatty acids, but the carb intake has been reduced considerably and the liver stops releasing glucose because it is making ketones instead. Now your insulin levels may have dropped to 15 units a day, but you are not more insulin sensitive per gram of carbs, and you get virtually not insulin spikes during the day to turn on anabolism. It is great for reducing blood sugar, but ketosis is fundamentally a way for the body to survive and not break down ALL of your muscle when insulin levels are very low. There are virtually no anabolic signals going on in muscles when insulin is that low. You can get neurologically stronger, but the body is not made to be anabolic, and also to turn to ketones to save you from starvation at the same time.

The problem is that you can’t go keto, and also have peri-workout carbs. It also does not raise insulin sensitivity, it just reduces insulin needs because ketones are a low insulin energy source.

In fact, going from ketosis to a high carb meal/diet will often result in very high blood sugar for 3-10 days because the body lacks enzymes to burn glucose, and muscles are loaded with fatty acids. Ketones will clear within a day, but it takes several days for the body to start burning glucose again.

Ketosis absolutely does not raise insulin sensitivity. It lowers it, but if you lose a ton of weight you can end up more insulin sensitive after a time. Again, muscles turn to primarily fatty acid metabolism when carbs get down under about 40%, and fat goes above 40%, but the liver will still make glucose from protein and release it over the day. In ketosis, the liver is told (by low insulin) to stop trying to make glucose, and to burn fat instead, but the liver can not burn fat completely like muscle can, so ketones are a byproduct which the brain and some other tissues can adapt to use (and do well on) after several days. Ketosis not only reduces metabolic rate, but shuts down most protein synthesis.

I may look for the article, but there is evidence that a non-ketogenic 20-30% carb diet produces better blood sugar than keto, and it definitely does better than “near missing” on keto. (30% carbs tends to produce better blood sugar than 15% if you don’t get into keto). “Near” keto tends to jack up fasting blood sugar into the 110-120 range. The advantage of a 20-30% carb diet over 700 grams is not that you need a lot less insulin, but that the glycemic index and blood sugar spiking speed of your meals is lower at 20-30% carbs, so it gives your pancreas more time to work on glucose. Your pancreas beta cells can get burned out from overwork, but they are also destroyed by high blood sugar, so anything that lowers blood sugar spikes above 140 will help prevent the direct cell death, but it may not decrease your beta cell workload. Keto can definitely give your pancreas a rest, but if I had type 2 diabetes with some pancreatic function left, I would try to stay around 25% carbs (100-150 grams a day), and maybe run keto for a couple of weeks from time to time to give the pancreas a break, but reintroduce carbs SLOWLY. If you eat more than maintenance level calories you will eventually progress toward loss of beta cells.

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I think you might be right. In the same article from askmen that I quoted earlier it also says
"As I mentioned earlier, a ketogenic diet, one that is very low in carbohydrates and therefore higher in fat, is useful for treating some children with epilepsy. “That’s the only clinical condition that a keto diet makes sense for,” nutrition expert Alan Aragon told me. Aragon said there is no good evidence to show that ketogenic diets are superior to other diets for weight loss. What’s more, “A ketogenic diet is nothing you prescribe universally. Some people can do well because they prefer a fatty diet, but that would represent the minority of the population.”

320 starting body weight 1/1/17. Keto for 2 1/2 months and then switched to TKD for the last two weeks before meet. 4/2/17 Meet day. Body weight 292. Squat 529 previous best was 524. Bench 446 previous best was 424. Deadlift 600 no change from previous best. Neal Ortiz, USPA

That doesn’t sound so bad. My assumption is still that you would have made more progress if you had used a diet with equal calories but more carbs, but there’s no way to tell at this point. Anyway, gains are gains.