Keto Sucks, Now to Get Back to Where I Was

Greetings everyone!
My Name is Darrin, and I used to be 270 lbs of flab after cancer and quitting smoking. I worked out with P90X for the first 90 days and lost 50 lbs, then X3 a couple times, then moved to Body Beast with Sagi Kalev. I made it down to 175-ish lbs and about 18% BF. I wanted to get rid of the last bit of flab and get toned up and then add clean mass… well I tried Keto and found it really isnt for an Endomorph body type. So I blew back up to 190 plus and 25% BF at least. I have been struggling to get back down to 180-ish so i can focus on stripping to be ready for clean bulking, but Im having MAJOR issues losing ANY weight and still being able to work out.
I was working 12 hr shifts at night,and getting the majority of my carbs after my workouts in the afternoon before work, but now that Im on 8 hr days shift my workouts are at 330 am and Im not sure when to get the bulk of my carbs in.
My stats are: 6ft tall, 195 lbs (( Currently )), 52 yrs old. My maintenance calories are 2800-ish according the Harris Benedict Equation, with a 1.55 activity level. I have been doing 2500 daily calories, with a macro setting of 30c/20f/50p. Im on my 8th week of the program and havent budged on the scale or the measuring tape. Im planning on doing the Carb Cycling routine I found here [Carb Cycling for Fat Loss].
Should I stay with the Body Beast, or go with P90X for this? Any and all suggestions are appreciated!!

Thanks
Doc

Keto isn’t easy for anyone. Your body type has nothing to do with it. Good luck!

I’d be careful about jumping from diet to diet when it’s coupled with yoyoing. Do what was working for you and eat a bit less food but remember, the leaner you get the more precise you need to be.

Usually it’s this precision that trips up people, not what composition of food is going into your mouth.

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“Tried Keto”

That is a vague term with no meaning. Many individuals who “Try Keto”…

  1. Never get into ketosis because they don’t follow and maintain the right macro percentages.

  2. Don’t follow it long enough; they only try it for a few day an quit. Nothing works in a few days.

tickletackletock

…make great points.

  1. It isn’t easy.

  2. Your body type has NOTHING to do with it.

An Additional Issue

You appear to blame other things for your failure rather than accepting the fact that yourself.

In “Trying” anything, you need to consider that you may have not followed the program (correct macro percentages) nor followed the program long enough to obtain results.

As Expected

  1. You are “Insulin Resistant”; you body is ineffective at handling glucose/carbohydrates.

  2. After Trying Keto, you increased your carbohydrates too high. Research show that transitioning back to carbohydrates needs to be performed slowly. When a large around of carbohydrates are immediately reintroduced to your diet dramatically increases body fat and body weight.

The research findings indicate that reintroduction of carbohydrates starts with 100 gram per day. After you body adjust, increase it to 200 gram of carbs per day, etc.

As you should know, part of your weight gain is “Water Weight”, due to “Carb Loading”.

Metabolic Equation Are Flawed

Metabolic equation provide you with flawed information. A more effective method is…

The Three Day Recall Diet

  1. Count all the calories you consume for three days. Then divide by 3 to determine you Average Daily Caloric Intake.

  2. If you are gaining weight; you consuming a surplus.

  3. If you are losing weight; you are in a deficit.

  4. If you are maintaining the same weight; you in a caloric balance.

The 20% Rule

Drs John Ivy and Layne Norton determined that the most effective method of ensuring maintaining muscle mass while maximizing fat loss/weight loss is to reduce your caloric intake 20%.

Ironically, the reverse is true. Maximizing muscle mass/gaining body weight and minimizing fat gain occurs with an 20% increase in calories.

Research shows that rotating calorie intake up and down every two weeks enable you to lose fat/weight and maintain muscle mass.

The foundation of this research is build on…

The General Adaptation Syndrome

That means the body will adjust to any new stimulus. When it does progress STOPS.

Essentially, it is a…

Yo-Yo Diet For Weight Gain or LOSS

Your weight gain occurred because you decrease you calorie intake and carbohydrate intake.

You followed the decrease in calories and carbohydrates with essentially a “Bulk Up Program”; which worked.

You can and will obtain results by NOW decreasing your calorie intake and limiting your carbohydrate (since you are Insulin Resistant).

“The Keto Diet Sucks”

I’ve been on the Keto Diet for 21 months for a health reason. I went through a learning phase. It took me time to adjust to the Keto Diet. So, I have some empathy and understanding.

I now enjoy the diet.

However, I don’t recommend the diet. That because it is so restrictive and hard to follow.

The harder you make something for someone, the less likely are are to stick with it.

One of the easiest diet protocols is…

Intermittent Fasting

No food preparation necessary. Just skip a meal every now and then; which everyone has done at some point.

Kenny Croxdale

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Yo-Yoing

The majority of individual have a one dimensional view on this.

They overlook the fact that “Yo-Yoing” has been followed for decades by Bodybuilders for gaining muscle mass and cutting body fat.

The Take Home Message

Yo-Yoing works when implemented correctly.

When implemented incorrectly it magnifies the problem.

Kenny Croxdale

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One other thing: let’s deal with your training a little bit. P90X is an okay-ish thing (certainly better than nothing, if that’s what got you off the couch in the first place) but it’s not a program that’s likely to keep you progressing over the long term.

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P90X

It is a very effective method for decreasing body fat and weight.

That because P90X is a…

Metabolic Training Program

Due to the intensity of the program with short rest periods, it burn calorie during training.

Even of greater importance is the effect it produces with…

Excess Post Oxygen Consumption, EPOC

This amounts to “Over Charging Your Metabolic Credit Card”; you end up burning more calories for hours after the your training session, burning more body fat.

Research has demonstrated that program like P90X burn up to 9 time more calories post workout than a low level activity.

Kenny Croxdale

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Okay I feel like we skipped a few steps here.

  1. Congrats on beating cancer and smoking!
  2. Grats on getting off your but and losing nearly 100lbs.

Now that’s out of the way. You likely didn’t do keto the “right” way. Most people end up doing a really high protein PSMF style diet and not keto macros.

Also if you ate nearly no carbohydrates for a spell while losing 95lbs (270->175) I can guarantee you were likely glycogen and water depleted. When you began eating carbs again your muscles/liver pulled in a lot of water with the glycogen. I’m betting half of your 15lb weight rebound (175->190) was water, if not more.

If keto isn’t for you no big deal. Your best bet now is to try and find a new “set weight” at maintainance. So try to “reverse diet” a bit. See if you can add 50 calories/day per week and up your activity levels and see if you can hold 190lbs for as long as possible. Then try and cut a bit more.

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thank you all for the feed back. Just to clarify some, I was on Keto for 3
months, and was a member of a Keto group on facebook, which is where I got
all the info and who set up my macros and such.

Im doing Body Beast now, which if more weight training. I had done it in
the past, and enjoyed it, it does lack cardio tho (( only one days worth in
the program )). The group I was a member of for Keto, had me at 2000
calories a day. High fatty protein and of course good fat (( avocados, MCT/
Coconut oil, Cheese )), and under 30 grams of carbs.

Good Fats

This is a misconception that continues to be perpetuated by pseudo science from about 50 years ago. Individual “Parroting” incorrect information perpetuating ignorance.
that Saturated Fats and cholesterol cause cardiovascular disease.

Saturated Fats are necessary for hormonal production. A diet higher in Saturate Fats increases HDL, increases Particle A LDL, and Lower Triglycerides (lower Triglycerides are a biomarker of good health).

Kenny Croxdale

Your post would make sense if he had listed a bunch of “cholesterol blocking ‘heart healthy’ omega-6 laden oils” that the government allows to be called healthy. As it stands, he just listed 2 saturated fat and 1 MUFA source as “good fat”.

And fatty meats might very well not contain a good fat profile so his post is pretty much entirely consistent with yours. In a sentence, what is the “misconception?”

There are good fats. The fats he listed are good. ???

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I recall from the works of Phinney and Volek that ideally one’s fat intake should mirror the ratio as found in the body, which is along the lines of:

  • 55% MUFA
  • 25% SFA
  • 15% PUFA

That is an interesting conjecture. I haven’t heard it before, but I will mention some potential issues.

  1. IF muscles load and burn SFAs preferentially, then perhaps you would want to match the body’s ratios PLUS daily burn rates.

  2. Gut bacteria synthesizes some SFAs that enter the body but aren’t part of the intake ratios. Its small for humans though.

  3. Cows, as an example, “take in” largely SFAs due to gut bacteria working on fiber to make butyrate, but Cow fat tends to be 75% MUFA.

  4. Enzymes in the body that break down long chain fatty acids actually work primarily on FAs of the same or similar length, rather than by saturation level. IF you consume more long chain SFAs for example, the body will not break down long chain MUFAs and PUFAs as quickly.

  5. Cows milk is about 2:1 SFA to MUFA, (with about 4% PUFA) but calf meat is about 3:1 SFA to MUFA, so intake may be similar to composition but not identical.

  6. More than 4% PUFA has been shown to increase the rate of arterial lesions whether it is omega 3 or 6. In fact omega 3 seems to cause slightly more oxidative damage. 15% seems high and may be due to the American diet containing closer to 15% PUFA. So the PUFA seems high. Granted, the marginal next 1% after 4% is not going to massively raise rates of oxidative damage but as you approach 15% the potential harms grow. Also remember omega 6 has an independent affect on general inflammation.

  7. I think it would depend on whether you are eating maintenance, hyper or hypocaloric levels. At a hypocaloric level, you are going to burn most of your daily fat eaten because it is easier to access than bodyfat. Therefore PUFAs probably matter less in a deficit (similarly to fructose). That is why I have never understood the concept of increasing omega 3s particularly during calorie restriction since they are probably getting burned. If anything, I think you should eat extra Omega 3s when gaining fat so that when the fat is released in a restriction, you won’t just get a large release of linoleic as adipose is broken down. IF you have 15% linoleic in your adipose, you are going to release 15% linoleic when it is released.

  8. Are these the ratios in lean and healthy individuals?

Anyway, from everything I have read, I would think 2:1 to 3:1 MUFA to SFA but there is a strong case for <15% PUFA with 4% being a somewhat supported ideal. Since Beef Tallow and Butterfat are in the 2:1 to 3:1 range, it would be hard to get more than 33% SFA anyway.

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Hey @KennyCrox thanks for all that info! Eating at a calorie surplus, even while barbell training 4-5 days a week has given me a dad bod so I figured I would try Vince Gironda’s steak and egg diet for 2-4 weeks to shed a few pounds as quickly as possible. I guess I’m just a wuss but I literally couldn’t do it. I gave up after a few days when I was so dizzy that I could barely stand. I was nauseated, had terrible headaches, and was so depressed that I hated my own kids and just wanted to hang myself. I said ‘forget this’, went on a carb binge, and felt like a human being again. I have no idea how anyone can put up with a keto diet long enough to get into ketosis but they’re definitely a better man than me lol!

[quote=“JamesBrawn007, post:13, topic:239968”]I recall from the works of Phinney and Volek that ideally one’s fat intake should mirror the ratio as found in the body, which is along the lines of:

55% MUFA
25% SFA
15% PUFA[/quote]

The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance

Phinney and Volek advocate the following in this book…

55% MUFA
27% SFA
18 PUFA
…which is essentially what you stated.

I followed those percentages closely for a bout a year. My profile was excellent. After a year, increased…

Saturated Fat Intake

I took my Saturated Fat intake up to around to 40 - 45%, Mononusaturated dropped down to around 40% plus, with Ployunsaturated Fat around 20%.

My blood lipid panel remained about the same. However, my LDL and Total Cholesterol dropped

Jimmy Moore

I recently listed an interview with Moore. He stated that he wife’s LDL and Total Cholesterol were elevated. The physician recommended that she drop her Saturated Fat intake.

Instead Moore increased her Saturated Fat intake. In doing so, her LDL and Total Cholesterol decreased.

Based on my experience and Moore’s interview, it appears that higher Saturated Fat might be an issue, it may help.

Kenny Croxdale

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Keto Flu

It sounds like you had the Keto Flu. As you probably know, carbohydrates store water; water stores sodium. Thus, what initially occurs is your sodium level drop creating issues like being dizzy, headaches,

That is one of the reason that Pinney/Volek and other recommending increasing your salt intake, such as drinking bullion (850 plus mg of sodium)

The Ketotogenic Diet

It is a very hard diet to maintain because it is do demanding.

My motivation is driven by a metabolic health condition.

The Keto Diet took me a little time to get acclimated to. However, now I enjoy it with Ketetogenic Cheese Cake, Pizza, Spagetti (make with squash), etc.

As i have stated in various post, I employ the Kegogenic Diet and like it but I don’t recommend it. That due to the fact that the majority of individual cannot maintain it for various reasons.

Cutting Body Fat

The main reason the Ketogenic Diet works for decreasing body fat/body weight is the fat fills you up: you eat fewer calories.

Calories Count

The key to decreasing body fat/weight loss is decreasing calories. That can be accomplished with any diet such as the “Twinkie Diet”.

I’ve posted this before. Mark Haub, MS Nutrition, demonstrated to his Kansas State University Class that cutting calories is what drives weight loss.

Haub dropped 27 lbs., decreased his body fat, and improved his lipid panel on a junk food diet; consuming Twinkies, cookies, chips, etc.

Intermittent Fasting

I am a fan of Intermittent Fasting because of the ease of it. There is nothing to fix, nothing to count and we’ve all at one time or another skipped a meal.

Intermittent Fasting produces some of the same effects as the Ketogenic Diet.

However, here is the…

Take Home Message

Find an “Eating Plan” that allows you to decrease your calorie intake that you like and can live with.

Kenny Croxdale

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This is great info Kenny, thanks man