NH_Watts' TRT Log

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Keto has done wonders for me. Wellā€¦I would call it ā€œmodifiedā€ keto. This is how Iā€™ve implemented it and the same basic principals of all common sense dieting should apply (eat less total calories than you burn to lose weight, eat more to gain etcā€¦)

First figure out your daily rmr. Letā€™s say 2500 kcal for example purposes. If you weigh 185 lbs and have 15%BF, then your LBM is 157lbs.

To burn fat an lose as little muscle as possibleā€¦
Eat a 20% reduction (2000 kcal).
20g Carbs (always a fixed number) = 80 kcal

0.8 - 1g Protein per lb of LBM (125 - 157g). Letā€™s hit the middle there at 140g which = 560 kcal

Then the rest of your calories in high quality fats. Soā€¦ 80 + 560 = 640 (Protein and carbs)

This leaves 2000 - 640 = 1360

Fats will be 1360 / 9 = 151g

So for this hypothetical, you would eat

20g Carbs
140g Protein
151g Fat
2000 calories

Canā€™t speak for everyone, but for meā€¦it just works. Now keep in mind that all of these numbers change every few weeks as you body changes as well.

If you are trying to gain, then up the protein intake to 1 - 1.5g per lb of LBM, and increase the total calories by 15 - 20%.

Hereā€™s the last ingredient to this plan and itā€™s pretty crucialā€¦ As you work out during the week, you are depleting your muscle glycogen stores and not replenishing them due to the reduced carb intake, so donā€™t DESTROY your muscles. Just properly fatigue them. Then, every 7 days, eat one meal thatā€™s is carb LOADED (100-200g). This will replenish the muscle glycogen stores for the next week, and since your body has adapted to using ketones for fuel, the carbs from that meal will go almost completely into refilling the muscle glycogen stores. Itā€™s almost like a 7 day contest prep except that you donā€™t want to gorge water and then taper off. Keep the water intake steady all the time.

Final noteā€¦If anyone reading decides to follow this template (hopefully adjusting the numbers for their own stats lol), make sure that you drink a cup or so of chicken broth everyday for the first week or so. This will make the adaption process easier and help avoid the dreaded ā€œketo fluā€.

Following this plan, and working out 5 days a week also doing cardio for 15min x 3 a week, so far I have gone from thisā€¦

To thisā€¦

Iā€™m no Arnold by any means, but all in all Iā€™d say that itā€™s not too bad for a pre diabetic 41 yr old with primary hypogonadism lol.

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I thought I read that ketogenic diets werent good on TRT? Looking great by the way. You should update your log with the new pic.

Thanks brother I really appreciate that.

I havenā€™t read anything specific about any negative effects from Keto on TRT? I havenā€™t had any issues that I know of since I started keto about 8 weeks ago, but I did just have blood drawn yesterday for my Defy Intake. I will keep that in mind when I do my consultation when the labs come back and discuss that with the doc. Iā€™ll post an update back here on what I find out.

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Cool thanks. Im not opposed to keto, ive done it several times in the past. Im a bit opposed to counting all macros and calories. I find it overwhelms me and eventually stresses me out.

You donā€™t count calories at all? How do you maintain mass, just eat when hungry? I have serious problems maintaining mass (could have been the low T too) when I donā€™t eat at least 3000 calories.

Not at all. But I can eye 4, 5, 6oz of protein and know from sight what 40g of carbs looks like. I also know how to fill caloric voids with fats, etc. I have spent so many years counting and tracking that I understand innately what I am packing for food and what my macros are. I can tell you that on any given day I am eating between 2200 and 3200 cals and usually somewhere in between around 2600-2800 with a ratio of 40p/30c/30f. I do not need to try to keep mass on me.

Intermittent fasting on 3 days a week has been working pretty well and seems to shed fat pretty well. That being said I am at the gym 7 days a week and may finally be optimized in regard to TRT so lots of moving parts.

I must have ADD, I always doubt that I actually ate enough at the end of the day unless I track. Need to work on structuring more I guess.

I pack my food in the morning before the gym. I KNOW I am packing around 2k calories. Then I just round it out with dinner.

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I track all mine with the Keto App Tracker. I manually set all of my macro limits, and just log food as I eat it. It gives me a visual of where Iā€™m at and what I have left during the day. Itā€™s really easy when I pack my food for the day, but sometimes I go to work in areas where I donā€™t have the ability (or its way too inconvenient) to go get my box and find a microwave. On those days, itā€™s nice to have the app because I can just go to Burger King and grab a bacon king burger plain and just take it off the bun. The macros for that configuration are already in the app so I just point to it and add it to my meals for the day. Easy peasy.

I donā€™t trust myself enough to eyeball it. My eyes have always been bigger than my stomach lol!

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Well its kind of hard to overdue it with almonds, chicken, brown rice, broccoli, steak, salad etc.

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I think a lot of guys cut out carbs stupidly. If youā€™re hard training, eat carbs. White rice and potatoes are great. Donā€™t fuck with Keto. Especially real keto (70% cals from fat) your performance will eat dick. Also carbs raise serotonin. eliminating entire macronutrients is insane. Iā€™ll type out what I typically eat tomorrow when I have a chance.

Eat white rice. Not brown

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I would REALLY appreciate that doc. I do tend to choose brown rice and even chose brown rice sushi today for lunch.

While I respect your opinion more than most on this forum, I canā€™t say I totally agree with this. Now I donā€™t do ā€œtrueā€ keto, as I eat 20g carbs, 1g per lb of LBM protein, and the rest in fats. I also have an extremely high carb meal (100-200g) every 7 days to replenish muscle glycogen. I have actually seen an increase in performance and I have dropped an additional 15 lbs of fat since starting. Itā€™s worked for me, along with busting out the reps every day.

The original intent with keto was to try and lower my blood glucose. It has helped a tiny bit but no real effects there. Iā€™m starting to believe that the issue there is genetically related and really nothing to do with carbs. That being said I still feel better and stronger than I ever have.

Now when I finally get down to 10-12% BF, and I get all of my hormone issues straight, I may try carb cycling.

@bmbrady77 putting in carbs weekly makes sure youā€™re never in ketosis. Youā€™re not doing keto. Youā€™re eating low carb. These are vastly different. Keto requires essentially zero carbs for extended periods of time. I believe CT wrote a good article about this on t nation. Eating almost zero carbs will actually worsen your glucose tolerance over time dramatically - this has been shown in studies.

I just started doing that part two to three weeks ago. Iā€™m a little confused though (and that donā€™t take much lol) at the ā€œnever in ketosisā€ theory. I measure ketones twice a week and 24-36 hours after that high carb meal, Iā€™m back at around 0.8-1.1 on the meter. My understanding was that anything above 0.5 is ā€œnutritionalā€ ketosis. Could you please correct my thinking here and help me understand a little better?

Iā€™ll answer more later.

For now

Three very good reads. That first article is almost spot on with what I typically do, which I can see is more HFLC than keto, but the fact remains that my blood ketones so far have still returned to that nutritional range within 24-36 hours after every 7th day cheat meal. Doesnā€™t that mean that Iā€™m restricting carbs enough and taking in enough fats during the week to be able to stay in mild ketosis? I know Iā€™m not I DEEP ketosis (and thank God because sustaining that level for too long could probably kill you), Iā€™m above 0.5 and I stay there, and even get to the point of around 2-2.6 by the end of the week. So for all intensive purposes, if I stay in a nutritional state of ketosis (for at least 5-6 days a week), shouldnā€™t I call the way I am eating ā€œketogenicā€?

The only drawback according to those articles to my method here is that most people have increased carb cravings doing this, or they over do it. I havenā€™t had any issues with this. As a matter of fact, it actually encourages me to to keep the course. First, When I go into a restaurant and look around and see the people that frequent the place, it gives me a renewed sense of why I eat the way I do. I donā€™t ever want to look the way that most of them do (and the way I used to)again in my life. Second, that meal usually sits VERY heavy in my stomach and I almost feel sick a few hours after eating it. That also reminds me of why I avoid high carbs throughout the week.

@physioLojik

To further add to the above discussion, the following illustrates my confusion. This reading was taken this morning about 5 minutes agoā€¦

I guess im just confused as to how my method of HFLC eating is not considered ketogenic, and that having a high carb meal every 7th day is preventing me from ever being in ketosis, but I consistently see readings like this? I had a very high carb meal on Saturday (3 days ago). This reading was 0.8 on Sunday afternoon. I am definitely not trying to argue here, as I know that I am way under qualified to argue with someone of your knowledge, Iā€™m just trying to understand better. Thanks for shedding some light whenever you have a few minutes.

Looking forward to this doc. Thanks.