Modified Keto diet. Opinions?

[td1111]

I find by far the easiest way to get lean and preserve muscle is on a keto diet, with one cheat meal a week. Over the last 2 years, my body has adapted, and quickly and shifts into keto-mode when I stop eating carbs.

I am now back on my keto diet, but I'd like to get back into playing racquetball, which is high intensity cardio. I'm not very big and cannot afford to lose any muscle mass. Is there a way that I could eat a single dense meal of purely complex carbs before the high intensity cardio sessions? Would this be enough to avoid muscle loss? How many hours beforehand does the body need to have those carbs?

 

[kingdawg98]

Eating enough protein and weight training should help you preserve muscle. I'm sure there are more knowledgeable people that can chime in on this.

 

[Shelby]

I find by far the easiest way to get lean and preserve muscle is on a keto diet, with one cheat meal a week. Over the last 2 years, my body has adapted, and quickly and shifts into keto-mode when I stop eating carbs.

I am now back on my keto diet, but I'd like to get back into playing racquetball, which is high intensity cardio. I'm not very big and cannot afford to lose any muscle mass. Is there a way that I could eat a single dense meal of purely complex carbs before the high intensity cardio sessions? Would this be enough to avoid muscle loss? How many hours beforehand does the body need to have those carbs?

You're just dieting recreationally, I take it? (not for a show)

How long are the racquetball sessions?

 

[Shelby]

Eating enough protein and weight training should help you preserve muscle. I'm sure there are more knowledgeable people that can chime in on this.

If you don't really understand keto diets, it's probably best to not respond to posts about them.

 

[Silencer]

I find by far the easiest way to get lean and preserve muscle is on a keto diet, with one cheat meal a week. Over the last 2 years, my body has adapted, and quickly and shifts into keto-mode when I stop eating carbs.

I am now back on my keto diet, but I'd like to get back into playing racquetball, which is high intensity cardio. I'm not very big and cannot afford to lose any muscle mass. Is there a way that I could eat a single dense meal of purely complex carbs before the high intensity cardio sessions? Would this be enough to avoid muscle loss? How many hours beforehand does the body need to have those carbs?

td1111--wow, racquetball on a keto diet. You are a true warrior!

I'm very similar to you in that my body, once I am in keto, gets back in quickly (such as after a carb-up day or weekend). I've also tested over the years about how many carbs can I go up to and still stay in ketosis. For me, that is roughly 45-55g of carbs, spread across the day, when I'm eating heavier % of fat. If I am eating mostly protein, then 50+ carbs kicks me out. My keto-sticks won't register the change (prob because the urine is still showing ketones being flushed out before the "changeover"), but I can tell by how I feel. I feel that if I ate 30-40 grams of carbs and then did a high-intensity workout, I'm almost certain I wouldn't get kicked out; however, I have no explicit proof from experience.

Here is something you may want to try: whenever I want to push myself hard in a workout while in keto, I would drink 75-100grams of whey mixed with a liter of more of water about an hour before the workout. First, you have to know yourself and see if you can hold that down without cramping -- you may want to spread it out over 30-45 minutes, maybe start sipping it 45 minutes prior and finish up when you get to the courts. I've found that a sudden spike of protein gives me great energy for an hour or so -- much more than I normally have on keto, regardless of ECA stack or whatever. Your body breaks protein down essentially into sugars at some point to use for energy, so I look at it as a back-door way of eating carbs without actually doing so (though 4 scoops of whey prob equals 8-14g of carbs in it depending on brand).

As for actually eating carbs themselves, whenever I carb-up on CKDs, I go immediately into a lethargy after the first meal, so I don't know if you would experience the necessary increase in energy or not. Very interested in finding out.

 

[godzillaballs]

Are you carbing up on the weekends? What's the carb protocol look like elsewhere?

Supposing you are one of the individuals able to make the full adaptation to ketosis, the worst thing you can do is include carbs here and there whenever you want to play racquetball (as far as trying to make the full ketotic shift is concerned). What you'll end up doing is depriving yourself of carbs the rest of the time while still signaling that carbs are available every time you eat them, so you'll never make the full shift and intensity will always be an issue without the carbs.

If, though, you have found you never really make the full adaptation to ketosis and your endurance and intensity goes down when in it without a carbless solution, you'll obviously need some carbs beforehand to maintain the intensity. If you drop bodyfat the fastest while on the least carbs but can't maintain the intensity, just accept the tradeoff. Dieting sucks, deal with it.

One alternate thing you can do is eat a small amount (5-15g) of a simple sugar beforehand (you can even buy glucose pills for this) which will have a fairly large impact on your bloodsugar and may allow you to up the intensity. An easy way to get the job done with minimal impact on the rest of your diet.

 

[kingdawg98]

If you don't really understand keto diets, it's probably best to not respond to posts about them.

point taken. i'll go crawl under a rock now. lol

 

[td1111]

td1111--wow, racquetball on a keto diet. You are a true warrior!

I'm very similar to you in that my body, once I am in keto, gets back in quickly (such as after a carb-up day or weekend). I've also tested over the years about how many carbs can I go up to and still stay in ketosis. For me, that is roughly 45-55g of carbs, spread across the day, when I'm eating heavier % of fat. If I am eating mostly protein, then 50+ carbs kicks me out. My keto-sticks won't register the change (prob because the urine is still showing ketones being flushed out before the "changeover"), but I can tell by how I feel. I feel that if I ate 30-40 grams of carbs and then did a high-intensity workout, I'm almost certain I wouldn't get kicked out; however, I have no explicit proof from experience.

Here is something you may want to try: whenever I want to push myself hard in a workout while in keto, I would drink 75-100grams of whey mixed with a liter of more of water about an hour before the workout. First, you have to know yourself and see if you can hold that down without cramping -- you may want to spread it out over 30-45 minutes, maybe start sipping it 45 minutes prior and finish up when you get to the courts. I've found that a sudden spike of protein gives me great energy for an hour or so -- much more than I normally have on keto, regardless of ECA stack or whatever. Your body breaks protein down essentially into sugars at some point to use for energy, so I look at it as a back-door way of eating carbs without actually doing so (though 4 scoops of whey prob equals 8-14g of carbs in it depending on brand).

As for actually eating carbs themselves, whenever I carb-up on CKDs, I go immediately into a lethargy after the first meal, so I don't know if you would experience the necessary increase in energy or not. Very interested in finding out.

Thanks for your info, I never thought about approaching it from this angle. The racquetball sessions would be about 40 minutes long. Not sure if I could sprint around with lots of liquid in my stomach though. Did you read somewhere, or just find out by trial and error that the body can create energy from protein in that time period?

Are you carbing up on the weekends? What's the carb protocol look like elsewhere?

Supposing you are one of the individuals able to make the full adaptation to ketosis, the worst thing you can do is include carbs here and there whenever you want to play racquetball (as far as trying to make the full ketotic shift is concerned). What you'll end up doing is depriving yourself of carbs the rest of the time while still signaling that carbs are available every time you eat them, so you'll never make the full shift and intensity will always be an issue without the carbs.

If, though, you have found you never really make the full adaptation to ketosis and your endurance and intensity goes down when in it without a carbless solution, you'll obviously need some carbs beforehand to maintain the intensity. If you drop bodyfat the fastest while on the least carbs but can't maintain the intensity, just accept the tradeoff. Dieting sucks, deal with it.

One alternate thing you can do is eat a small amount (5-15g) of a simple sugar beforehand (you can even buy glucose pills for this) which will have a fairly large impact on your bloodsugar and may allow you to up the intensity. An easy way to get the job done with minimal impact on the rest of your diet.

Just one big cheat meal on the weekends. Rest of time is pretty strict, maybe 40-50/day max from veg, nuts, etc. Intensity is not as important to me as preserving muscle. By the way, when the body burns muscle, does it reduce muscle cell size, or number of cells? The reason I ask is that I have found that my muscles always gain the same size and strength each cycle, but never any more, so it seems like I am fucked for hypertrophy, even with GH.

 

[Silencer]

Thanks for your info, I never thought about approaching it from this angle. The racquetball sessions would be about 40 minutes long. Not sure if I could sprint around with lots of liquid in my stomach though. Did you read somewhere, or just find out by trial and error that the body can create energy from protein in that time period?

It's written all over in standard guides to keto diets that the body can convert protein to glucose when necessary, and that's why many books on CKDs suggest that you start off with a very high fatrotein ratio, as too high of a protein intake will slow down your entry into ketosis.

And part of it was trial/error for me. I've been writing some articles on here about my experiences for the past 11 years, and actually one of the things I'm going to write about for my next one is how beneficial I found sipping a protein shake (mixed with a large amount of water) during a workout is to me
regardless of whether I'm bulking or dieting. The "breakthrough" for me was when one day I was probably in week 7 or 8 of a CKD (where I carb up every other weekend for only 24 hours) and just dragging in the gym not being able to do much of anything, when suddenly about 45 minutes into it I found energy and had a great finish. The only difference from the prior six weeks was the addition of the protein shake (50grams whey + 1 liter water sipped through the workout). I tried it again, and again had energy towards the end. So then I front-loaded my shake -- started sipping about 45 minutes before I left for the gym, and I had much better energy levels.

This is simply one person's results, with nothing scientific to back it up, but it works for me, so I figure I'd share. Please keep up posted on your own experiences, as I love hearing about other people's experiences and results.

 

[td1111]

I'll give it a shot. It would be great to have the extra calorie after-burning effects that high intensity cardio offers while on a keto diet. I've done cutting cycles with nothing but low-intensity cardio and even thought it is optimally effective, it takes f'ing forever to melt the fat!