Ketogenic Diets

Ketogenic Diets

There are many diets out there claiming to help burn fat and build muscle, yet most of them talk a load of shit and don't work well at all. You get these magazines claiming to get you a six pack or a flat belly in 12 weeks and so on and people fall for all that advertising. I am one who disregards all that bullshit and does proper research into what can be beneficial for myself and others. So anyways, what would you consider to be a perfect bodybuilding diet?

Allows you to build muscle without accumulating fat when bulking. You'd stay lean all year round.
Allows you to lose fat without losing muscle when cutting.
Induces an increase in serum anabolic hormones naturally (without supplements).

So you may ask, what is this ketogenic diet you speak about. Well let me explain in detail. A ketogenic diet, is a diet whereby you cycle periods of low carb, high protein, and high fat with periods of high carb, high protein, and low fat. The majority of time you will be consuming a low carb diet, with a period set aside each week for carbing-up.

Hint of science

This isn't for the fun of it; there are real scientific reasons for this process. A diet that maximizes serum levels of growth promoting hormones is a dream come true. This includes growth hormones and testosterone. Ignore people if they tell you fats are bad for you because they are retarded. Healthy Fats from foods like almonds and peanuts are beneficial as they help increase your testosterone levels.

When you keep your carbs to a minimum, your body switches its energy resource to fat, for metabolism. This will increase lipolysis (breakdown of fat) and decrease lipogenesis (accumulation of body fat).

If you've studied biology before, you'd know that if you consume a low amount of carbs, your insulin levels will be pretty low. This is where your 'carb-up' day comes into play. Once a week you should load up on carbs and let your insulin levels spike. Insulin will shuttle amino acids into the muscle tissue, but we also refill our depleted muscle glycogen stores during this time.

So enough of this science bullshit, tell me what the fucking diet is!

It is pretty straightfoward lol. What I would recommend is that you spend around 5 days of low-carb and 2 days for high-carb. This gives a manageable and sociable weekly cycle where you carb up over the weekend and return to your low-carb diet during the week. After 3-4 days, your body will reach a stage known as ketosis, where it will use fat for metabolism since there is know carbs in the form of glycogen. The 2 days of high-carb will replenish your glycogen and provide you with energy for the following week. Make sure you exercise properly, no diet is going to be that helpful if you don't exercise!

Monday - Friday = low carb diet
Saturday - Sunday = high carb diet

When carrying out this sort of diet, it is important to track your macronutrients. On these low-carb days, you should consume no more than 50-60 grams of carbs. It's not as easy as it sounds, your diet needs to be on point. The things you should eat for these carbs should be green vegetables such as broccoli and spinach. Since most foods such as pasta, rice, bread has a lot of carbs in it, you would be required to eat a lot of protein and healthy fats to make sure you meet your daily caloric needs. On the high-carb days, by all means stuff yourself with carbs, you will need it for sure.

Don't go overboard, try and keep your diet healthy! Remember, anything in excess will have its toll! I hope this helps and feel free to ask any questions, I will try my best to answer them. Might make another post about intermittent fasting when i'm bored.