Ketosis

[DRBrnx78]

I'm thinking of starting a ketosis diet and was wondering if anyone knew what would be a safe time frame for females?

[acrawlingchaos]

Keto diets are unnecessarily restrictive diet. There is really no benefit to the diet, though some disagree and claim to feel better on them (shrugs). Regardless, at your current height and weigh, aiming for a weight loss of between 1-2 pounds a week would be a good place to be. Two pounds a week would be considered "aggressive".

Personally, I am a much bigger fan of following a sensible diet while tracking macros. If you want to know more about keto, I would suggest this sub forum in the nutrition section.

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/forumdisplay.php?f=61

^^^ The entire section is dedicated to Ketogenic diets.

[billb7581]

The benefit is that they work better for some people

Insulin resistant people will do better on a Keto diet

Insulin sensitive people will do better on a higher carb low fat diet..

The idividual's metabolism and what will work best for them, should determine the diet

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat...-fat-loss.html

[acrawlingchaos]

The benefit is that they work better for some people

Insulin resistant people will do better on a Keto diet

Insulin sensitive people will do better on a higher carb low fat diet..

The idividual's metabolism and what will work best for them, should determine the diet

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat...-fat-loss.html

Outside of a few medical conditions, Keto diets are not have any real benefit in the healthy individual.

[ljimd]

I've used the Keto Diet for contest prep, but don't find it an enjoyable method for
reducing bodyfat. Do some research and experimentation - the essence of bodybuilding.
Could be another tool in the box.

[MoldyGopher]

I ate keto for a year and a half, loved every minute of it, lost a ton of weight.

But I was morbidly obese and insulin resistant so I was a textbook example of someone that keto was perfect for.

[drudixon]

I felt horrible on my keto diet. I lost weight but I'm sure there are other ways to go about it that feel better.

[EB68]

I am a big fan of eating 300 to 500 calories less than maintenance and losing about 1 pound per week myself. I still eat well, have plenty of energy and strength and don't feel like SH!T all of the time. I try to keep my carbs to a moderate level and protien/fat high, but as long as the calories are less than maintenance the weight comes off. Eating less than 50 grams of carbs per day would make me one irritable SOB.

[racedoc]

I am a big fan of eating 300 to 500 calories less than maintenance and losing about 1 pound per week myself. I still eat well, have plenty of energy and strength and don't feel like SH!T all of the time. I try to keep my carbs to a moderate level and protien/fat high, but as long as the calories are less than maintenance the weight comes off. Eating less than 50 grams of carbs per day would make me one irritable SOB.

I'd agree with this - anytime I've tried to drop carbs low my workouts suffer hugely. I don't know how guys are able to lift and progress without carbs TBH, but recognize some seem able to handle it.

[j1akey]

I'm on a keto diet right now and I'm seeing the best results of my life after almost two years of weight loss.

It should be noted that it is definitely not a performance diet but done properly you can lose a pretty good amount of weight quickly. I was pretty obese topping out at about 310 lbs so like MoldyGopher this sort of thing was made for me since I still want to lose about 30 lbs of fat.

[ironwill2008]

I am a big fan of eating 300 to 500 calories less than maintenance and losing about 1 pound per week myself. I still eat well, have plenty of energy and strength and don't feel like SH!T all of the time. I try to keep my carbs to a moderate level and protien/fat high, but as long as the calories are less than maintenance the weight comes off.

FWIW, ^^^^ this sums up my opinion of keto as well.

Another consideration of such an exclusionary nutrition plan is all the lost micronutrients no longer available in a keto diet. There's a boatload of good stuff to be found in potatoes, rice, pasta, fruit, etc., etc., that's not going to be possible to make up. There's a lot more to carbs than just carbohydrate.






IN before "just take a multi."

[Kingthumper]

I am a big fan of eating 300 to 500 calories less than maintenance and losing about 1 pound per week myself. I still eat well, have plenty of energy and strength and don't feel like SH!T all of the time. I try to keep my carbs to a moderate level and protien/fat high, but as long as the calories are less than maintenance the weight comes off. Eating less than 50 grams of carbs per day would make me one irritable SOB.

^Agree with all of this. I keep my carbs between 100 and 125g/day, which is still pretty low by most peoples standards. I counter this by doubling that amount twice a week, while slightly decreasing my protein & fat those 2 days to keep me at a deficit of about 500 calories. The advantage for ME is that this is sustainable, its just how I eat! Combined with a regular training program, the fat just slowly peels off, which is fine with me.

[oldsuperman]

The benefit is that they work better for some people

Insulin resistant people will do better on a Keto diet

Insulin sensitive people will do better on a higher carb low fat diet..

The idividual's metabolism and what will work best for them, should determine the diet

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat...-fat-loss.html

^^^^^^^^^^

Keto is a great diet with many benefits to get rid of fat quickly. As with anyone starting a diet, your health condition, age and condition plays a key component as to what diet you do and the success of it. I used keto to drop my first 53 pounds. It worked great and have no regrets. I use keto now for many of my clients and especially for contest prep.

[charlievanriper]

I as well Pops, I love keto and use it alot with clients and currently am mixing keto and IF with great success

[SteveR40]

I use Keto for all my contest preps and works well for me. I have also went 500 under maintenance to drop weight. As AC stated, your metabolism needs to be considered. You need to keep your metabolisim moving with any diet or it will slow down and you will plateau.

[billb7581]

^^^^^^^^^^

Keto is a great diet with many benefits to get rid of fat quickly. As with anyone starting a diet, your health condition, age and condition plays a key component as to what diet you do and the success of it. I used keto to drop my first 53 pounds. It worked great and have no regrets. I use keto now for many of my clients and especially for contest prep.

Well that answers half the question I wanted to ask you LOL...... what kind of rep scheme did you follow during the time you were cutting that initial 50 lbs?

[RN2590]

I am insulin resistant and managed to lose 30 pounds of fat since June(26% to 13% and counting). I have hardly gone below 200g/d with carbs. Half of that is from fruits and vegetables, other half from complex carbs. I understand keto is good way to lose the weight fast but isn't fast the worst way to lose it? I sure wouldn't want to lose more than 2lbs/week unless I was very obese.

[oldsuperman]

Well that answers half the question I wanted to ask you LOL...... what kind of rep scheme did you follow during the time you were cutting that initial 50 lbs?

At that time my weight training was pretty basic. I did a 3 day split with 35 mins of cardio 3 days a week. I did 4 sets of 8 to 12 reps to total failure. My routine has evolved over the years to become much more complex.

[KLMARB]

I'm thinking of starting a ketosis diet and was wondering if anyone knew what would be a safe time frame for females?

Let me clear up a few things, as many of the previous posts contradict each other and are potentially confusing. What is referred to as "Keto" is really a form of sustained and adaptive LIPOLYSIS (fat burning). Ketosis is merely one of four major energy pathways present in a sustained lipolytic nutritional pattern. Since you clearly have excess fat, you want to be in sustained lipolysis in order to lose it. One of the main benefits for people like you, is a reduction/elimination of the very hormonal state (lipogenesis) that caused you to gain the fat in the first place. Fat gain is caused by chronic lipogenesis, in the hormonal secretion sense. This is an adaptive process, so in effect, a lipolytic (keto) nutritional pattern will allow you to "adapt out" of your chronic lipogenic pattern and enable fat loss. This is why many of the above posters don't recommend keto, usually the ones without significant lipogenic adaptations, as it is unnecessary for them. The goal is to get to the same point, elimination of lipogenic adaptation to the point where you burn fats and carbs with equal efficiency.

So, keto is for clearly for you, due to your degree of lipogenic adaptation. For you, when you first start I recommend two things: During the first two weeks do not be concerned with caloric restriction. Once you become hypoglycemic (around two days) you're going to feel bad, as your body begins to switch from burning carbs to burning fat. This is normal. Its actually a form of withdrawal, similar to what heavy smoker experience when they go "cold turkey". During that time take it easy, eat plenty of fats and drink lots of liquids to mitigate the reactions. In a few days this will pass and your energy levels will return to normal once you are burning fat as your primary energy source. The second thing are carb-ups. No carb-ups for at least two weeks, preferably three or four, as your body continues the adaptation. After then, they're OK, in fact as you lose weight, you'll be able to eat more and more carbs. without leaving lipolysis. You're a ways away from that, but it'll eventually happen. Good luck, losing 100lbs. in a year is very doable. Make sure you take pictures you yourself before you begin, you'll want to look at them later on. I wish I had more pictures of myself when I was obese, (more than 200lbs. ago) so I could show others.

[acrawlingchaos]

......

Let me clear up some things, as your post neglects the basics. You must be eating in a deficit. If you are not in a deficit, sure you will be utilizing fat for energy, but it won't be "de novo". Going into a ketogenic state in and of itself isn't indicative of burn adipose, and keto doesn't allow you to bypass the laws of physics i.e. you still need to eat in a deficit.

I also think those that insist that keto is the best method for fat loss, typically fail to realize that the most efficient macro for strength training are carbs. You cut carbs to low, strength plummets, and maintaining muscle become difficult.

[BalhamBeast]

I am doing a keto diet now and so far so good. I have enough energy for my workouts (heck, I got through two really tough circuit classes at the weekend - compared to that, doing weights is a doddle).

To the OP, there is a whole forum devoted to keto (strangely, it's a subforum of the nutrition forum rather than the fat loss forum) where you can get lots of information (check the stickies) as well as read journals to compare experiences or swap keto recipes.

I started recently (Dec 27th) and did have the headache from hell on day 3. Make sure you stock up on painkillers as this seems to be fairly common. That will pass, though.

As for how safe it is, you can stay on it as long as you want to. Higher fat diets are good for hormonal health (particularly for women) and also for the skin! (Make sure you choose good fats though - I prefer not to use polyunsaturates if possible as they can cause inflammation. I typically use MCTs and extra virgin olive oil (cold only) plus coconut oil, butter and duck or goose fat (for cooking).

[acrawlingchaos]

I am doing a keto diet now and so far so good. I have enough energy for my workouts (heck, I got through two really tough circuit classes at the weekend - compared to that, doing weights is a doddle).

To the OP, there is a whole forum devoted to keto (strangely, it's a subforum of the nutrition forum rather than the fat loss forum) where you can get lots of information (check the stickies) as well as read journals to compare experiences or swap keto recipes.

I started recently (Dec 27th) and did have the headache from hell on day 3. Make sure you stock up on painkillers as this seems to be fairly common. That will pass, though.

As for how safe it is, you can stay on it as long as you want to.

Just out of curiosity, how low do you keep your carbs?


While not a fan of keto diets, I will agree that outside of a few specific medical conditions, keto diets are perfectly safe (as far as current research can tell).

[paul_v]

I am one of the people with a medical condition that benefits from Keto. I became an epileptic after contracting encephalitis back in March. Ever since starting Keto I have not had a seizure. In the meantime I've gone down a waist size thanks to the diet. It will definitely lower your body fat.

One thing to note is that I do intake carbs before and after a workout...if I don't then my workouts aren't as effective and my muscle soreness is really bad. I may get knocked out of keto for 12 hours or so but it's no big deal.

[ljimd]

I also think those that insist that keto is the best method for fat loss, typically fail to realize that the most efficient macro for strength training are carbs. You cut carbs to low, strength plummets, and maintaining muscle become difficult.

This ^^^^^ is very important. Depending on your end goal walking this tightrope becomes more difficult.

[KLMARB]

Let me clear up some things, as your post neglects the basics. You must be eating in a deficit. If you are not in a deficit, sure you will be utilizing fat for energy, but it won't be "de novo". Going into a ketogenic state in and of itself isn't indicative of burn adipose, and keto doesn't allow you to bypass the laws of physics i.e. you still need to eat in a deficit.

I also think those that insist that keto is the best method for fat loss, typically fail to realize that the most efficient macro for strength training are carbs. You cut carbs to low, strength plummets, and maintaining muscle become difficult.

I think you've addressed your post to me, so I'll respond. If you didn't, feel free to disregard this.

The primary concern for people with a high degree of lipogenic adaptation is reduction/elimination of anorexigenic hormonal resistance, i.e. "adapting out" of lipogenesis. That's why caloric restricition comes after the initial adaptation period. If someone with this lipogenic adaptation restricts calories initially, they suffer not only the resistance withdrawal reaction, but true orexigenic (starved state, ghrelin secretions, etc.) hormonal effects as well. What often happens, if calories are not initially restricted, is a major loss of appetite, as leptin sensitivity (flux via hexsosamine biosynthetic pathway) due to the increase in fat intake is greatly enhanced. That effect has been referred to by folks such as Atkin's as the "metabolic advantage" of lipolytic diets and is an effect which facillitates fat loss without counting calories. In effect, allowing the subject to consume less total calories and experience fat loss. This is a temporary effect, and as resistance/sensitivity issues begin to normalize and fat/carb burning efficiency begins to equalize it DOES become an issue of thermodynamics. On a personal note, due to my high degree of lipogenic adaptation and obesity, it took two years and over 150+lbs. of fat loss to come to that point.

This illustrates one of the major problems with the oversimplification of thermodynamics as far as fat loss goes, as its important to understand the differences in hormonal states that people have when they start a nutritional pattern to lose fat. For people without significant lipogenic adaptation, you can jump right in and restrict calories if desired. However, I recommend following maintenance calories even for those folks, during the initial two weeks, as it makes the process much easier. I also recommend that after the initial glycogen recompensation (carb-up) and if you experience a significant negative reaction when once again becoming hypoglycemic, you refrain from additional recompensation for an additional two weeks, repeating the cycle until your withdrawal reactions are minimal. Once to that point, you can eat more and more carbs, as long as you don't eat so many (types, amounts, and frequency) that you readapt back into lipogenesis. I can now eat 1000g of carbs one day and be back into lipolysis (tested via ketostix) the next, so fat loss for me is all about thermodynamics. Once people understand how to get to a balanced anorexigenic/orexigenic hormonal state, fat loss becomes easy....

As a side note, consuming enough carbs for optimal training purposes does NOT mean following a lipogenic (carb-based) nutritional pattern. I'd assert that the "balanced" approach (without lipogenic adaptation) works equally well.

[KLMARB]

I am doing a keto diet now and so far so good. I have enough energy for my workouts (heck, I got through two really tough circuit classes at the weekend - compared to that, doing weights is a doddle).

To the OP, there is a whole forum devoted to keto (strangely, it's a subforum of the nutrition forum rather than the fat loss forum) where you can get lots of information (check the stickies) as well as read journals to compare experiences or swap keto recipes.

I started recently (Dec 27th) and did have the headache from hell on day 3. Make sure you stock up on painkillers as this seems to be fairly common. That will pass, though.

As for how safe it is, you can stay on it as long as you want to. Higher fat diets are good for hormonal health (particularly for women) and also for the skin! (Make sure you choose good fats though - I prefer not to use polyunsaturates if possible as they can cause inflammation. I typically use MCTs and extra virgin olive oil (cold only) plus coconut oil, butter and duck or goose fat (for cooking).

Its great to save the fat that melts off roasting food, then add it to other foods for flavor. Making your own mayo is also very easy, just an egg, a cup of oil, and your protein shake blender. Then you can flavor it any way desired. Ummm, tarragon and garlic mayo on roasted meat....

[DRBrnx78]

I am a big fan of eating 300 to 500 calories less than maintenance and losing about 1 pound per week myself. I still eat well, have plenty of energy and strength and don't feel like SH!T all of the time. I try to keep my carbs to a moderate level and protien/fat high, but as long as the calories are less than maintenance the weight comes off. Eating less than 50 grams of carbs per day would make me one irritable SOB.

Thanks, that is a good idea and a point I have been considering. Just wondering how the female body will react to it, especially as the hormones change throughout the month.

[billb7581]

FWIW, ^^^^ this sums up my opinion of keto as well.

Another consideration of such an exclusionary nutrition plan is all the lost micronutrients no longer available in a keto diet. There's a boatload of good stuff to be found in potatoes, rice, pasta, fruit, etc., etc., that's not going to be possible to make up. There's a lot more to carbs than just carbohydrate.






IN before "just take a multi."

My understanding is that once you are in ketosis, you periodically carb up from time to time... you just dont go the rest of your life without eating potatoes.

I could be all wet thought... I can't do refeeds, and have to sneak my carbs in close to my workouts.


Peoples experiences are going to vary with different diets, because peoples insulin sensitivity is going to vary.

[DRBrnx78]

thanks...I'm looking to lose 60lbs and was considering dropping the first 30 that way, so that I can keep the fat burn high.

[DRBrnx78]

I am doing a keto diet now and so far so good. I have enough energy for my workouts (heck, I got through two really tough circuit classes at the weekend - compared to that, doing weights is a doddle).

To the OP, there is a whole forum devoted to keto (strangely, it's a subforum of the nutrition forum rather than the fat loss forum) where you can get lots of information (check the stickies) as well as read journals to compare experiences or swap keto recipes.

I started recently (Dec 27th) and did have the headache from hell on day 3. Make sure you stock up on painkillers as this seems to be fairly common. That will pass, though.

As for how safe it is, you can stay on it as long as you want to. Higher fat diets are good for hormonal health (particularly for women) and also for the skin! (Make sure you choose good fats though - I prefer not to use polyunsaturates if possible as they can cause inflammation. I typically use MCTs and extra virgin olive oil (cold only) plus coconut oil, butter and duck or goose fat (for cooking).

Thanks for the female perspective!