Keto for the Weight Trainer
Let’s talk about ketosis for the weight trainer, for the person that’s hitting the gym. A lot of people will tell you that keto isn’t for that kind of person. And I’m here to tell you that it certainly is. I’m Thomas DeLauer with Keto-Mojo. Let’s dive into some weight training and keto science. So first off, I want to start this video with a study that was published in the International Journal for the Society of Sports Nutrition. What this study took a look at was 26 different resistance trains participants. And half the group they had consume a ketogenic diet. Half they group they had consume a traditional high carb diet. Traditional, kind of standard, western, American diet. Well what they found is that over time, the group that actually was on the ketogenic diet had more muscle at the end of a certain period of weeks than the group that didn’t go on the ketogenic diet, and a lot of it had to do with the muscle preservation effects of ketosis.
What is Beta-Hydroxybutyrate?
So now that I’ve already proved the concept of keto and weight training, let’s talk a little bit more about some of the other aspects and how this actually works. I think one of the main things that we want to address here is that when you’re on a ketogenic diet, you have high levels of what is called Beta-hydroxybutyrate. That’s the primary ketone body that’s really eliciting that ketogenic response. It’s allowing you to feel good. Higher levels of BHB are usually associated with deeper ketosis. Well, BHB has been shown to stop the oxidation of leucine. Now when you stop the oxidation of leucine, you allow your muscle mass to be maintained a lot better. So leucine is something that gets broken down and when it’s broken down, you’re breaking down the foundational amino acid of most proteins that are in your muscle. So you don’t really want that leucine to break down. That’s why back in the day they used to say, if you take a leucine supplement, it’ll help you preserve muscle a lot better. That’s not necessarily the case, but if you keep your actual leucine levels that are naturally in your body intact, you do preserve your muscle better. So Beta-hydroxybutyrate is one of the most powerful ways to slow down the oxidation of leucine which means that you can train harder, you can train more frequently, and you can generally get away with consuming even less calories, and still maintain muscle while burning fat and using fat for energy.
The Training Component
So if you’re a weight trainer, you can actually get a lot of benefit out of this, with the ketogenic diet. Whether you’ve already built your muscle before going on a keto diet, or you’re trying to build muscle while you’re on a keto diet. But let’s talk about that actual training component. Because a lot of times people will say, because you’re in ketosis, you don’t have the muscle glycogen that allows you to actually work out. That’s not necessarily true. Yes, it is partially true, in the fact that when you’re working out, in a weight training capacity, you’re generally using carbs as a fuel source. But the thing is, you always have carbs in your body. You always have carbs stored up in your muscles, even if you’re not consuming carbs. Because your body either creates carbs or it’s grabbing carbs from small amounts of food that you are eating, and it’s actually putting them into the muscle and allowing you to preserve that muscle glycogen. So eventually you do have carbs in your muscle.
But, it doesn’t stop there. When you’re weight training and you’re truly lifting in the range that allows you to put on muscle, you’re utilizing an entirely different system to begin with. You’re utilizing something known as the creatine phosphate system. Those first one to three or one to five reps that you’re going through when you’re working out don’t even utilize carbs or oxygen. They use an entirely different metabolic pathway that’s quite honestly chemical. It’s a chemical reaction in your body, utilizing creatine in your body, to create Adenosine Tri-phosphate. To create energy.
So that first bout of energy, the quick first couple feet of a sprint or the first few reps of a heavy exercise, uses creatine phosphate in your body, not carbohydrates and not fat even. So you can still weight train at a high intensity, on a ketogenic diet, and elicit that metabolic response that allows you to get more anabolic and build more muscle.So I hope that this breaks some things down and gives you some tips and tricks when it comes down to working out on a ketogenic diet. If you’re a weight lifter stick in the heavy range, as long as your body and your joints can handle it. And don’t freak out that you’re going to lose muscle, cause chances are you’re not. So make sure that you’re leaving the guess work out of the equation. And leave the measuring to the meter. So I’ll see you in the next Keto-Mojo video.
