Ketogenic Diet to Gain Muscle and Lose Fat

The ketogenic diet has proven itself over the last few decades since the Atkins Diet in the 1980's. There have been many creative variations of achieving fat-loss but ketosis, where your body starts burning fats instead of carbs for energy, has proven itself scientifically to work.

The ketogenic diets need a bit of clarity so that we are all on the same page. Your body starts the process of ketosis when you don't eat enough carbohydrates. After the glycogen stores in your muscles are empty, your body starts "ketosis" for energy.

The carbohydrate threshold that you need to get into ketosis is going to be different to someone else so you need to experiment, starting with 50 grams of carbohydrates every 24 hours. Science and the general public believe that carbohydrates are required for protein synthesis.

One of the many roles that insulin play is that it is able to drive amino acids out of your bloodstream directly into your muscle. But carbohydrates are NOT required for protein synthesis. There is an amino acid called Leucine which is found in the yolks of all eggs.

Leucine is one of the 9 essential amino acids and is the primary driver that starts protein synthesis. The point is that muscle CAN be built without carbohydrates. All you need to do is get systematic about it, plan ahead and count every carb you eat. Takes a bit of practice, but the first step is finding your threshold. If you're lucky it won't be 20 grams a day, that's one banana with plenty protein and fats.

It's only for 6 days because you're going to pig out on carbs for 24 hours once a week. The ketogenic diet is a switch of your metabolism from processing food through a glycolytic pathway, burning glucose coming from carbs, to ketosis burning ketones coming from fat.

There way to achieve ketosis is by depleting the body of glycogen, which keeps your blood sugar low while it lives off your fat. That means that you're eating a relatively high fat diet with not too much protein, and very low amount carbohydrates, 50 grams or less.

If you want to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time ketosis or the ketogenic diet is probably the fastest way you are going to do it, if you train regular. However, it's important to note that to gain muscle while you live off your own fat means you need to reduce your protein intake a bit and increase fat intake.

There's interesting research being conducted on how ketosis reduces inflammation, prevents cancer etc. More and more competitive bodybuilders don't have bulking season anymore because they can build muscle and stay ripped all year round using the ketogenic diet.