WHAT IS A KETOGENIC DIET

What science says about ketogenic diets and why they probably won't help you "dry out" much.

There are many different eating patterns, many of which even have beautiful names, such as the South Beach Diet, Weight Watchers Diet, Atkins Diet, HCG Diet, Volumetric Diet, Paleo Diet, IIFYM (literally "Ifcorresponds to your macros "-" if it fits into your KBJU "), reverse carbohydrate load (carbohydrates), ketogenic diet, which will be discussed today.

One of the most commonly used diets is ketogenic. Despite the fact that many people use it to burn fat, this diet is surrounded by a lot of misinformation.

Perhaps the most misunderstood aspect of the ketogenic diet is how it affects athletic performance and your ability to gain muscle mass and increase strength.

The ketogenic diet - from the word "ketosis"

Ketosis is a metabolic condition that occurs when the amount of carbohydrates in your diet is so low that the body simply needs to use fatty acids and the metabolism of ketone bodies for energy. It seems that everything is simple, but let's understand this process to understand why our body goes into a state of ketosis.

In order to function, our body needs enough energy in the form of ATP.

ATP is a universal source of energy for all biochemical processes in living systems.

A person needs an average of 1800 calories a day (you can calculate your personal fitness calculator rate) to produce enough ATP and stay viable. At the same time, the midbrain needs about 400 kcal per day and uses almost only glucose as energy. This means that a personshould consume 100 g of glucose per day just to maintain normal brain function.

What does this have to do with ketosis? With a ketogenic diet we remove almost all carbohydrates from our diet, which means that we deprive our brain of glucose. But we need our brains to work somehow. Fortunately, the liver stores glucose in the form of glycogen and can donate a small amount of it to our brain to keep it working. Our liver can store an average of 100-120 grams of glucose. With a critical lack of carbohydrates for the brain to function, the liver allows us to function normally throughout the day. Eventually, however, the liver's glucose stores cannot be replenished quickly, and carbohydrates are not only needed by the brain, which is why we have problems.

Our muscles are also a huge storehouse of glucose - they contain 400-500 grams of glucose in the form of glycogen stores.

However, glycogen stores are not primarily designed to feed the brain. Unfortunately, our muscles cannot break down glycogen and put it into the bloodstream to feed our brains due to the lack of an enzyme in the muscle that breaks down glycogen (glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase).

In the absence of carbohydrates, the liver begins to produce ketone bodies that are transported through the bloodstream to our brains and other tissues that do not use fat for energy.

Let's take a quick look at the biochemistry of these processes. When you "burn fat, " the fatty acid molecules in your body are converted to acetyl-CoA, which in turn combines with oxaloacetate to initiate the Krebs cycle.

During ketosis, our liver uses as much fat as energy that an excess of acetyl-CoA begins to produce ketone bodies (beta-hydroxybutyrate, acetoacetic acid and acetone).

Gradually,with regular carbohydrate deficiency, the body reaches such a state that this process begins to occur constantly and the level of ketone bodies in the blood increases significantly, then we can say that we are officially in a state of ketosis.

What is a ketogenic diet and how it differs from a "low carb" diet

Low carb diets and ketogenic diets are not the same thing.

The low-carb diet uses fats and carbohydrates for our daily energy needs. Our body does not store ketone bodies in the blood and our tissues do not use ketones for energy.

With a ketogenic diet, our body reaches the point where ketone bodies are produced in large quantities and used as fuel. During such a diet-induced ketosis, beta-hydroxybutyrate levels can be between 0, 5 and 3, 0 mM / L. You can even buy blood ketone test strips and measure yourself.

A low-carbohydrate diet limits the amount of carbohydrates in the diet (often just under 100 grams per day), but beta-hydroxybutyrate levels do not reach 0, 5 and 3, 0 mM / L.

How to eat a ketogenic diet

As discussed above, a ketogenic diet should be high in fat and low in carbohydrates.

With traditional and strict ketogenic diets, 70-75% of daily calories should come from fat and only 5% from carbohydrates. The amount of carbohydrates you can consume while in ketosis varies from person to person, but you can usually consume up to 12% of your carbohydrate calories and stay in ketosis.

Protein intake is also very important. Most exercisers have thought that they need to consume large amounts of protein, perhaps this is one of the factors in unsuccessful ketogenic diets.

As discussed earlier,protein, when consumed in high doses, can be broken down to glucose (during gluconeogenesis) and thus you will not be able to enter ketosis.In general, if you consume more than 1. 8 grams of protein per 1 kg of body weight, then this amount will be enough to get out of ketosis.

Ideally, to improve your ketogenic status and maintain lean muscle mass, your diet should be approximately 75% fat, 5% carbohydrate and 20% protein.

Ketogenic diet adaptation phase

If you read the literature on ketosis, you will see a general trend. There is the most distinctive phase of "adaptation" in which people experience a clouded mind, feel sluggish and lose energy. In general, people feel really bad in the first weeks of a ketogenic diet. This is probably due to the lack of essential enzymes in our body that are needed for the effective oxidation of certain elements.

To survive, our body tries to readjust to use other energy resources and learn to rely only on fats and ketones. Usually after 4-6 weeks of adaptation to a ketogenic diet all these symptoms disappear.

Ketosis and Achievement: A Review of Research

Let's take a look at some research that may answer this question.

Study # 1

The first study included 12 people (7 men and 5 women, ages 24-60) who were on a self-administered ketogenic diet for an average of 38 days. Subjects performed medium to intensive training, measuring their blood count, body composition and maximum oxygen consumption.

The study authors themselves conclude: "The radical reduction in carbohydrates did not have a statistically significant effect on running, judging by the time the subjects began to get tired and the level of maximum oxygen consumption, but body composition improved, participants lost 3, 4 kg of fat gained 1, 3 kg of lean muscle mass. "

In this way, the study participants lost weight, but did not show a noticeable change in athletic performance. Subjects also reduce the body's ability to recover.

Study # 2

Another study included 8 men aged about 30 with at least 5 years of training experience. Subjects sat on a 4-week mixed + ketogenic cross-diet and did long stationary workouts of varying intensity.

The ketogenic diet also had a positive effect on body composition, as in the first study.

Interestingly, the relative values ​​of maximum oxygen consumption and oxygen consumption at the anaerobic threshold increase significantly in the ketogenic diet. The increase in maximum oxygen consumption can be explained by a decrease in body weight. However, themaximum load and the load at the anaerobic threshold were lower after the ketogenic diet.

This means that the ketogenic diethas led to weight loss, but also a significant reduction in the strength of the explosion and the ability to train with high intensity. Do you want to be stronger and train harder? Then don't think that a ketogenic diet is a good choice for this.

Study # 3

The third study examines how a 30-day ketogenic diet (4. 5% of carbohydrate calories) affects performance in the following exercises: hanging leg raises, floor push-ups, parallel push-ups, push-ups, squat jumps and 30-second jumps. The researchers also measured the body composition of the participants.

Here are the conclusions:

1. The ketogenic diet causes a "spontaneous reduction in calorie intake" compared to a regular diet.
2. No loss of productivity was found with the ketogenic diet exercise tested, but no improvement in productivity was found.

As with other studies, there was a noticeable difference in body composition after the ketogenic diet: participants were able to lose weight. However, it should be borne in mind that the participants selected for this study were already quite dry (about 7% body fat).

It is also important to mention that none of these tests consider the process of glycolysis as an energy source, they are more tests that test explosive power, tests for the phosphagen system and muscle fatigue.

Study # 4

In this study, 5 experienced cyclists performed a test for maximum oxygen consumption and a test for time to exhaustion (TEE) before and after 4 weeks of ketogenicdiet.

Since this study is quite lengthy, I want to focus only on the aspect of efficiency and muscle glycogen levels. The TEE test showed a huge difference between the participants. One subject improved TEE scores by 84 minutes in 4 weeks, the second showed a 30-minute increase, while two subjects dropped 50 minutes overall and one subject remained unchanged:

In terms of muscle glycogen stores, muscle biopsy showed thatglycogen stores after the ketogenic diet are almost half of their normal values ​​. This fact is already enough to say that with high performance we can say goodbye.

Results of ketogenic diet research

Let's look at what these 4 studies have in common:

• Improved body composition.Each study led to a qualitative improvement in body composition. It is a controversial fact, however, that this is the miraculous effect of a ketogenic diet, not a spontaneous calorie restriction. Because if you do some research on any type of diet and body composition, then any diet that limits calories improves body composition.

  In the third study, subjects consumed an average of 10, 000 kcal less in 30 days (minus 333 kcal per day! ) than on a regular diet and, of course, lost weight.

  Probably a ketogenic diet may still offer additional benefits in terms of changes in body composition, but research has not yet shown this.

  It should also be said that there is no literature to support the idea that a ketogenic diet can help build muscle. It only helps to lose weight.

• Reduced performance under high intensity loads. The first two studies show a decline in the ability of subjects to play sports with high intensity. This is possible for two reasons: first, a decrease in intramuscular glycogen and second, a decrease in hepatic glycogen stores during high-intensity exercise.
• Decreased intramuscular glycogen stores. Decreased athletic performance during high-intensity training is a sign of decreased intramuscular glycogen levels, studies show. This can also negatively affect the recovery of training athletes and the ability of muscles to grow in size.

Mistakes people make with ketogenic diets

Although there is no clear benefit from conventional calorie restriction, ketogenic diets can be a good tool for weight loss. If you want to lose weight (maybe through muscle mass), then maybe you should try. Now let's look at the mistakes that people on a ketogenic diet often make in order not to make them.

1. Lack of adequate adaptation phase

   Switching to a ketogenic diet can be very difficult for some people. Very often people leave the diet during the adaptation phase without completing it. The adaptation phase can last several weeks, during which weakness is felt, consciousness is blurred, but after 2-3 weeks the energy levels return to normal.

   If you want to try a ketogenic diet, leave enough time to adapt.

2. Eating too much protein

   As we have already learned, too much protein can prevent ketosis. People often replace low-carb, high-protein carbohydrates in their diet - this is a mistake.

3. Using a ketogenic diet for high-intensity activity

   For high-intensity anaerobic exercise, our body relies primarily on blood glucose stores, liver and muscle glycogen, and gluconeogenesis.

   As ketogenic diets reduce muscle glycogen levels, it is very difficult to train with heavy loads.

   Try a carbohydrate alternative diet instead of a ketogenic diet if you want to train at a high intensity.

4. Ketogenic diets prevent muscle growth

   Ketogenic diets can help you lose weight, but not gain muscle mass.

   The CD will prevent you from training at a high intensity and gaining lean muscle mass, so if these are the goals you are pursuing in your workout, then it is better to give up the idea of ​​practicing the CD.

Consuming both protein and carbohydrates results in a greater anabolic effect than consuming these nutrients alone. On a ketogenic diet, you reduce carbohydrates. And because you need both carbohydrates and protein for optimal muscle growth, you're missing one or both of these key nutrients.

Conclusion: Ketogenic diets are neither optimal nor effective for building muscle and improving athletic performance. However, they can help you lose weight - just like any other calorie restriction below your personal daily value.