Yes, for strength training makes no difference. What happens is that guys have it in their minds that they are carb depleted etc and their performance is gonna be crap. Of course, it then does become crap! An example of nocebo.
Not a site I usually go to for science, but: https://www.t-nation.com/diet-fat-loss/ugly-truth-about-ketogenic-diets The Ugly Truth About Ketogenic Diets Burn Fat And Lose Muscle? by Brad Dieter, PhD | 08/24/15 Here's what you need to know... Ketosis occurs when carbs are in such low quantities that your body relies almost exclusively on fatty acid oxidation and ketone metabolism. Ketogenic diets have about 70-75% of your daily caloric intake coming from fat and about 5% from carbohydrates. Ingesting protein above approximately .8 grams per pound is enough to kick you out of ketosis. Ketogenic diets improve body comp, but so does any diet that reduces calories from any source. There is no literature to support that a ketogenic diet is beneficial for promoting increases in muscle mass. Ketogenic diets affect performance negatively. Questions About Ketosis While the ketogenic diet has been used widely and rather effectively in some cases, there's still a lot of confusion about it. What exactly is a ketogenic diet? How does it differ from low carb dieting? Most importantly, at least for the T Nation demographic, is the question of whether ketogenic diets allow you to put on, or at least keep, muscle. Ketosis: What is it? Ketosis is a metabolic state that occurs when dietary carbohydrates are in such low quantities that your body must rely almost exclusively on fatty acid oxidation and ketone metabolism. That sounds simple on the surface, but let's unpack that explanation a bit. To function, your body requires a substantial amount of energy in the form of ATP. So, let's just assume that the average person uses about 1,800 calories per day to create enough ATP to keep him alive (not including any physical activity). Now this is where it gets interesting. You have this thing in your skull called a brain. It uses about 400 or so calories per day and runs almost exclusively on glucose. (There's some evidence it can use small amounts of fat and lactate, but in the big picture it's not all that important). This means you need a minimum 100g of glucose per day just to fuel your brain. Let's say we cut out all carbs from our diet, in effect removing any dietary source of glucose for the brain. That means we need to get it from somewhere. Thankfully, the liver stores glucose and can pump some into the blood to fuel the brain. Your liver, on average, can store around 100-120 grams of glucose. Awesome, so you can function for about a day, but eventually that supply is going to run out because we can't replace it fast enough, and you'll soon need a new source of fuel. Your muscles are also a huge store of glucose (around 400-500 grams) in the form of glycogen. Sadly, your muscles can't break that glycogen down to ship it out to the brain because your muscles lack the enzyme that breaks glycogen down (glucose-6-phosphatase). Now we're really in a bind! Without available carbs, our liver begins to do something really interesting. It starts producing ketone bodies that are released into the blood for our brain and other tissues that don't utilize fat for energy. This is crucial because when you "burn fat," you're really taking a fatty acid molecule and converting it to something called acetyl CoA that's then combined with oxaloacetate, which then begins the Kreb cycle (the name given to a series of chemical reactions that generates energy). During ketosis your liver is utilizing so much fat for energy that it begins to have excess acetyl CoA hanging around and starts turning it into ketone bodies(beta-hydroxybutyrate, acetoacetic acid, and acetone). Since your body is in need of a new energy source, your liver begins to dump these ketones into the blood stream, which can then fuel the body and brain. Once your body reaches a state where it begins to do this continually and there are noticeable increases in blood levels of ketones, you're officially in ketosis. What is a Ketogenic Diet? Now we need to define what a ketogenic diet is and how it differs from low-carb dieting. Low carb diets make you utilize fat and carbs for your daily energy needs. Your body, however, doesn't accumulate blood ketones and your tissues don't require ketones for energy. A ketogenic diet means your body has reached the point where it's actually producing ketones in sufficient amounts that there are elevated levels of ketones in your blood and they're being utilized for fuel. In short, the metabolic changes are very different from those obtained by ordinary low-carb eating. How to Eat for Ketosis Consuming a high amount of dietary fat and a low amount of dietary carbohydrate are the key features of a ketogenic diet. Exactly how much fat and how few carbs? Traditional, strict, keto diets are structured with about 70-75% of your daily caloric intake coming from fat and about 5% from carbs. The range of carbohydrates you can consume and stay in ketosis varies from person to person, but you can usually get about 12% of your daily caloric intake from carbs and stay in nutritional ketosis. Now the really important part for most people to consider is their protein intake. Most of us in the training world have it pounded in our heads that high protein intakes are the way to go and this is a large part of why forays into ketogenic diets usually fail. Ingesting protein above certain quantities is glucogenic and will prevent you from staying in ketosis. In practical terms, consuming protein at or above .8 grams per pound is enough to kick you out of ketosis. Ideally, an optimum ketogenic state would require you to be at about 75% fat, 5% carbohydrates, and 20% protein, which would allow you to perhaps maintain lean muscle mass. Ketosis and Performance Let's ruffle some feathers. There have been epic debates about whether ketogenic diets affect sport performance. While I won't claim to settle the debate, I hope to use just two studies to highlight the current understanding of how ketogenic diets affect performance. Study 1 The Effects of a Ketogenic Diet on Exercise Metabolism and Physical Performance in Off-Road Cyclists Subjects included eight males in their late twenties/early thirties, all of whom had at least five years of training experience in off-road cycling. Each cyclist underwent 4 weeks of a mixed diet and a ketogenic diet (KD) in a crossover design and then performed a continuous exercise protocol on a bike with varied intensity. The KD group had significant increases in the relative values of maximal oxygen uptake (VO2 max) and oxygen uptake at lactate threshold (VO2 LT) after the KD. However, when you lose fat mass, your VO2 goes up because that's how the analysis works. If you reduce body mass, you reduce the number in the denominator, thus you increase the relative value. However, the max workload and the workload at lactate threshold were significantly higher after following a mixed diet. The authors of the study ultimately concluded: "Our research showed improvements in VO2 max and VO2 lactate threshold, yet the power output during work at maximal intensity was compromised on the ketogenic diet, which can be explained by lower muscle glycogen stores and the reduced activity of glycolytic enzymes due to the four-week diet intervention. Low carbohydrate ketogenic diets decrease the ability to perform high intensity work, due to decreased glycogen muscle stores and the lower activity of glycolytic enzymes, which is evidenced by a lower lactic acid concentration and a maximal work load during the last 15 minutes of the high intensity stage of the exercise protocol." Study 2 The human metabolic response to chronic ketosis without caloric restriction: preservation of submaximal exercise capability with reduced carbohydrate oxidation. Study 2 is perhaps the most well known of the ketogenic diet studies. The paper had five highly-trained cyclists performing a VO2 max and "Time to Exhaustion" (TEE) cycling test before and after a four-week ketogenic diet. The TEE test showed extremely high variability between the participants. One showed a huge increase in TEE (not sure how a highly trained cyclist increases their TEE by 84 minutes in 4 weeks), another showed a 30-minute increase, two showed roughly 50-minute declines, and one showed almost no change. As for muscle glycogen stores, muscle biopsies showed that the KD reduced muscle glycogen to almost half of normal. That alone is enough to indicate high-intensity performance might be impaired. Consistent Findings Among These and Other Studies 1 – Improved Body Composition Let's take a look at what's consistent across these two studies (and in fact, many studies on ketosis) and see what we can learn about ketogenic diets and performance. The first consistent theme is improved body composition. But this is most likely from spontaneous caloric restriction. That's a no-brainer. There's a substantial amount of data from other diets that reduce caloric restriction from any source (even those that reduce fat) that show improved body comp. Of course, when we're talking about improved body comp in ketogenic diets, we're referring almost exclusively to a loss of fat mass. However, there's no literature to support that a ketogenic diet is beneficial for promoting increases in muscle mass. 2 – Impaired High-Intensity Performance Many studies show decreased capacity to perform high-intensity work. This is likely due to two mechanisms: 1. reduced intramuscular glycogen, and 2. reduced capacity for hepatic glucose output during high-intensity training. 3 – Reduced Levels of Intramuscular Glycogen The reduction in performance at high-intensity is likely a feature of the reduced levels of intramuscular glycogen seen across the studies. This may also impact recovery for hard training athletes and impair the ability for muscles to increase in size. 4 – Ketogenic Diets Don't Work With High-Intensity Exercise In high-intensity, anaerobic exercise, your body relies mainly on glucose from blood glucose, muscle glycogen, hepatic glucose output, and gluconeogenesis for fuel. Since ketogenic diets reduce muscle glycogen, it's really hard to train at a high level. Ketogenic Diets Don't Optimize Muscle Gain Let's get down to brass tacks. Ketogenic diets may be good for losing weight but they certainly don't optimize muscle gain, nor do they optimize your training capacity. Using a ketogenic diet will hamper your ability to put on lean tissue and to train at high intensities. If those are your goals, skip trying a ketogenic diet. Nutrition science has found that consuming both carbohydrates and protein elicit a greater anabolic response than either in isolation. On a ketogenic diet you strip out the carbs, but since both protein and carbs are needed for optimal muscle gain, ketogenic diets strip you of a missing key ingredient. Ultimately, ketogenic diets aren't optimal for building mass and they likely affect performance negatively. Brad Dieter, PhD Brad Dieter is a research scientist and nutrition coach. Brad’s experience, from the weight room to the laboratory, enables him to bridge the gap between science and real-world results.
I just skimmed your post before and read the above paragraph which is totally incorrect. The brain can run on ketones very well (in fact there is evidence that it prefers ketones to glucose). So i pretty much gave up on the rest of it.
A Neurologist On Ketone Drinks & What The Ketogenic Diet Can (Really) Do For Your Brain Ilene Ruhoy, M.D., Ph.D. https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/a-neurologist-explains-the-ketogenic-diet-and-the-brain Deciding what to eat for optimal health can be confusing. There are so many different dietary approaches, and each is touted as the most beneficial to our health and waistlines, yet the actual nutrition advice often differs greatly or conflicts. It can be difficult to keep up with all the trends and fads, and sometimes it's hard to know who to trust. I'm often asked for nutritional guidance in my clinic, and recently I've been hearing a lot of questions about the ketogenic diet from my patients. Here's exactly what I tell them. Five things to know about ketosis Despite its current surge in popularity, the ketogenic diet has been around for a long time and is commonly used for refractory seizure disorders (epilepsy). In fact, evidence of its efficacy for epilepsy dates back as far as 1921. There are many different types of the ketogenic diet,including the classic version, the medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) diet, the modified Atkins diet, and the low-glycemic diet. Because fasting is a rapid method of achieving ketosis, intermittent fasting diets can also be ketogenic depending on how it's accomplished. But what is ketosis? Here are five simple scientific facts that I often give to my patients: 1. In ketosis, human metabolism switches its main energy source from carbohydrates to fatty acids and ketones once the storage form of glucose (glucagon) is used up. 2. In ketosis, the fat cells break down triglycerides into fatty acids, and those fatty acids are used as the energy source by the liver and muscles. 3. The liver cells take the fatty acids and oxidize them into ketones, which are used as the energy source by the brain, muscles, and other tissues. 4. Ketones are in the specific forms acetoacetate, acetone, and beta-hydroxybutyrate. Therefore, checking beta-hydroxybutyrate serum levels is a reliable way to measure ketosis. 5. Physiologically, it does make a difference how one achieves ketosis—whether it's via high fat intake, fasting, or reduction of carbohydrates. For example, if one remains on a high-fat diet for a long period of time and decides to fast a day, ketone concentrations will drop because their body is dependent on the high fat intake. The ketogenic diet and your brain Ketosis can be neuroprotective in the short term by improving mitochondrial function, but its long-term effects have not been demonstrated, and I would not consider it a healthy approach to weight loss. In fact, epilepsy patients on the ketogenic diet for seizure control are medically monitored. Side effects can include nausea, vomiting, constipation, fatigue, acid reflux, kidney stones, elevated cholesterol and triglycerides, vitamin deficiencies such as calcium and other water-soluble vitamins, and atherosclerosis. It's also unclear whether or not the consumption of ketones from foods or drinks packaged with ketones, such as acetoacetate, have similar physiologic effects. Ketones are not found in natural food sources, and the complex metabolic reactions that take place within the body to produce and utilize these ketones should not be oversimplified or undervalued. Ketosis can only be achieved by feeding the body the necessary substrates while avoiding the foods—such as carbohydrates—that counteract the body’s attempts to find and make alternative-energy sources. Proceeding with caution Respecting our natural physiology is important. Intermittent ketosis is likely safe and neuroprotective in healthy individuals, but long-term ketosis can cause adverse effects and poor health. Speak with your physician if you're considering making any significant changes to your dietary patterns. And finally, the most important thing we can do is listen to our bodies. If we listen closely enough, we will know what it needs to achieve our own personal optimal health.
To second the comment of Visaria, the brain loves to burn glucose but can easily adapt to using ketones as a fuel source. In fact it has been proven that ketones can produce ATP at a more efficient rate. One of the misinformations that push this "brain only loves glucose" is the fact that unlike other tissues in the body that can burn fatty acids, the brain primarily uses glucose as its energy source. The brain consumes about 20-30% of energy we consume on a given day. An evolutionary adaptation in times of starvation, the brain can easily transition from burning glucose to burning ketone bodies for energy when glucose is not available in sufficient amounts. the body learned how to adapt because it spent long periods without food. So the myth pushed that brain needs only glucose is false. The real truth is most people cannot maintain a state of ketosis so the brain ends up getting is glucose anyway. To further support what Viz is saying, several studies have shown the positive effects the keto diet has on seizures, Alzheimers, and ALS. Ketones, and not burning glucose, has a neuroprotective effect. I think there is plenty of evidence to show that heavy usage of glucose as a fuel, or, better said, high volumes of glucose, causes damage to the mitochondria of cells leading to a host of ailments from decreased cell functionality. Even cancer cells use sugar to fuel their un checked growth and keto diets have slowed the growth of tumor cells while strengthening surrounding healthy cells. Not that glucose itself is bad, but the high volumes we take in on typical now diets has a cumulative negative effect on our cell functions. In fact, the body gets so tired of having to deal with constant high levels of glucose and shuttling it into storage that it begins to say fuck it and stops responding to it (pre-Type 2 diabetes). Before someone misreads all this as saying I advocate we all go keto, the point is the overconsumption of sugars is proven to be bad not only through direct evidence, but also indirectly when we deprive the body of it in people with brain based diseases.
This again is where you have to read things with a critical eye and not just accept something that a ph.d wrote without factual evidence to back it up. First phrase is "...long-term effectds have not been demonstrated.." So her first comment is I do not know what the long term effects here but I am going to guess what they could be based on my own untested bias. Side effects mentioned do not make sense either as it has been proven in numerous studies that triglycerides come from elevated carb intake not elevated fat intake. Also many people on the keto diet have LOWERED their cholesterol. Kidney stones, constipation sound more like a person with not enough water and all keto recommendations push for plenty of water. So it is up to the person to do what is recommended. Acid reflux is not casued by high fat, protein, low carb diets. Many people complain of a week or two of brain fog or keto flu as the body transitions but then the body adapts and it goes away. I do not understand the point of an article for someone to criticize the diet against well known medical research or make a comment of long-term effects right after admitting you do not know the long-term effects.
Thanks, but all things considered, I prefer to get my guidance from an M.D. and/or Ph.D. with specialized knowledge in the field. And I take comfort in the fact that they tend to be in general agreement with one another, as I usually avoid outlier "experts" with a book or program to sell.